Tough Luck (The Shakedown Series Book 1)

by Elizabeth SaFleur

  Next to her, two dancers hugged with promises to keep in touch. Others stuffed costumes into duffel bags and chattered away. She'd really missed working with other dancers. Her mind began to spin about how she could convince Declan to hire more acts to give her and her sisters some breaks.

  Slow clapping sounded to her right. She straightened and turned. Not now. She'd been in such a good mood, too.

  Her father’s hands, clasped together, shook. Nerves or nerve damage? “Well done. You girls certainly are pros. Beautiful. I mean, really—”

  “What are you doing here?” She turned back to folding up her boots, stuffing them into a fabric bag. “You promised to give us some space.”

  He cleared his throat. “I know. It’s just … I thought I’d come to support you.” His hands trembled even more, and a sliver of something like pity managed to sneak inside her.

  Starr glanced up, searching for Phoenix, hoping she wasn’t in the room. She saw her idly chatting away with the flamenco dancers, and thankfully, had her back to them.

  She turned to her father, using her body to shield him from Phee’s view. “You need to leave, now. Please.”

  He simply nodded and backed away.

  She angrily finished stuffing her things into her bags—her high vanished, which pissed her off—it was because of him. She yanked on a skirt and threw on a T-shirt.

  “Did you see Dad?” Luna’s voice startled her.

  “I did. Did you know he was coming?” She fluffed out her hair.

  “No, he didn’t mention it. Don’t worry. He's headed back to Sunset Home. I just saw him the hallway.”

  Smart man. “That's for the best. Remember our deal.” She’d finally convinced Luna to just lay off this Dad thing already.

  Luna nodded slowly and glanced across the room at Phoenix. “Thanks for doing this. I know it was awkward.”

  Labeling it awkward was weighing his sudden appearance far too lightly. They'd found him. They'd helped pay part of his rehab. Forgiveness and reconciliation could wait—for an eternity if needed.

  “Uh, I don’t know if you caught it, but I noticed Nathan talking to Dad.”

  What? Where was Nathan anyway? She couldn’t see him in the room. She turned to go search for him in the ballroom and plowed straight into a hotel employee.

  “Miss Starr?” A man held out a bouquet of red roses arranged into a bucket that obscured half of the man’s upper torso and all of his head. “These came for you.”

  “Bet they're from Nathan.” Luna waggled her eyebrows.

  Starr grasped the bucket, and the man scurried away. She lowered her nose into one of the multitudes of rosebuds. A sweet scent wafted upward—strong, oddly tangy, too.

  “I don't see a note.” She turned them around, and her fingers grew sticky. A prick lanced her finger. “Ow.” She laid the bouquet down on a nearby table, sucked on her scratched fingertip, and blinked. A gummy, red substance colored her hand, and a metallic rust and salt scent, mixed with something rotten threatened to choke her.

  “Oh, my God, you're bleeding.” Luna scanned Starr’s hands, up her torso, and to her face.

  Starr’s mind blanked as a long, wet, red drip trailed from her knee to her bare foot. A smear of crimson marred the body paint across her arms. “Bleeding? No. I'm ...”

  “It came from the flowers.” Luna moved some of the stems in the large bouquet. She gasped and stepped backward.

  “What is that?” Luna pointed to the hunk of meat inside the bouquet.

  A glob of flesh shone under the harsh light. Bile rose up in Starr's throat. She swallowed, afraid to move, or she might get sick.

  One of the other dancers swept over in a rush of swishing crystal beading. “Oh, my God. Starr? Are you all right?”

  Starr shook her head, and air passed her lips but didn't reach her lungs fast enough. Wrong, this was all wrong. She patted her belly, which only smeared more of the icky substance into the glitter and gold paint.

  “A pig's heart.” Amber's voice—that was the woman's name—sounded so far away.

  “A-a what?” The metallic scent sickened her stomach and dried her mouth. She couldn't stop looking at the mass of rotting flesh, striped blue in places.

  “I worked in a lab once.” Amber moved a stem of greenery over with a fingertip. “It's got something in it.”

