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  Rounding the end of the bar, I strode across the club, ignoring the sidelong glances, and stopped in front of a smug looking Chaser. He wanted a confrontation, so here it was.

  Snatching the bottle of beer out of his hand, I glared.

  “I wasn’t finished with that,” he complained.

  “You’re hogging the table,” I declared. “And I can guarantee your beer is flat and tastes like shit at room temperature. You may as well be drinking old-man piss.”

  “He warned me about this,” he said, lounging back in the booth, looking sexy as hell. All that was missing was me crawling up his body.

  “Excuse me?” I felt my cheeks redden and thanked God we were in the club where it was dark, and he couldn’t see.

  “You’re a handful. Can see it already.” He was undressing me with his eyes—which made me a little hot to my utter distress—and my flush deepened as his hand moved toward his crotch.

  “Asshole.” Holding up the bottle, I tipped the beer into his lap. “How’s that for a wet patch?”

  People around us snickered as Chaser held out his hands in mock defeat.

  “There are worse things in the world than smelling like beer and having a wet cock.”

  “Yeah? Like a turf war for men with little dicks?” I sneered and slammed my fist on top of the table and tossed the empty beer bottle at him.

  He caught it against his chest and laughed. It was the wrong thing to do, but luckily for him, there was a table between us.

  “Get out of my face, Chaser.” I snarled. “Go back to my father like the little bitch you are, and you tell him the same words I told him seven years ago when he sent another fucker like you after me. I’d rather asphyxiate on my own vomit than lay eyes on him ever again. He doesn’t exist to me. You got it?”

  “So, was it immaculate conception?”

  “Excuse me?” My mouth fell open.

  “When people ask you about your father, do you tell them the stalk dropped you off on your mommy’s doorstep?”

  “My mom is dead, you piece of shit. Why do you think I ran away?”

  Turning on my heel, I stalked across the club, seething so hard I almost spontaneously combusted. When I calmed down enough to check if Chaser was still there or not, the booth was empty.

  Good. He was bad for my health.

  Stuffing a French fry into my mouth, I chewed and thumped out another sentence. My poor laptop.

  My nights off went like this. Go to the local fast-food joint, order the cheapest meal they had, and commandeer a table for a minimum of two to three hours. Then pack as much course work in as I could before walking the five blocks home in the dark, looking as tough as I could so I wouldn’t be mugged. Hopefully. My computer was a piece of shit, but twenty bucks was twenty bucks around here.

  After six months, I’d become a regular fixture, and management didn’t hassle me anymore. As long as I wasn’t running drugs to their customers or casing the joint to prepare for an armed robbery, they didn’t mind me hanging out. Once they twigged I was trying to study, they really didn’t mind.

  Shanora worked the counter on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday nights when I came in to study. She was an eighteen-year-old African American girl, who’d served me my usual order of cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke for several weeks before something mysterious shifted in the air, and she started to sit with me on her breaks. One day, she’d just sat at the table across from me, and that was that. Two unlikely friends.

  Tonight, she was watching me type and flip through my notes, her eyebrows in a constant state of interest.

  “What do you do when you come in here?” she asked. “Are you writing a book or something?”

  “Hardly,” I replied. “I’m writing a Poli Sci paper.”

  “You go to college on your computer?” She stared at the lid of my laptop like it was the doorway to Narnia.

  “Yeah. It will take a billion years and a billion dollars, but you can do it. At least the Wi-Fi here is free.”

  “What do you want to be?”

  “I’m not entirely sure yet, but right now, I’d settle for educated.”

  Shanora snorted and took a fry from my tray.

  “You don’t want to go to college?” I asked.

  “Can’t afford it,” she replied, then took out her cell.

  “What about a scholarship?”

  “Too dumb.”

  “Nah-ah,” I shot back.

  She gave me a look and went back to scrolling on her cell.

  I glanced to the side as a man walked past with a tray in his hands and narrowed my eyes. Ever since Chaser showed up at the club carrying the latest sob story from father dearest, I’d been jumpy. He wanted to protect me? From what?

  Asshole, I thought to myself. This is probably Dad’s plan. Install a seed of doubt into his only daughter, and she’ll come back to the compound for protection. It would never happen.

  Watching the man, I decided I didn’t like the look of him. He was wearing a black bomber jacket, dark shirt, and dark pants. He was rough around the edges, but who wasn’t in this neighborhood. Hell, they had an armed security guard at a family restaurant once the sun went down. There was an indicator of the clientele right there.

  Still, I snapped the lid of my laptop closed and gathered my notes, shoving the lot into my battered backpack.

