by Cindy Dees
Men. All of them were overgrown boys at heart.
After grabbing a quick sandwich, Hank announced, “Well, it’s time for me to go to work.”
Ashe shook his head. “Umm, no. That’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Did you not just participate in a violent car crash with me?” he demanded sharply.
“Well, yes. But if I do anything off my normal routine, won’t that make Vitaly suspicious?”
Bastien chimed in. “She has a point, bro.”
Ashe scowled. “Can we wire her? Do you have the stuff here at the house?”
The cop shrugged. “Duh. Once a SEAL, always a SEAL.”
Hank gathered that meant he did, in fact, have the gear she would need to wear a wire. “What’s the point of me wearing a wire? Am I supposed to get Vitaly to confess to being some sort of crime boss or something?”
Ashe replied, “I’m actually more interested in you wearing a microphone and an earpiece so I can be in constant contact with you in case something goes bad.”
Although trepidation crept along her skin at what would happen if Vitaly caught her wearing a wire, she had to admit she liked the idea of being able to holler for instant rescue. “If I wear my hair down and wear an ear cuff—which I sometimes do—Vitaly will never be the wiser, I suppose.”
The earbud turned out to be a tiny wireless gadget that she wore like a hearing aid. The mike was equally teeny, and Ashe glued it along the top of her bra cup, with a flat silver-dollar-sized battery pack taped inside the cup. She was frankly a little disappointed at how impersonally he installed the microphone setup. She’d hoped he might linger at least a little bit as his fingers dipped into her cleavage. But he was once again all business.
Was he ticked off that she’d pooh-poohed his theory about her brother being a criminal? Or maybe he was annoyed at what she’d said about his father. Tough. If he insisted on everyone around him dealing with the truth no matter how much it hurt, then he could swallow a dose of his own medicine.
She was being immature, of course. But he’d hurt her feelings when he attacked her brother’s reputation. Blood was thicker than water, thank you very much. Not to mention the past few months had been exhausting both physically and emotionally. She wasn’t exactly at the top of her game just now.
“So where will you be while I’m working tonight?” she asked Ashe.
“Behind the Voodoo, one block over. I’ll be staking out the alley. Bastien and I will put a new license plate on the van we used to get you out of the rug warehouse, and I’ll be inside that.”
“Won’t that be a little bit obvious?”
He shrugged. “Best place to hide is often in plain sight.”
She shrugged back, miffed that he continued to be so cold and impersonal with her. “Whatever you say, G.I. Joe.”
“He was army. I’m a navy man.”
“Same diff.”
Irritated, she pulled on her skimpiest tank top. It was high enough in the front to conceal the microphone, but the racer back was deeply cut and showed off her hot-pink bra straps in all their sassy glory. The thin cotton fabric clung to her chest, leaving little to the imagination. The fuchsia lace of her bra showed through, clearly outlining the shape of her breasts.
Ashe’s brows slammed together as he frowned. “You shouldn’t wear something so sexy.”
“Why not?”
“You’re asking for trouble.”
She laughed. “I’m asking for good tips.”
“I don’t like it.”
She patted the center of his chest. “I can handle it, big guy. I’ve been working there for months.”
“I still don’t like it.”
She shrugged. “I don’t like wearing a wire nor do I like you sitting in a van that screams of you being some guy on a stakeout. But we all do what we’ve got to do.”
His scowl deepened. At least she had his undivided attention. Turning on her heel, she marched into the kitchen. “What are you up to this evening, Bastien? Keeping the mean streets of the Big Easy safe?”
“Nah. I’m getting laid.” He suddenly caught sight of her shirt and shot her an appreciative grin that flashed devastating dimples. “Speaking of which, don’t act like you recognize me if you see me tonight.”
“Ohmigosh. You’re not going upstairs at the Who Do Voodoo, are you?”
“Not only that, but the City of New Orleans is paying for it. How cool is that?”
