Haven’t seen her. She usually comes in late.
I nod in reply, but he takes moment to write something else.
I’m proud of you.
Holding my stare while he takes off his apron, he motions to his coworker he’s taking a break, holding up five fingers. The coworker thinks nothing of it, shooting him a thumbs up in return. Mondo leans over the bar quickly, giving me a quick peck on the cheek before departing.
I count the heads of people, speaking the total out loud like Lance instructed me to. “Twenty-eight men and nineteen women.”
I keep my eyes trained on the door, waiting for Landry to make his arrival as I sip the remainder of my drink. It doesn’t take long before he comes waltzing in, suit impeccable, smiling like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He notices me right off the bat, his smile growing as he takes a second to shake hands with a man near the door.
He eventually makes his way to my side of the bar, taking a seat next to me. “Where’s the normal bartender who hangs around you like a puppy dog?”
“He’s on break.”
The other bartender takes a few minutes to finish up his end of the bar before making his way down. “What can I get for you?” he says, placing two napkins in front of us.
Landry holds up a hand, motioning for me to go first. I’m only on my second glass but I really shouldn’t have too much to drink. I hold up my half full glass of wine in reply. He orders a scotch.
“I’m glad to see you, Kaley,” he says, turning on his stool. “You look amazing.”
“It took a while to look like myself again,” I retort. Lance and Justin warned me of being too agreeable. It’s not in my nature and the last thing we want is Landry catching on.
“My guy is a professional. He didn’t do anything that would be irreparable. Most of the work he did on you was just as I said, a warning.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline. “Oh, so I should be thanking you.”
“Yes, a thank you would be nice,” he says, smile pulling to one side. I purposely take a sip of my drink in reply. He laughs, turning all the way around in his stool, placing his back against the bar. “I’m assuming you’re here to make a deal.”
“You know what they say about assuming.”
He waves to someone across the room. “And what’s that?”
“It makes an ass out of you and me.”
It takes him a moment for it to click and he laughs, eyes twinkling under the recessed lighting. “Would you like to move to somewhere more secluded?”
“Nah, I’m good right here,” I say, sweetly.
“I meant, would you like a little more privacy in a booth? I’m not going to do anything to you here, Kaley. This is my place of business.”
He doesn’t give me the option to reject his offer, standing and helping me down from my stool. We squeeze into one of the booths that lines the back wall, but I’m grateful it at least gives us a view of the bar from where we’re at.
“So,” he says, swallowing a sip of his drink and smacking his lips. “What have you decided?”
“Since I don’t have a hundred grand on hand, I guess I’m only stuck with one option.”
“It’s a fair one,” he says.
“Making me have sex with men for money against my will isn’t fair, Landry.”
He flattens his tie against his chest with a palm on his hand. “You were already working as an escort before I caught you stealing business out from under me, so don’t make me out to be a bad guy.”
“And you’re the good guy?”
“I’m just a guy,” he says, shrugging. “I do business and make money and go home and eat ice cream out the tub just like everyone else.”
“You’re right. And all your money and expensive paper weights mean nothing when you die, just like everyone else.”
He smiles at me like I’m cute and naïve. “But I’m not dead, so I’ll enjoy it before I go to hell.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“If I work for you, do I get a say in who the client is?”
He narrows his eyes marginally. “You know that’s not really how it works.”
I lick my lips and point to a man across the room. “He’s an accountant at the courthouse and it’s rumored he likes to listen to motivational speeches the entire time he has sex.”
Landry relaxes into his seat, bracing an arm across the back of the booth.
“And that one,” I say, pointing to another man. “He’s obsessed with role playing and being spanked.” I move onto the next. “Him? He only likes threesomes.”
“I run my business by ensuring all my clients are happy, including the ones who are a bit…eccentric.”
“I’m not a good liar. I couldn’t pretend to be into those things if I wanted to.”
“Are you insisting I let you freelance your own clients and pay me a cut?”
I nod. “Yes. As you know, I’ve made good money from a lot of regulars. We can come up with ground rules, but I don’t want to sleep with someone I find detestable.”
He purses his lips as he thinks it over. “I can agree with that on one condition. I’ve already set up a date for you tonight. Go through with it, do what he asks, and we’ll come to some type of agreement where you work as you please.”
“You were a little presumptuous I was a sure thing, weren’t you?”
“He’s a close friend of mine.”
I’m already dreading his reply. “Who?”
Right at that moment, a figure comes into view, and my jaw hits the ground. “Kaley Monroe, I believe you remember Taylor Moore.”
He looks exactly the same as he left, except there’s a new layer of hardness in his gaze. Taylor was best friends with Kip since they were fifteen, at least, until they both went to jail. From my understanding, Taylor blamed Kip and Lilly for getting caught. His arrival can’t be a coincidence.
“Hello, Kaley,” Taylor drawls, sitting on the other side of us, folding his hands together between us on the table. “How have you been?”
“What are you doing here?”
His face remains hard, not a single glimpse of emotion comes from him and it’s kind of unnerving. Where Landry is very personable and charismatic, Taylor is the complete opposite. He isn’t here to play games. He’s here for a reason.