  “You going?” Shanora asked.

  “Yeah. You want the rest of these fries?”

  She grabbed the edge of the tray and slid it toward her.

  “Bye,” she said, shoving a fry into her mouth.

  “See you later.”

  There was no reply, and I rolled my eyes. Kids and their cell phones.

  Sliding my backpack on, I pushed out of the restaurant and stepped onto the sidewalk. Damn Chaser and his mind games.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I sank deeper into my denim jacket and lengthened my stride. Crossing the street, I threw another look at the golden arches behind me. The door opened, and bomber jacket man appeared.

  My heart skipped a beat, and I fished around in my pocket for the keys to my apartment. Shoving a key through each finger, I fashioned myself a pointy set of brass knuckles just in case I had to stab and run.

  I put my head down and hurried down the sidewalk, passing under orange street lamps and darting across side streets. I was a shadow in a shadowy world. Glancing back over my shoulder every so often, I saw the man walking at a distance. I couldn’t be sure he was following me, but I couldn’t be too careful. There was no innocent until proven guilty. Not in this neighborhood.

  Ahead, my apartment building came into view. It was a mid-rise made from what felt like one continuous slab of concrete that was cast and set in the nineteen seventies. You know, the land that soundproofing forgot. The place was a complete dump, but the rent was cheap, and it had an entrance that gave the illusion of security with its coded fob system. All I had to do was press the tag against the sensor, and the lock would click open.

  Throwing one last look back, the man was gone, but my heart didn’t stop thundering in my chest. Slamming the fob against the sensor, I was granted access. Pushing through the door, I closed it behind me and heaved a sigh of relief. Safe and sound for now.

  Hightailing it up the stairwell, I reached the fifth floor and pushed out into the hallway. The sound of televisions turned up to a million and the odd bark of a dog echoed through the concrete as I made my way toward my apartment. Rounding the corner, I came to a screeching halt when I saw Mrs. Adelstein at her door.

  She was wearing her usual getup comprised of a fluffy pink dressing gown and matching slippers. Tonight, she had purple rollers in her graying hair, and her wrinkly hand was clutching her dressing gown together over her chest.

  Mrs. Adelstein was a selective agoraphobic. She didn’t like to go outside the apartment block but reveled in the business of everyone who lived in it. I was sure she had notebooks filled with surveillance on all her neighbors, including me. All that was missing wa
s her tinfoil hat.

  “It’s late,” she said when she saw me.

  The only way was past her, so I sidled by her door and flashed her a fake smile.

  “I was studying,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s right. It’s Monday.”

  She didn’t seem to be interested in chatting, so knowing what was good for me, I kept walking. Fishing out my keys, I let them fall from between my fingers and shoved the first one into the deadlock.

  “Sloane,” she called out, signaling she’d had an afterthought.

  Rolling my eyes, I plastered on a smile before I turned around. “Yes?”

  “There was someone knocking at your door earlier.”

  “Oh?” I froze, the smile twitching on my face. I didn’t want to move again, but if I had to…

  “He was loud. Next time, tell him to knock a little softer.”

  “Who was he?” I asked, a bad feeling crawling up and down my spine.

  “A mean looking man,” she went on. “Leather jacket, boots. He knocked and knocked, and I told him to fuck off. You better not be mixed up in the drugs. A smart girl like you?” She clucked her tongue and shuffled back into her apartment. The door slammed closed, and I jumped as the sound echoed down the concrete hallway.

  Leather jacket and big boots? Was it Chaser or someone else?

  Undoing the second lock, I slipped into my apartment and made sure all the locks were in place before latching the chain. Turning on all the lights, I flipped the sofa back and reached inside the lining. My fingers brushed past springs and stuffing before they rubbed up against what I was looking for.

  Taking out the nine-millimeter handgun and the box of matching bullets, I sat on the floor and loaded the magazine, listening to the sounds of the apartment block. A kid screamed, television noise roared through the wall, a door slammed, muffled voices were arguing, and a telephone rang.

  If Chaser was right and someone was coming for me because of my asshat father, then I would be ready. And if Chaser came back… Well, I wasn’t sure what I would do if he turned up again. He hadn’t gotten the message last night if Mrs. Agoraphobic down the hall was handing in her report.

  I just wanted to be alone.

  I’d put all this shit behind me years ago. I was getting on with life, and even though things weren’t amazing, they were better than they ever could’ve been living in that shithole. Out here, in the real world, I was a human being. Back there, at the Fortitude MC compound, I was a commodity. A fucking bargaining chip with a bleak future as a trophy wife to a petty drug lord.