  Steely gray spikes peppered the disgusting thing. Nails. Her blood-soaked hand flew up to her mouth, the stickiness meeting her lips. She couldn't swallow anymore. She doubled over, and her stomach contracted, as hands—so many hands—grabbed her arms, her back. The floor spun as she hit the rough carpet. Someone had to make the whirling stop.

  36

  Nathan had enough of this do-nothing talk. “You're saying this isn't a crime?”

  “I understand this is upsetting.” The cop scratched the side of his cheek with a finger. “No laws have been broken. You can get a pig's heart from any butcher—”

  “But not put them in fucking flowers.” Jesus, he was pushing it, but the dirty stench of the city with its mix of asphalt, dumpster, and car fumes, only exacerbated his irritation.

  The officer's eyes narrowed. “And who are you again?”

  Cherry appeared, her height blocking the parking lot light, putting the cop into shadow. “Oh, he's the boyfriend. You have to understand.” The uniform looked up at her, given she dwarfed him by a good ten inches. “He's protective,” she whispered.

  Protective, his ass. Someone got to Starr in a crowded hotel room, and Nathan had spent the last thirty minutes trying to unclench his jaw. Now the place crawled with cops, enough to raise Nathan's blood pressure to artery busting. He wanted them here, and gone, at the same time, and Jesus, his heart began to punch at his ribcage in double time. He had no idea why Cherry still hung around, except she hovered like a mother lion over her cubs.

  The cop eyed Nathan, his eyebrows furrowing. “So, who do you think did this ... uh, Mr. Baldwin, right?”

  “Ruark MacKenna.”

  “Why do you think it's him?” The guy at least wrote the name down.

  “He's been harassing my employees, Mr. Baldwin and one of our dancers, Miss O’Malley,” Declan's voice rumbled between them. “Thanks for coming out, Jake. Appreciate it.”

  The cop shook Declan's hand.

  So, turns out, Declan did have friends on the force, though that wasn't going to matter in this mess. The MacKenna’s likely had more friends—cops, attorneys, and judges.

  “Evidence, Declan?”

  “Sightings. Threats. Showing up at my club, which I have on camera.”

  The cop's face showed real interest for the first time. “Threats on video?”

  Nathan ground his teeth. “No. Of course not.”

  “Ruark couched his words well enough.” Declan glared at Nathan—the stand-down message transmitted loud and clear. “Bit of a mouth, but nothing incriminating to my knowledge.”

  The cop jiggled the baggie holding the small card, smudged with pig's blood, they'd found tucked inside the bouquet. Nathan had snapped a picture of the card for evidence, a gift for his parole officer who he now had to call. Fuck me, very much. “Well, whoever it is, we've got a handwriting sample. We'll run it through, and we'll go see this MacKenna.” The cop looked down at his notebook.

  “He won't be hard to find.” Declan reached into his suit jacket and drew out his cell phone.

  The cop rocked back on his heels a bit. “You know this guy well, Declan?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. The MacKenna’s are well known. Here’s a number.”

  It made no sense that Declan would keep Ruark’s number.

  A long minute of silence filled the space between the two men as they held each other's stare. The cop finally wrote down the number displayed on Declan’s phone. He slapped his notebook closed. “Got to tell you, this is a hard one. I'll let you know if we find anything.”

  They wouldn't find squat. Ruark was too smart to leave evidence. The handwriting probably wasn
't even his.

  Jake, the cop, stared directly at Nathan. “Oh, and don't take matters into your own hands. Let us handle it. If MacKenna's have got it out for you and Miss O'Malley, it's trouble. This shows psychotic stalkerish tendencies.”

  Nathan swallowed the “ya think” and just nodded.

  Nathan helped fill the back of Cherry's car with props, plastic bins of costumes, and a suitcase containing make-up, then slammed the hatchback shut. Doing something, while waiting for Starr and Luna to get cleaned up, helped burn off some of the adrenaline.

  The girls finally came out to the parking lot, their faces lax and white as if shell shocked. Starr wore a skirt and a simple green t-shirt, and her hands were scrubbed clean. Despite the lines across her forehead and her fingers twisting around each other at her belly, she still looked like a goddess.

