Hard As You Can

by Laura Kaye

  “No, not really. The fluorescent lights in here show every damn thing.” Brandy fished through her cosmetics bag. “I know just what to do. Look here.”

  Embarrassment heating her cheeks, Crystal turned in her chair and faced the woman, who couldn’t be more than a few years older than her. They were friendly but not exactly friends. To Crystal, friends were people you could trust implicitly. Around here, it just wasn’t safe to give anyone that kind of power.

  “Your skin is so pretty and so fair,” she said, holding back the loose curls on the side of Crystal’s face. “I always wanted red hair.” She stroked a brush over Crystal’s cheek.

  “Why? Your hair is gorgeous and mysterious.”

  She shifted the brush to Crystal’s other cheek. “And yours is rare and unique.” Her hand sagged into her lap. “What happened?”

  Crystal pursed her lips and shrugged. Brandy knew what’d happened. Everyone around here knew what had happened when she showed up with a mark on her skin. And they all looked the other way.

  “You’re too good for this place, Crystal. You know that, right?”

  She gave a half laugh. “We’re all too good for this place.”

  Brandy shook her head. “I’m being serious.” When Crystal didn’t say anything, the woman continued. “You’re talented and smart. What were you studying to be in college?”

  “How did you—”

  “God, girl, your father was so proud of you, he wouldn’t shut up about it. ‘First in the family,’ he’d say.”

  “Oh,” Crystal said. Once, she would’ve glowed to hear such a thing about her father, but after she’d learned what he was into, it had gotten a lot harder to keep idolizing the man who had failed her and Jenna so spectacularly. It shouldn’t surprise her that Brandy had known her father. Lots of people around here had. His position as one of the Apostles meant that he’d been well-known and well respected.

  But then his imprisonment and death and the revelation about his indebtedness to Church put an end to college for her before the end of her sophomore year.

  Now, school felt so long ago it was as if Brandy spoke of another person. What life would be like if getting along with her college roommate was her biggest problem. God, how naïve she’d been. About the world. About her father. About everything.

  “I hadn’t decided,” she lied. But she just couldn’t sully her dreams of becoming a clothing designer by giving voice to them in this place, especially given how she’d bastardized those dreams by occasionally making costumes for the dancers. Now it just sounded stupid. Childish. Impossible.

  Brandy stroked more blush on Crystal’s cheeks. “Well, I’m sure it was going to be something great.” She grabbed a tube from her bag. “Let’s do this, too,” she said, rubbing some red lipstick on a sterile applicator.

  Crystal turned back to the mirror and smoothed the bold color onto her lips.

  “It’s way more than you usually wear, but you can totally pull it off, and it hides the mark,” Brandy said, echoing Crystal’s own thoughts. The rouge and lip color made the rest of her skin paler by comparison, but Brandy was right. The color on her face now looked intentional, hiding the redness by highlighting it.

  “That is better. Thanks,” she said, glancing at her cell phone. Break time was over. “I guess I better get back out there before someone comes looking for me.”

  “Hang tough, hon,” Brandy said, giving her hand a squeeze. “You have more of your father’s strength in you than you know.”

  Crystal nodded and bolted for the door, suddenly feeling as if the walls were closing in on her. People around here didn’t often talk about her father. His arrest, conviction, and death provided an unwelcome reminder of where this life could take them if they weren’t careful. For her, his arrest and later death had been just the beginning of everything she’d lost, including her ability to trust. Because if you couldn’t count on your own father to tell the truth and protect you, who could you count on? She’d had no idea what he’d been into until his arrest.

  Back on the floor, Crystal switched off with Amber to cover the section in the back corner of the club. Monday nights were always on the quiet side, and for that she was grateful. She moved between the tables, taking orders, delivering drinks, and offering flirtatious conversation. Just another role to play. But as this one earned her money, she always gave it her all.

  “Welcome to Confessions. What can I get for you this evening?” she said to the man sitting by himself in the next-to-last booth.

