Sam Wilson. Twenty-five. No record, no information.
And then there was the one female Ash had identified:
Selena Mahoney. Twenty-eight. Jack Mahoney’s niece. Role at Red Door and within the organization unknown.
I sat back and ran my hands over my face, my thoughts moving in a whirlwind. I was concerned that there were too many unknowns, that I was sending an operative—three operatives, really—into the lion’s den with no way of gauging what might happen. If anything happened to Audra because I wasn’t one step ahead…
I made a few notes on my iPad for my assistant. We needed more information and the only way to get it was to put our investigators on it. They’d been working for ten days, but there wasn’t enough information coming in. I told Ash we should put this off a few more days, but there was a time concern even I wasn’t privy to.
I hated not knowing what was happening. Normally I’d call Kirkland and complain to him and he would somehow have the right words to make me feel better, but he was hundreds of miles away in Wyoming, enjoying the new addition to his family. His wife, Mabel, gave birth to a baby girl a little over three months ago. They’d named her Leslie, after Mabel’s grandmother. Their eldest son Matthew was named after me, supposedly, because I’d taken Carrington’s last name, Matthews, not long before he was born—but I thought it was more of a biblical thing. Mabel was a reformed Mormon who still clung to some of her religious beliefs. Either way, it was still a connection that touched me deeply. Kirkland was probably the closest friend I’d ever had. I missed him dearly.
It seemed like I was missing a lot of people in my life right now.
I turned back to the files, reading through them for what must have been the thousandth time. I didn’t hear him come in until he cleared his throat.
“I was wondering why the bed seemed so big and empty.”
I looked up to find Carrington, his hair a perfect mess, studying me across what was originally his desk. I’d sort of taken it over these past few months with everything that’s been going on here at home, needing to be around in the afternoon for McKelty and Aidan. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he hardly seemed to have noticed until now.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s not like the shoe has never been on the other foot.”
I got up and moved around the desk, resting on the front of the desk beside him. He turned and perched there beside me, his hand grazing mine but not really touching it. There had once been a time when his hands couldn’t stay away, a time when he was constantly touching me, constantly wanting me.
That was a long time ago.
“McKelty refused to speak to me all day.”
He nodded. “That famous Matthews temper.”
“I suppose, but I was just trying to help. If we’d let her go to school dressed that way, they would have just sent her home or put her in ISS—in school suspension.”
“Don’t you know we’re the enemy now, love? There’s nothing we can do that she’ll see as a good thing.”
“I know. I was just hoping it would take longer before she reached that stage.”
Carrington nodded. “Sometimes I feel for you. At least I got the infant stage, the little toddler who lit up when she spotted me coming through the door. All you got was the quiet kid and the angry teen.”
“I got a little of that light stage. She was happy to see me in the beginning, when I was new and fun.”
“Before you were her mother.”
I tilted my head slightly, studying my husband’s face. “Yeah. Before.”
He was quiet for a long time, his gaze focused on the ground, or—more accurately—something deep in his memory that I wasn’t allowed to touch. There was this wall between us that had built up as each failed IVF treatment pulled us in different directions. He wanted a son, a boy he could raise to take on his empire as he’d done for his father. I’d had a son and I’d lost him. I wanted a girl, another beautiful child like Aidan, like McKelty. But neither of us got what we wanted.
I dragged my fingers through my hair and sighed. “We should go up to bed.”
“Are you done with your work?”
“I’ve been done. I just can’t stop staring at it, thinking I missed something.”
“Did you?”
I shrugged. “I won’t know until it blows up in my face.”
He leaned over and kissed my cheek. I was sure he meant it as a loving gesture, but it felt more like something a brother would offer a sister. It broke my heart, especially when memories of the two of us in this very room filled my mind each time I walked in here.
There was once a time…
I moved around the desk and straightened my files, tucking them back into my bag. One corner of a manila folder caught on the edge of the bag and the contents spilled over the floor. I caught sight of a photo of Jack Mahoney as it floated to the floor and knew exactly how Carrington would react when he saw it, but couldn’t catch it before he saw it fall.
“What the hell,” he muttered as he snatched it up, more disbelief than anger in his voice. “What is this, Joss?”
“It’s for a case.”
“You’re working a case that involves Mahoney?”
I took the picture and slipped it back into the file with the other papers I’d retrieved from the floor. “I am.”
“Why?”
Now there was anger. And hurt.
“Ash asked me—“
“Ash put you on a case involving Mahoney knowing everything that man put us through a year ago?” He stared at me, anger flashing in his eyes. “And you agreed to take it?”
“It’s my job. I’ve never asked you not to do anything that involved your company.”
“I don’t work with insane criminals!”
“I work security. I did this work before I married you. You know that.”
“But this is Mahoney, Joss. It’s like stepping in front of the damn firing squad!”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Then tell me. What is it?”