“Cody offered me a job. When I found out it involved you, and that you and Kip were together, I accepted.”
Landry smirks. “Taylor is still a little bitter.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, squeezing my eyed shut once before opening them. “I’m not keeping up. How do you two even know each other?”
Taylor’s slow smirk gives me goosebumps, and not the good kind. “Your dad and Cody were close.”
My eyes widen when I catch his meaning. “You and my dad worked together?” I ask, Landry.
He cocks one eyebrow, looking smug as he nods. “Technically, your dad worked for me,” he replies.
A split second of disbelief courses through me, but it’s quickly followed by laughter. Loud, uncontrollable laughter. I laugh so hard my eyes water and I attempt to tame them by running a finger under both of them as I wheeze through breaths.
Landry smiles at Taylor. “She is something else, isn’t she?”
But Taylor’s not amused, not even a little. He doesn’t find my laughing fit as cute as Landry does, but I don’t take it as an insult. “What’s so funny?”
I do one last wipe under my eyes, blinking back the moisture. “This city is huge. I mean, it’s like fourth in the nation or something, and my father is still relevant my life from prison. It’s seriously unreal.”
“Are we doing this or what?” Taylor says, tapping the table between us.
Landry looks to me. “That would be Kaley’s decision.”
I take a calming breath, reminding myself I’m not actually going to sleep with him. I’m not actually going to betray Kip in the worst way, by sleeping with his ex-best friend who hates him.
“Why doe
s it have to be him?”
“I’m training him to watch over Hudson’s while I’m gone, so no more stragglers like you get caught stealing. But also because he wants to.”
A glimmer of something I don’t like flashes across Taylor’s face and I have to stop myself from involuntarily shivering. “Kip went behind my back and set up the raid. We wouldn’t be in this mess if he would have brought the problem to me. We would have never gone to jail, we never would’ve served time. It’s time to payback the favor and betray him in the only way I can.” He smiles, pointing a finger at me. “You are the key to doing that.”
“Have you two been planning this all along?”
Landry takes a drink of scotch, shaking his head. “I decided to hire Taylor after I discovered a couple of girls sneaking work from us, you being one of them. He proved to be a good asset when he kept his mouth shut during the trial and didn’t mention my involvement. His motives are all his. I could care less his reasoning as long as he does what I pay him to do.”
Taylor stands, shoving a hand in his pocket and holding the other out for me to take. “Are you ready?”
I stare at his hand a moment too long and Landry takes the opportunity to reiterate the consequences of not complying. “I’m using you as an example, Kaley. If I let you off easy, other girls will think they can get away with it too. If you don’t do this, there will be repercussions.”
Slipping my hand into Taylor’s, I let him lead me out of the booth. “I already have a hotel room we can jump to.” I focus on the sound of our steps over the marble floor of the lobby to ease my nerves.
He pushes the button for the elevator. “Cody runs Hudson’s from his office on the top floor. We can use it.” He skims his eyes over the cleavage of my dress and my breath catches. There’s no way he knows. “It shouldn’t take long,” he says, showing no emotion.
Or maybe he’s just a pig. “Wouldn’t you rather an actual bed?”
“Oh, there’s a bed,” he says, ushering me into the elevator. “But we don’t necessarily need one anyway.”
Clenching and unclenching my teeth, I meet his stare in the mirror of the doors. “Let’s just get this over with.”
“You know, when Cody told me you were escorting, I can’t say I was surprised. It’s to be expected with a girl like you. But when he told me you and Kip were in a relationship, I laughed because I thought he was joking. Last I remembered, he could barely tolerate you.”
“Yeah, well, it went both ways.”
The elevator doors open and he leads me into the hall, all the way down to the end. There’s no suite number on the door and Taylor produces a key from the inside pocket of his jacket. I try to get a glimpse of it but can’t before he puts it back from where he got it from.
“How much are you paying for this?” I ask, taking in the suite. It’s larger than any of the other rooms I’d seen before with a desk set in the middle and a bedroom off to the side.
He unbuttons the top button of his shirt. “Most clients would pay roughly two grand an hour, but you already knew that.”
I carefully take a step back as he takes one forward. “But you’re not?”
“No, I am, but I’m paying much higher than average. Peter Baranski tried to buy you out.”
I stutter through a response. “He did what?”
“Cody didn’t tell you? Peter offered to pay your debt.”
“Then why am I here right now?”
He closes the distance between us, standing toe-to-toe with me. “Because I paid Cody more to keep you.”
I suck in an unfulfilling breath, knowing Kip is probably losing his shit right now. Taylor pulls against his erection. “I honestly have no desire to fuck you,” he says, bored. “You’re pretty, but I could have plenty of willing women at my feet without all the hassle. But the idea of fucking Kip over, literally, makes my blood boil.”
“Don’t touch me.”
Heat flares behind his eyes before they diffuse. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. It’ll only make this harder for you, not me.”
He reaches for me again and I jerk away. A split second later, I’m pinned against the wall with his hand around my throat.
“I told you we probably wouldn’t need the bed.”