  She lowered herself to the front seat of Luna's car. Declan leaned down. Murmurs came from their direction. Nathan should be over there, comforting Starr, saying things that mattered, making things better. Instead, the full weight of the unjust situation sat like an anvil in his gut. She didn't deserve this crap he'd brought into her life.

  He could get in his car, hit I-95, and head south. Perhaps disappear somewhere out West. Of course that meant he'd be a fugitive. He’d miss his goddamned 9:00 a.m. meeting with his parole officer, scheduled thanks to the text he’d sent Erin tonight at Declan's urging. Nathan was shocked she’d answered. He’d thought she'd see the message tomorrow, he’d go in, and they'd figure it out together. Instead, her message was typical Erin.

  <>

  In just under ten hours, he'd sit in that metal chair before her desk and listen to all the things he should not be doing, like finding Ruark MacKenna and beating the truth out of him. Yeah, fugitive life was looking real good.

  Starr’s eyes met his, and the pain living there could have sliced his heart out of his chest. It was pain Ruark had put there. She'd had a fantastic night until he had to ruin it all. He was so fucking tired of that family’s hold on him and the people in his life.

  His feet finally moved him to where she sat in the passenger seat, her sneakers on the pavement. Her blue eyes focused on him like a laser beam. All those light-filled flecks he'd memorized had stilled, her eyes now red-rimmed and quiet.

  He scrubbed his chin. “Starr, I—”

  “You don't need to say anything, Nathan. I'm fine.”

  She wasn't fine. God, he wanted to grab her, crush her to him, but she sat so rigid she might shatter under his hands.

  Luna touched his arm, cocked her head a little. “I'll be over there. Let me know when you want to leave.”

  The lie he needed to tell rose up quickly. “Max is going to go home with you all. Declan and I need to talk.” He just needed a little time to process, maybe talk himself out of doing something royally stupid, like hit I-95 headed south.

  Starr dropped her gaze to her hands. Her knuckles turning white from twisting her fingers as if trying to wring out her hands. “I'll wait for you.”

  He crouched down to her, placed his hand on hers, stilling them. “You need to go home. Rest. You killed it on stage. You've gotta be tired.”

  Her eyebrows rose in hope. “You'll come to our place when you're done here?”

  “I don't think that's a good idea. Max will.”

  Those little lines around her eyes deepened as her eyes sparked. Her head cocked. “I need you.”

  Yeah, that indignation in her voice? He knew she wouldn't understand. She didn't realize how evil and fucked up the world could be, how someone might use her to get to him. No matter what Declan had said the other day, he was a fucking liability. It was time to turn his status around, starting with a new plan—one he’d yet to form. Every time he thought about it, he came up with only one solution. Ruark needed to forget Starr existed.

  “It won't be forever,” he lied. “but some distance—”

  “Distance?” Starr's mouth pursed into a hard line, and the betrayal in her eyes gutted him. “That's your answer?” She rose and pushed at his chest with her hands, a shot of warmth arrowing through his spine. This wasn't going to be good.

  He fought to keep his spine erect, his breathing steady. “Look, Starr, if you didn't know me—”

  “This again? You going to tell me I'd be better off?” A fire that could have melted the pavement darkened her blue eyes. “Yeah, I've heard that before, remember? Don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare.”

  Luna sidled up to him. “Max is driving us home and staying.” A vision of mountainous Max sprawled out on their couch normally made him laugh, but humor was so far away at this point.

  “Good. Nathan is going to join us, too.” She reached down to the floorboard and brought her purse to her lap. She fished around in it, pulled out her keys, and pressed them into his hand. “Let yourself in.” A sheen of moisture dampened the fire in her eyes, then without warning, she threw her whole body against his chest. “Promise me, you will. Promise.”

  His arms banded around her warmth and all her cinnamon scent. He needed this woman, needed her so much it made his bones ache. Her breath wet the front of his shirt, and her thin arms clutched at him. He could have stood out in the parking lot with her forever, despite her whole body shaking from rage, or fear, or whatever hell was whirling around inside her.