He stared me down, so angry it was pulsating off his body like an electric current. I took my time cleaning up the mess, trying to figure out what to say. But words escaped me. I didn’t know what to say.
“Joss.”
I glanced at him. “I can’t talk about it. I have an operative undercover and anything I say—“
“This is us. Me and you. No one else.”
He jabbed his finger into his chest as he spoke. I stared at him, tears suddenly filling my eyes. I totally agreed. This was us. But ‘us’ had redefined itself over the past year and I didn’t know what it meant anymore.
“It’s about factions of the cartel that are still active here in California. That’s all I can really say.”
“You’re going to bring all that bullshit back into our lives and that’s all you can say?”
“I’m dragging it into our lives?” I asked, feeling as though he’d slapped me. “I wasn’t the one who put myself in a position to be blackmailed.”
And there it was, regurgitated and sitting on the floor between us like that proverbial elephant in the room. Tears slid over my cheeks and I angrily wiped them away, pissed that I no longer knew how to hide my emotions, no longer capable of protecting my heart from the pain that threatened to tear me apart.
His shoulders dropped and his body seemed to fold in on itself and away from me. He turned, spinning on his heel, before turning back toward me, that anger not just snapping, but burning a white hot heat that stole the air out of the room.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this, for you to start throwing around blame. But I didn’t expect it quite like this.”
“I’m doing my job. You were burying your sorrows in a place you never should have gone.”
He nodded. “It’s always about your job. We’re trying to have a baby and you’re texting Ash in the damn doctor’s office! We’re undergoing IVF and you’re on the phone with your assistant. We learn
that we have run out of options and you leave me alone to grieve so that you can go to the office and bury your emotions in your work!”
“And you took that as an excuse to go fuck some blonde bitch you’d known since before you met me!”
“Some blonde bitch who understood me better than you did in that moment.”
That cut through me. “I was grieving just as deeply as you were.”
“But you refused to talk to me about it.”
“You know that’s how I work, Carrington.” Now I was pointing my finger. “I wasn’t speaking when you met me. Do you remember that? Wouldn’t speak a damn word because the last words I’d spoken were to tell my husband to get the fuck out of my face and to take the damn baby with him! My last words were words of frustration to the man I loved, to my son…” My voice broke. “You know how hard it is for me to express my feelings.”
“You don’t seem to be doing such a bad job now.”
I snorted. “Are you going to go fuck some other woman now, then?”
His eyes narrowed. “What the hell does that mean?”
“That was your excuse, wasn’t it? I wasn’t there for you? I wasn’t holding your damn hand, wasn’t behaving the way you needed me to? I’m sure this isn’t what you want, either. Are you going to run to someone else every time I screw up?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” I brushed past him and headed toward the door. “I’m going to bed. I’m too tired for this bullshit.”
I stormed up the stairs, my ears straining to hear him following behind me. I didn’t hear anything.
I stripped and put on a t-shirt, climbing between the cool sheets on my side of the bed, reaching over to touch the warmth still on the sheets on his side. The door opened and drew into myself, expecting Carrington, but instead my six-year-old daughter crawled up on the bed and snuggled into my body.
“I had a nightmare, Mommy.”
“I’m sorry, baby.” I smoothed hair back from her face and kissed her temple. “Go back to sleep.”
She was asleep before the words were fully formed on my lips. I, on the other hand, lay awake until the sun began to peek around the edges of the curtains.
Carrington’s side of the bed was still empty.
Chapter 7
Audra
I held onto the pole and looked out over the crowd, finding it almost impossible to believe that so many people could fit inside the building. It couldn’t possibly be in line with the fire code. Not only was it standing room only, standing room was becoming a crush the closer they came to the stage.
And all eyes were on me.
I finished my act, moving close to the edges of the stage as often as I could to catch the dollar bills being offered by the men closest to me. My G-string was so full that it was beginning to slip dangerously low over my hips, threatening to fall completely off. Now that would be a show these guys would probably love to see.
I was about to end my set and leave the stage when one of the customers grabbed my ankle. I tried to shake him loose, but then another grabbed at my thigh. Before I knew it, they were tugging me to the edge of the stage. That would be a disaster because if I fell into this crowd, there would be no getting out.
I searched the crowd, desperate to spot one of the security guys. It was Ali, though, who came to my rescue. He grabbed a baseball bat and leapt over the bar, yelling for the guys to let me go. A third had joined the attempt, his hand firm on my calf as he dragged me toward him. My heels were slipping and I was about to fall on my ass when Mercedes came out of nowhere and grabbed my upper arms, keeping me firmly on the stage as Ali raised the bat and slammed it down on one of the customer’s arms.
The man screamed and the other two let go. Mercedes quickly pulled me back to the dressing room where the other girls crowded the doorway, watching.
“You okay?” a couple asked as we walked past them.