  He lifted his gaze to her. And all the air sucked out of the room.

  Steel gray eyes.

  Pretty Boy.

  She gasped and took an unthinking step backward. Oh, God. What is he doing here? Crystal forced herself to ease her posture. If she called any attention to herself right now, things could get bad. For both of them.

  “I’ll have a beer, please. Whatever’s on tap. And Crystal?”

  She almost asked how he knew her name, but then she remembered telling him when they’d spoken last night, when she thought she was helping someone who belonged here.

  “Just breathe.”

  She turned away, her brain sorting through a variety of choices. Tell. Run. Avoid. All of which were fraught with potentially negative consequences for her. If she told them she recognized this man from last night, it would reveal that she hadn’t told them everything she’d seen. Namely, the man’s face.

  The man’s exquisitely handsome face. Chiseled jaw. Playful, full lips.

  God, what was wrong with her? If he didn’t get his sexy ass out of here, they were going to be in deep shit.

  Walker filled her order, chitchatting with her the whole time. His chatter helped calm her nerves. Just be cool. Nobody knows anything. Nobody sees anything. Just act natural. As her panic receded, anger rushed in. She’d helped him. She’d risked herself. Enough was enough. He had no freaking right to put her in any more danger than she was already in. She scrawled a note on a napkin and returned to the man’s booth with his beer.

  “Here you go, sir.” She placed the napkin down first, waited until she was sure he saw her message—Leave now and don’t come back, then set the glass on top of it. “Will there be anything else?” She let every bit of the rage brewing inside her shine from her gaze.

  It didn’t seem to faze him. “I’d like to talk to you, darlin’.”

  She pasted a smile on her face and pretended the hint of Southern in his accent didn’t make her go warm. “Well, I wouldn’t like to talk to you.” She turned on her heel—

  And he caught her hand in his and reeled her in against his side.

  Crystal gasped at the contact, and her chest went tight with a growing panic borne of an old, horrible experience. Then her brain registered that he wasn’t hurting her, and he wasn’t trying anything else, and she managed to beat back her anxiety enough to hold it together.

  He was damn lucky she was a waitress and not a dancer, because the club had a hands-off policy toward the latter. At least out on the floor. But the waitresses, her included, tolerated a pat on the ass or a hand on her thigh because flirting brought bigger tips. Every time.

  Pretty Boy’s grasp probably looked playful from the outside, so Crystal forced herself to throw her head back and laugh like she was enjoying the attention. And, truth be told, between the unusual gentleness of his grip and the hardness of his muscles where they were pressed together, a flash of heat shot through her. Ridiculous. Dangerous. “You have no idea who you’re playing with,” she whispered, anger at herself mixing with her ire toward him.

  “I need your help. And I think I can help you in return.”

  She scoffed, leaned in closer, and prepared to let him know just what she thought about that—

  “What happened to your cheek?” Anger slipped into his expression, sharpening the angles of his otherwise pretty face.

  Well, shit. Not covered as well as she thought, then.

  And why the heck would he care?


  So, so gently, he stroked his knuckles over her cheekbone.

  The tenderness of the gesture sent tingles through her belly. Bruno didn’t always hurt her, but he was almost never gentle, either.

  Softness and compassion weren’t traits she was used to from a man. It was so foreign, she almost wasn’t sure how to respond. For a moment, she pressed into the touch, but then her brain restarted, and she jerked away. She tapped her finger on the napkin. “I don’t want to have to tell you again.”

  Without waiting for him to reply, she turned and moved to another table that blessedly needed her assistance. She had to keep busy, act normal, laugh, and make the men feel special—and, above all else, avoid the gray-eyed man until he finally got the message. Or her shift ended. Thankfully, she wasn’t closing tonight and only had another hour to go. She could keep it together that long.

  It was maybe the slowest hour of Crystal’s life.

  Everywhere she moved, she felt the man’s gaze on her. The one time she gave in to the urge to look at him, he appeared absorbed in the dancers onstage, but somehow she knew it was an act.