His hand tightens around my throat and I struggle to take a single breath to breathe. I claw at the hand around my throat, trying to make room to say the one word I need. He pushes his pants to his thighs and I kick as hard as I can, hoping to hit something important. I succeed and he drops me, groaning as he bends over in pain.
I take in one breath or relief before screaming the code word. Run.
Stepping around him, my aim is for the door. He reaches out at the last second, grabbing my ankle and making me fall forward. I scream run over and over. Maybe if I say it enough, they’ll get here quicker.
“You’re getting it now,” Taylor seethes as he crawls over my body.
I’m screaming, hoping anyone from the neighboring rooms will hear it. When I begin to feel Taylor pushing up the backside of my dress, I thrash wildly and manage to flip on my back. Everything comes to a screeching halt as he pins my arms above my head, using his weight to push my hips down, his eyes fixated on my chest. All of sudden, I recognize the feel of air over my breast and I look down, noticing the top of my dress is ripped down the middle, exposing my chest and the wire.
The next thing I know, he clamps a hand over my mouth and releases the hold on my arms. Holding a finger to his lips, he slowly releases the hold on my mouth, sitting back. I scramble to my feet and adjust the straps of my dress. He stands, holding his hands in the air in surrender.
“They—”
I don’t get another word out before he lunges at me, this time pulling the strap of his belt from its loops and wrapping it around my face. This time, he successfully gets the leather strap between my teeth and he tightens it to where I can only make inaudible noises. He pins me to his front, walking me towards the bedroom, throwing me onto the bed. I immediately reach for the back of my head to undo the buckle, when my eyes land on the gun he retrieves from the end table.
He buttons his pants and shoves the gun into the waistband. He doesn’t have to instruct me to sit still as he uses a pillowcase to tie my hands behind my back before he does the same to my feet. Then he punches the bed. Over and over, his fist comes down in a silent fit of rage. He does an about face, sitting on the bed and hanging his head on his shoulders. My panicked breathing is loud and I force myself to inhale and exhale through my nose to calm myself. I don’t know what’s taking Lance so long.
And as if on cue, the hotel room door busts open with a loud crack. Men in black swarm the room, guns drawn as they land on Taylor, calling out signals to one another as they clear the bathroom and closet. I sag in relief when I spot Lance come in last, followed by an unnerved Kip.
Kip’s eyes take two seconds to take in my state of being, then comes completely unhinged and lunges at Taylor. I try to scream around my gag, but it’s no use. A few men pocket their guns to help Lance pull Kip off of Taylor, yelling at him to stand down, but Kip doesn’t listen as his fist keeps connecting with Taylor in some way, shape, or form. I buck against the sheets, trying to get someone’s attention. But it’s useless, everyone’s concern is on the raging bull—Kip—absolutely losing his shit in the middle of the bedroom.
And then it happens. The sound freezes everyone in the room for a fraction of a second before the second shot rings out. Lance’s back is to me, but I can see the recoil in his arms and back as he pulls the trigger of the gun aimed at Taylor on the floor. I scoot across the bed, doing my best to see what happened.
“Call the medic,” Lance says, kneeling down.
It’s the first time I get a visual. Lance is undoing the bullet proof vest on Kip’s chest, but there’s two prominent red spots on the plain white t-shirt. There’s one on his side, close to his ribs, and the other in his shoulder. Both shots missed the vest by centimeters. Lance undoes
his own vest and strips off his shirt, using it as a compress to the one in Kip’s side.
Someone finally takes pity on me and unbuckles the belt around my face. Kip’s eyes meet mine as he winces against Lance’s hands. He reaches for my face, tracing the indention the belt made on my cheek.
“I was thinking about ordering pizza for dinner,” he says like it’s just another night at home.
Smiling through my tears, I nod. “Okay.”
THE DOCTOR SWINGS THE stethoscope around his neck after checking Kip’s breathing. “We’ll keep you overnight just for observation, but you should be good to go home in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Kip says, shaking the doctor’s hand before he leaves.
I sit on the edge of the bed by his feet, not wanting to jostle him too much. “I ordered pizza.”
He smiles, tired. “Pineapples?”
“None. Are you thirsty?”
“A little.”
I refill the paper cup on his bedside table and roll it within his reaching distance. “Lilly and Justin are on their way. She’s bringing you a change of clothes. Unfortunately,” I tack on, staring at his bare chest.
He starts to laugh, but it ends as quickly as it started in a groan. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, pushing his hair from his forehead. “Do you want to watch a movie? There’s free pay-per-view.”
“No, the sting on Hudson’s should be on the news by now.” He clicks on the TV and turns it to our local news station.
He’s correct because a live clip of Cody Landry being bonded out of jail plays across the screen. The news anchor’s commentary details the charges against the senator, calling Hudson’s the largest prostitution ring ever uncovered in the country. She goes on to detail numerous other arrests made, showing a picture of the well-known official before moving on to the next. There’s ten arrests in all, seven men and three women, and one fatality. They show Taylor’s mug shot from his arrest over four years ago, and it displays a slightly younger Taylor than we saw tonight.
Kip’s voice pulls my attention away from the screen. “Come here.”
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