I was shaken, too shaken to answer such a simple, but stupid, question. Of course I wasn’t okay! Three men had just tried to drag me into a crowd that would have sexually assaulted me in a dozen different ways.
“Where the hell was security?” Mercedes asked in angry Spanish. One of the other girls snorted while another laughed.
“What security?” another asked.
That was something I had noticed about this place. Security was present, but it was concentrated on the VIP guests, not the girls. It was as if the management—Xander Damico—didn’t care about the girls who brought those VIPs in in the first place.
I sat in the chair at my station and reached down to touch my ankle. I could already feel the bruises forming there, could see where they would be by the red marks on my tan skin. Who’d have thought that one man’s touch could hurt that much?
“Are you hurt?”
A smart comment was on the tip of my tongue, but when I looked up I found myself staring into a kaleidoscope of gold and brown.
Xander squatted beside me and touched my ankle, his hands gentle as they moved over my skin. “Someone bring an ice pack,” he barked without looking around. When his eyes came back up to mine, they were filled with concern.
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling my leg from his grip, suddenly aware that I was basically naked in front of this hot guy, only pasties and a narrow G-string left of my costume to cover my bare skin. “It could have been worse.”
“It could have,” he agreed. “We’ll be increasing security immediately.”
“You might limit the number of customers allowed inside on the weekends, too.”
His head dipped in something like a nod. “That’s easier said than done, but we’ll see what we can do.”
“It’s too crowded out there. If those guys had gotten me off the stage, you’d be picking up the pieces of my body for months to come.”
His eyes dropped with that comment. “I apologize for what happened to you. I will do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He stood, rubbing his palms on the front of his slacks as he did. “No one wants any harm to come to any of you girls.”
An image I’d been seeing in my dreams for weeks filled my mind at those words. What about the girls you murdered? I wanted to ask. But I didn’t.
There must have been something about the look on my face because he bent low and whispered close to my ear, “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I repressed a shiver. I nodded. “Sure, Mr. Damico.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Why don’t you get dressed and come up to my office. I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”
He walked away before I could say anything, but the way the other girls were looking at me, it was pretty clear they were shocked by his request. It was clearly something unusual.
Good. Maybe it’d be a good opportunity to get a little more information from him.
I moved slowly, the ache in my ankle intensifying, but likely exaggerated by the exhaustion that seemed to have come to live permanently in my bones. I was older than I’d been the last time I did this for a living. It wasn’t as easy now despite the fact that I was in damn good shape when I left the Army six months ago. But running five miles a day and dancing eight hours a night were two very different things.
I took my bag into the bathroom and changed into my street clothes, tugging the short blouse down over my waist only to watch it bounce back up. I hated the things Joss had picked out for me, but had to admit they fit my undercover story perfectly. Some of the clothes in my closet were very similar to what some of the other girls wore into work every day. Joss knew what she was doing, an idea that should fill me with confidence. Instead, it made me curious just where a woman living in a million dollar suburban house would learn how to shop for a stripper. Even I—with my experiences—couldn’t have chosen these clothes better. The Army had beaten all of that out of me, I supposed.
Jeans and blouse in place, heels slipped on—but sneakers in my bag for the mile long walk home—I stepped out of the stall and caugh
t sight of myself in the mirror. The heavy makeup and exaggerated upsweep of my hair made me look like a completely different person. I didn’t recognize that woman, that ghost from my past. When I first entered the Army, I thought I’d never get used to not wearing makeup because I’d been slathering it all over my face since I was eleven. But it didn’t take long for me to appreciate the things God gave me over the things man forced on me.
It was like a mask, something to hide behind. It was never more appropriate than it was right now.
“You okay?” Mercedes asked. She was waiting right outside the door of the bathroom for me, concern written in her eyes.
“I’m fine.”
She tilted her head slightly. “Be careful, Audra. Mr. Damico holds all the cards.”
“I know.”
“If you’re nice to him…”
My eyes narrowed as I realized what she was implying. I stood a little straighter, fundamentally offended by it. I’d been put in some pretty dark situations before, when I worked the clubs in New Orleans, but I’d never fallen quite that far. I had no intention of doing it now, either.
“Did he ever force you?”
She shook her head quickly. “Not Mr. Damico. But Rahul a couple of times. And Case.”
“Mercedes, you know that’s not right.” I touched her shoulder and pushed her back against the wall so that no one could possibly overhear us. “They can’t do that.”
“They can do anything they want. I’m illegal.” She looked up at me, her eyes bright with tears. “We’re all illegal. Aren’t you?”
“But for them to—“
“It could be worse. I had a girlfriend who was sold to a group of men in Austin. They made her do really awful things!” She shuddered as she switched to Spanish. “She had three kids back in Mexico. They promised to bring them here for her, but she died of a drug overdose before they could fulfill their promise.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “That’s why I came here. I heard that Mr. Damico wasn’t like that. That he would make sure my baby arrived safe and sound no matter what happened to me.”
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