  Maybe it took an actor to know one?

  The guy was watching her even when he didn’t appear to be. She would’ve sworn it. Prickles ran over her scalp. Her awareness of him was so intense, it permeated the air all around her. This man was dangerous in all kinds of ways she didn’t want to explore. Couldn’t even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t.

  Then, ten minutes before the end of her shift, he threw a few bills on the table, shoved out of the booth, and strode across the club as if he weren’t Jimmy Church’s Number One Most Wanted.

  And, God, if she’d thought his face handsome, the head-to-toe view was a total stunner. Tall, built, and all in black, the guy moved with a lethal grace that was quiet and powerful at the same time. She recognized the swagger a lot of the guys in the gang possessed, but his movements weren’t full of the posturing she often witnessed in the men around here. Like he was so bad-ass he had no need to prove it.

  Crystal forced her gaze away and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Thank God he’s gone.

  She ignored the niggle of regret that settled into the pit of her stomach and made her way to clear his table and pocket his tip. At least for her troubles, Pretty Boy had left money—she could often keep a bigger portion of cash tips because the shift manager couldn’t track them with specificity, as opposed to the credit-card tips he could account for to the last penny. She wasn’t sure if the guy had been brave or stupid for returning after what he’d pulled the night before. All she knew was she hoped he didn’t ever return.

  Niggle.

  She groaned as she returned to the dressing room and changed out of the skimpy halter shirt and tiny skirt that just covered her ruined back but left her cleavage, midriff, and legs bare. Stepping into her jeans and flip-flops was like seeing an old friend. When she got out of this job, she might never wear heels again.

  Crystal reveled in whatever crisis had kept Bruno away from the club tonight as she made her way out the door, across the parking lot, and into the dull red pickup that had been her father’s. Red, for the hair all three of the Dean women had had in common, not that she could remember much about her mom. She’d died in a car crash when Crystal had been so young her only real memory of the woman was her warm, happy smile. At least she’d managed to hang on to her mother’s sewing machine. Knowing that her mom’s hands had once worked at that needle made Crystal feel close to her every time she sat down to make her or Jenna a piece of clothing—one of Crystal’s few interests that had survived from before.

  The engine started on a loud rumble, and Crystal’s hands gripped the wide steering wheel. The truck was so big it made her feel tiny, but a part of Crystal loved the fact that she owned a vehicle large enough to move all the important stuff she and Jenna owned. For when the time came to get away.

  And it was coming. This year, she and Jenna were going to have the happiest Christmas ever. Because by then, they’d be somewhere new and far, far away.

  In the grand scheme of things, eight months was nothing.

  She just had to keep out of trouble in the meantime.

  That meant no more taking chances. And definitely no helping strange, beautiful men. No matter what.

  SHANE SIGHED AS he positioned his truck on the street so he wouldn’t miss Crystal leave. The trip to the club hadn’t been a complete waste.

  Before he’d found Crystal, Shane had managed to place listening devices at the ordering station on the bar, near the bar’s phone, and in both public restrooms. He’d also double-checked that the receiver-transmitter that Easy had wired into the exterior cable the night before was still intact. That piece was key, enabling Marz to do some sort of technical voodoo whereby he could remotely access the live feeds the mics picked up. Or something. Shane loved the man like a brother, but Marz’s technospeak had the power to put him right into a coma. They still needed eyes and ears in the private spaces of Confessions, but it was a start.

  Situated among a run-down strip of restaurants, dive bars, and stores gone out of business, the club’s property dominated the whole side of the block, a hotbed of activity in the midst of the otherwise subdued street. It was one of those neighborhoods through which the cops never patrolled and taxis never drove without a call specifically bringing them there.

  Shane studied the club’s points of ingress and egress, assembling a mental catalog of the building in case he needed to return. But his thoughts keep coming back to Crystal.