“Promise me you’ll be careful, Bastien,” she implored. “Vitaly’s smart and will be able to smell a cop from a mile away.”
“I’m brand new to the department. Your boss won’t have any idea who I am.”
“You’re assuming he doesn’t have informants in the department who’ll tell him you’re coming.”
That made Bastien’s dimples disappear. “Thanks for the warning, but I’ll be wearing a disguise and using an alias. This isn’t my first time at the rodeo, you know.”
That didn’t make her feel any better. These two weren’t taking Vitaly anywhere near seriously enough—
Bastien stepped close and took her hands in his. “Relax, chère. Ashe taught me everything I know. Just don’t act like you recognize me, and I’ll be fine.”
She nodded, worried nevertheless, and fretted in the back of the van all the way to the Warehouse District. Ashe stopped the vehicle so she could walk the rest of the way to work. He joined her at the back of the van and, after a quick sound check of her microphone and earbud, crouched in front of the door.
“Be careful, Hank. If anything spooks you, leave. Just turn around and walk out. The cops and I have this thing in hand. We don’t need your help, and we don’t need you to take any risks whatsoever. Got it?”
She didn’t need this terse-soldier side of him right now. She needed the reassuring lover from before. “I’m sorry I said that stuff about your dad. I was hurt, and I lashed out at you for no good reason. You were just saying aloud things about Max that I’ve already thought to myself but I’ve been too afraid to admit.”
He frowned. “You don’t owe me any apologies. Honesty goes both ways. What you said about my Dad aside, if I expect that you’ll accept honesty from me, then you should expect me to accept hearing the truth from you, too.”
“Umm, apology retracted, then.”
He exhaled hard and then gathered her in his arms. “I don’t care if your brother is a serial axe murderer. He’s not you. And I refuse to believe that you’re part of whatever he’s mixed up in.”
Did he have doubts about her innocence, then? Not that she would blame him for wondering about her motives. It wasn’t like she’d been stunningly forthcoming with him about her life or her family. Even now, there were secrets she wasn’t sharing. Lies she was letting him believe. But blood was thicker than water, right?
His arms tightened momentarily, and then he released her and moved to the other side of the tiny space.
Reluctance to let her go shone in his gaze as he reached for the door handle. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Umm, of course.” She wasn’t sure what to make of his tension, but she appreciated his obvious concern for her. And then the door was open, and she stepped out into the gathering dusk. She looked around fearfully as the van pulled away from her, leaving her alone on a street no sane woman would dream of walking along alone. It shouted of danger to her with its many recessed doorways, dark alleys, and general air of sleaziness.
The Voodoo was just around the corner, and she made her way to it as quickly as her stiletto heels would allow. Vitaly insisted on all the waitresses wearing them. He said the patrons bought more drinks when the girls dressed sexy.
Taking a deep, calming breath, she walked inside. A football game on the big screen TVs meant the bar wasn’t completely deserted on this Monday night. But it wasn’t a big-drinking or a big-tipping crowd. The dancers had to time their sets for commercial breaks in the sports action or risk getting booed off their poles.
> Halftime of the game started, and Vitaly sent out dancers as fast as their music could be cued up, no doubt to maximize the tips. Hank had to give the guy credit for being a hustler. He never missed an opportunity to squeeze more cash out of his customers.
Bastien came into the bar near the end of halftime. Thankfully, one of the other waitresses spotted him first and muttered on her way past Hank, “Check out the hunk who just walked up to the bar. He’s as hot as your new boyfriend. Think I’ll go get me a piece of that.”
Hank glanced up and spied Ashe’s friend an instant before she spied Vitaly watching her. She shrugged at her boss and turned away from Bastien, doing her best to look disinterested.
Her customers ordered a flurry of snacks and drink refills as the football game got ready to start again, and she was kept busy for the next few minutes serving tables. When she looked up at the bar again, Bastien was gone. Thank God.