  “Not your fault, Nathan.” She dropped her head back, her eyes locking onto his. “And if you don't show up, I'm going to break out my inner Valkyrie. We whisk worthy men off to Valhalla, ya know.” She curled her hands into his t-shirt.

  How did she do that? Turn everything around in five seconds? His hope rose like a tide, and he palmed Starr's cheeks. “You win. Come on. I’ll drive the two of us to your place.”

  Her responding smile lit up his insides. He pressed his lips to her forehead, earning a delicate sigh. Yeah, he was powerless in her orbit. He was a selfish bastard, but a selfish bastard who was going to make this threat of Ruark MacKenna disappear one way or the other. He got her into the maw of the beast. He would get her out—tomorrow.

  37

  Nathan cracked open the passenger door and helped Starr out of the car. Her sisters had gone with Max. The man had driven like a bat out of hell and had lost him miles ago. Nathan had let them speed away. He’d wanted some alone time with Starr, which amounted to him holding her hand the whole way and not talking. Her eyes were lined with worry, and she kept chewing on a fingernail, which made him worry more. She wasn’t one to fret.

  The elevator to their second-floor apartment was out of commission, so they’d had to climb the steps. He carried her, and she let him.

  With each step up to the second floor, all the possible scenarios to reverse this situation sifted like a dealer shuffling cards. First step up, he imagined confronting MacKenna and trying to strike a deal. Second step up, his mind switched to the bloody image of Starr and her sisters with MacKenna standing over them, knife in hand. Third step, his mind’s eye showed him getting back in his car and not stopping until he reached Kansas City. By the time he got to the seventh step, Ruark continued to stalk Starr, and the MacKennas were following him everywhere he went anyway. His imagination was a dangerous place.

  He pushed the apartment door open and stepped into the scent of perfume and burnt toast. Max's legs were sprawled on the glass coffee table, and an old CSI television show illuminated his face. Max had put the volume on mute, but the light cast a dull blue and gray over his face. Nathan lifted his chin in acknowledgment and set Starr on her feet.

  “I’m going to take a shower, get into bed.” She glanced at Max and then back to him. “Come whenever you’re ready.”

  He could use a few minutes anyway.

  Nathan lowered himself to the chair just to the right of Max. “CSI?”

  “Getting things wrong as usual.”

  Nathan huffed and leaned back in the chair, wide-awake and jittery. They spent long minutes staring at the screen, his eyes stinging from the contras
t of the dark room and the bright TV. He soon lost track of time.

  “He's not going to stop, ya know.” Max turned to face him.

  “I know.” There was no need to say a name aloud. Ruark may not be physically present, but he was always, some-fucking-how, still in the room.

  Max brought his legs down and set the remote on the coffee table. He stared at the carpeting, elbows on knees. “The cops aren't going to find anything on him.”

  “I know.”

  “You got a plan?”

  “Nope.”

  Max turned his head to him. “Want one?”

  “Like ...”

  “You've heard about me, right? Used to be a full-fledged member of the Flaming Tides.”

  One mention of the West-coast gang and Nathan's face heated. He didn't need more trouble, and why would Max want to revisit any of that anyway? If the man survived an exit from the Tides, he sure as hell wouldn't survive re-entry. Nathan swallowed hard. “I've heard.”

  “There are always things that can be done. People to handle things for you.”

  Hell, no. “No, man, I'm not getting involved in any of that.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I'm sure.”

  Max sucked on his front teeth for a second, eyed him up and down. “Good answer.”

  Well, score one for him. “Was this a test?”

  Max didn't reply, instead, leaned back, and put his feet back up on the table.

  Nathan rose, ready to end this strange interaction.

  Max’s voice stopped him. “Nathan? Stick with Starr. She's worth it.”

  She was worth everything, but the Universe might not play fair. It certainly hadn’t in the past.

  38

  A slash of hallway light cut over Starr's sleeping form to reveal her wet, red hair spilled out over the pillow and her pink, pale skin bearing no trace of the previous sparkles and glitter. She sucked in air and released a long, wet purr. So the woman snored sometimes. It was cute.