  She was more than a survivor—which the demand to hit her had already told him. She was also a fighter. Which was good. Whether she knew it or not, they were in this thing together, and she was going to need to be smart and she was going to have to be strong. That she’d come at him with all kinds of hellfire—all the while acting like he was just another customer—was reassuring. Not to mention damn hot.

  Jesus, she was a slight little thing in his arms, tall and lean and warm. Beautiful curves and smooth skin. A man could lose himself in a body like hers.

  And someone had taken a hand to her.

  As he sat in the cab of his truck, a big bucket of rage parked itself in the center of his chest. When he’d seen the handprint under the extra layers of her makeup, it’d taken everything he had to not react in a way that would draw attention. He’d put her in harm’s way enough. Clearly.

  But one thing was for goddamn sure. Whoever’s hand matched that print wouldn’t need two gloves come winter.

  Just like Shane had seen what she’d tried to hide, he’d learn who’d hurt her. In the Army, Shane had been known for seeing what others missed. Like the inked eagle sprawled across his back, he excelled at sighting his prey from far, far away and attacking with a speed and accuracy that never gave them a fighting chance.

  The sonofabitch who hurt her would never know what hit him. On second thought, yeah, he would. Abusers were bullies. Cowards. And Shane wanted to see the fear in the man’s eyes when he made him pay.

  About twenty-five minutes later, movement caught his attention. A red truck made its way from the back of the lot to the gate at the street. With Crystal in the driver’s seat. Bingo. She had to leave at some point, and it would be easier to talk to her away from all the eyes in the club.

  Crystal turned onto the street and passed him. He let two other cars go by before pulling out behind her. Bright and big as the truck was, he didn’t need to be aggressive with the tail. He could keep track of her just fine. And the fact that she was the Mother Teresa of drivers—obeying every traffic law to a tee—helped a lot, too. He found it oddly endearing since his foot was normally an anvil of pure lead when he got behind the wheel.

  Speed was a fucking awesome distraction from the shit in his head.

  Fifteen minutes later, she pulled into a garden-apartment complex just outside the city line. Shane kept going straight, ditched his F-150 about a half block down the street, then hightailed it on foot, keeping to the
shadows, until he saw her truck.

  Crystal sat behind the wheel. Still. Head back. From this distance, it almost looked like she was sleeping. He didn’t want to scare her, but in case she lived with someone, maybe he should approach her while she was—

  A strange moan caught his attention. His gaze whipped to the right, to the outdoor stairwell of the building he approached.

  A girl sat on the next-to-the-bottom step. One moment, she had her arms around drawn-up knees. The next, she went rigid and started convulsing.

  Shane was immediately in motion.

  The seizure forced her muscles to contract, forming her into a ball that made her fall down the last two steps.

  He went to his knees beside her, his medic training kicking in without a second thought. Gently, he rolled her to her side in case she vomited, then he whipped off his jacket and slid it under her head.

  There was nothing else to be done until it was over. Damnit. The medical identification bracelet she wore announced her epileptic condition, so Shane held off on calling 911. If the seizure wasn’t too severe, she might be lucid within another minute and could tell him how best to help.

  Aw, damn. This girl has red hair like—

  “Oh, my God, what are you doing?” came a voice from behind him.

  Crystal.

  This was so not how he’d wanted to reveal himself. “This woman is having a seizure.”

  She went to her knees beside him. “I’m here, Jenna. Hang on.” Worry poured off her as the younger woman’s muscles contracted, and her eyes rolled back. “She’s my sister.”

  Yeah, he’d figured that much out. “She’ll be okay,” he said.

  “I’ve been taking care of her for years. I don’t need you to tell me she’ll be okay,” she said, her tone equal parts anger and fear, beautiful green eyes flashing. “What are you, anyway?” Her gaze dragged over the holstered gun under his arm.

  “Former Army medic.”

  “I told you to leave me alone,” Crystal bit out in a hushed voice.

  “No. You told me to leave Confessions. Which I did.”

  “Yeah. And then you followed me home. Right?” She nailed him with a stare.