“How’s our new friend?” a male voice asked from behind her. “You’re keeping him happy, yes?”
She turned to face Vitaly. “He’s great, actually. Thanks for hooking me up with him.”
Vitaly moved closer and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial mumble. “Does he call people? Do business on the phone?”
Huh. Vitaly was going to try to extract inside information about Ashe from her, was he? She responded cautiously, “Well, yeah, he talks on the phone. And I guess it’s business. I don’t know. He talks in some foreign language.”
“Which one?”
Crap. She had no idea. Did she dare make something up? A voice muttered low in her earbud, “Spanish, Hebrew and Farsi.”
She mentally jolted. Of course. Ashe was listening in on this conversation. She’d forgotten for a moment in her panic.
She gave Vitaly her best dumb blonde look. “I’ve heard him speak Spanish. And maybe Hebrew. My best friend in middle school was Jewish, and she had to memorize this stuff to say at her big bat-mitten-thingy, or whatever it’s called. And then he speaks this other language. It’s kind of like Arabic. But he sounds like some guy from, I don’t know, India or something.”
“Is it Hindi?” Vitaly asked in surprise.
“As if I would know Hindi from Klingon.” She snorted.
Vitaly rolled his eyes. “Ask him the next time you see him.”
“Umm, okay.”
“And let me know if you overhear anything in English about his business.”
Ashe whispered in her ear again. “Tell him you’ve heard me talking about some sort of shipment and when it arrives.”
“He did talk to some guy this afternoon about a shipment he’s got coming.”
“Did he, now?” Vitaly’s eyes lit with interest. “Anything else?”
She hesitated long enough for Ashe to give her any further input. When he stayed silent, she shrugged at Vitaly. “Nope.”
“Good girl. Keep an eye on him for me, okay? I reward loyalty well.”
The bastard stroked her rear end as she turned away from him, and Hank barely managed to suppress a shudder in time. Right. Like the prospect of sex with him would turn her into a willing mob Molly. Not.
“Enough standing around,” Vitaly snapped at her. “Get back to work.”
She picked up a tray of drinks and trudged back out into the sea of tables.
At closing time, she and the other waitresses left together, and Hank peeled off to head for her place, like she always did. When she was well away from the other girls, she muttered without moving her lips, “Where do I go?”
Ashe’s reply was immediate. “Back to your place. “I’ll meet you there when I shut down here for the night.”
“’Kay.”
She hurried home, the dark, deserted streets making her nervous like never before. It had probably always been this dangerous, but she’d been oblivious to the risk to herself before now. She’d been so focused on finding Max that she’d never stopped to think—or to care—about what might happen to her.
Sheesh. She had great sex with a hot guy, and her priorities were suddenly skewed. Max. He was the only thing that mattered, darn it. She had to find him. Renewing her resolve to keep going until she succeeded, she marched home more boldly.
* * *
The next three nights were carbon copies of one another. She worked until closing and walked home to her apartment, and Ashe called her a little before dawn. Then she would sneak down the hidden staircase and out through the warehouse to the loading dock, where he picked her up in the van.
She could tell he was as frustrated as she was. The head of the brothel stubbornly refused to show himself, and there was still no sign of Vitaly’s boss. The FBI had wiretaps in place, compliments of Bastien, and had apparently told Ashe’s boss that they would be ready to raid the joint in a few days. She and Ashe were running out of time to catch a lead on her brother.
The next afternoon, they sat at Bastien’s kitchen table while he cooked what he promised would be the best gumbo they’d ever tasted. Both natives of the Big Easy, she and Ashe had expressed skepticism, and the cook-fest was on.
“We’re getting nowhere with finding my brother,” she groused over the sizzle of sausage browning in a cast-iron skillet.
Ashe frowned. “I think it’s time for a change of strategy.”
“Meaning what?”
“It’s time to go on the offense.”
That raised her eyebrows.
Bastien came over to sit down at the table, a big grin on his face. “’Bout damn time.”
Hank looked back and forth between the two men. It felt as if they were having an entire silent conversation that she was being completely left out of. “What? What do you guys have in mind?”
Ashe shrugged. “If Vitaly were suddenly to misplace the weekly payoff to his boss, I’m thinking that might be cause for the head honcho to make a visit to the club. What do you think, Catfish?”
Bastien nodded, his grin even wider.
For her part, Hank stared. “Are you suggesting that we rob Vitaly? Are you nuts?”
Chapter 11
Ashe pulled out a pad of paper and drew what he knew of Vitaly’s office from memory. He pushed the pad at Hank. What else can you fill in?”
She rolled her eyes at him and shocked him by casually remarking, “If you’re trying to figure out where Vitaly hides his safe, it’s in this cabinet here. It has reinforced steel doors. The right side houses weapons—a couple of big machine gun things and two or three handguns. I think the body of the safe is actually sunk into the wall. But the door and the combination lock are right there.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “You don’t by any chance know the combination, do you?”
“The first number is 54. Last number is 12. No idea what the middle number is.”
Ashe actually felt his jaw sag. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. Those are the numbers.”
Bastien let out a bark of laughter. “Next time I rob a bank, I want her on my crew.”
No lie. “Okay, then. This is going to be a piece of cake. All we need is a diversion out in the bar or maybe in the lap dance lounge to draw Vitaly away from his office for two or three minutes, and we can empty the safe.”
Bastien nodded, but Hank stared at him in dismay. “You’re serious about this idea?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“He’ll kill you.”
Bastien interjected, “It would make most sense to have you do the actual break-in, Hank. Your boss won’t think it’s weird if you hide in the office to avoid a bar fight or the like.”
“No way. I’m not a thief.”
Ashe spoke right on her heels. “No way. I’m not putting Hank at risk.”
“But she’s the obvious choice. She’s our inside man—woman—”
“No!” Ashe bit out.
Bastien threw him a look of patent disbelief as if he couldn’t believe Ashe’s vehemence. Frankly, neither could he. The guy was right; she was the obvious choice to get into Vitaly’
s office and rob the safe.
Hank, apparently oblivious to the silent exchange of what the hell and no eff-ing way glares he and Bastien were exchanging, asked, “Aren’t you guys supposed to uphold the law, not break it?”
“Is it stealing to take money that a criminal has collected from illegally trafficking in young women?” Ashe countered.
She shook her head in the negative. “He’ll replay his security cameras and see who robbed him. Or he’ll notice I’m the one who slipped into his office. Either way, he’ll figure out it was me. He’ll kill me...” She was wringing her hands again so he reached out to grasp them in his bigger hands, stilling them momentarily.
“Nah. He’ll be too busy tap dancing for his boss over why the money disappeared. And then the FBI will raid the club, and he won’t be in any position to care about a few thousand bucks that went missing from his safe.”
“He keeps more than a few thousand bucks in there,” she told him. “I overheard him brag once that the brothel brings in fifty grand in a bad week. Quadruple that during Mardi Gras.”
Ashe whistled.
“What do you suppose his boss does with all that money?” Hank asked curiously.
That was a damned good question. Although the weapons Vitaly was proposing to buy from him would account for a whole lot of bad weeks’ worth of income. Which led to the next obvious question: What did Vitaly need with a minor arsenal?
Bastien commented, “He’s not likely to report the robbery, at any rate.”
Ashe nodded. “The first order of business will be taking out his security cameras. He runs them from his laptop computer and has them all over the joint. I’ve spotted at least ten of them downstairs.”
Hank gasped. “He has so many?”
Bastien snorted. “I’d estimate he’s got at least twice that many upstairs. Do you suppose Jennie could hack into his system?”
Ashe turned to Hank. “Does Vitaly get onto the internet from his laptop?”