  Yvette wanted me to take Chaser the hottie out for a ride? If she only knew.

  If I kept refusing him and his crazy offer of protection, there was no doubt in my mind he would try to take me by force. When the moment came, I would have to be ready.

  No one gained their freedom by hiding their head in the sand.

  Slamming the full magazine into the handgrip of the gun, I made sure the safety was on and glanced at the door. I would put a bullet right in Chaser’s pretty boy face before he took me anywhere.

  He could count on it.

  Chapter 3

  Sloane

  Jack and Coke. Three shots of Fireball Whisky. Two beers. Five shots of Jägermeister. Keystone Light. A Manhattan for Georgia the pole dancer.

  Glancing at the clock on the wall, I narrowed my eyes. Yvette was late. Again.

  More Jack and some Johnny. Fireball, Fireball, Fireball. Strawberry vodka lemonade for Candy the stripper.

  “Hey, Slo,” Yvette said as she appeared from out back. “Busy night?”

  “Yeah,” I shot at her. “I can hardly keep up.”

  “Sorry,” she said with a pout. “Brittany had a meltdown right before I was leaving. Brown stuff was everywhere.” She made a puking motion.

  I suppressed an eye roll and flung a dishcloth at her. She caught it against her chest and laughed, looking like a Victoria’s Secret model flaunting her goods at the end of a runway. Bitch. I said it in the nicest possible way.

  “Thanks, Slo.”

  “I let you take advantage of me more often than I should.”

  “Aw, don’t be like that.” Yvette wrapped her arms around my neck, giving me a face full of her favorite Brittany Spears perfume. It was a not-so-subtle hint at who she named her kid after. “I’ll give you some of my tips for the cover. You know I’m good for it.”

  “And you know I will say keep it because you need the extra diapers.”

  “Hey, I spotted the hottie on my way in.” She leaned against the counter and wiggled her eyebrows.

  “Huh?” I screwed up my face, not hearing her over the pounding music.

  “That guy is here,” she repeated. “The hot one whose dick you gave a beer shower to.”

  A group of men at the bar sniggered, and I suppressed the urge to give them a piece of my mind. Those creeps were nothing compared to the things a man like Chaser was capable of. Too bad I wasn’t allowed to bring a gun to work, though it was sitting pretty in my bag out back. One thing they didn’t do here at Teasers was a security check on their staff.

  “You’re kidding me,” I said, my gaze flickering around the club, where on stage, Candy was waving some of her sugar to the crowd, much to the riotous gratification of the front row. I made a face as one man stood and slipped a rolled-up bank note right up her—

  “If I didn’t know any better, I would think he has a thing for you,” Yvette said, nodding across the club. “Be careful, Slo. You know what happened the last time someone here got themselves a stalker.”

  Did I ever. Harriet was one of the good ones. She had been sweet, innocent, and was just trying to get by in the world like the rest of us. Problem was, she had a bleeding heart and gave more than she ought to. Harriet wasn’t with us anymore in the most permanent way possible.

  “Can you hold down the bar for ten?” I asked, wiping my hands on my jeans.

  “You’re not going to talk to him again are you?” she asked, looking alarmed. “I know I said—”

  “I know what you said,” I shot back. “Don’t worry about it. I would never get involved with anyone who comes here, and you know that.”

  “Good…”

  “Hot people can be malicious, too, you know.”

  She glanced over at Chaser again and shrugged, signaling she either didn’t know what to say or didn’t want to get involved. Couldn’t say I blamed her, what with her little girl at home and all.

  “I’m still going to talk to him, though.” Chaser had to get it through his thick skull his mission was doomed to fail. Whatever happened to him when he went back without me was his problem.

  “Slo!” Yvette called out.

  “It’ll be fine.” I waved her off and rounded the end of the bar.

  Wandering through the press of people—which was an oddity for an out-of-the-way sleaze-fest that was Teasers—I searched for Chaser. Knowing he would be in the darkest corner possible with the best vantage point, I made for the row of booths he’d been sitting in the other night.

  Sure enough, he was in the same one, lounging like he owned the place with his arm slung over the back of the padded seat.

  I paused as one of the girls sashayed toward him, and I narrowed my eyes. She bent over, giving him an eyeful of her rack, and whispered into his ear. When her hand rubbed against his chest, a wave of something I didn’t want to acknowledge passed through me.

  On the surface, she was offering him a lap dance, but everyone knew for the right price, it would finish with sucking the hard-on they had rubbed out moments before. Yeah, that was right. Everyone knew, but they just didn’t talk about it. Otherwise, the club would get shut down for operating as an illegal brothel.

  The thought of Chaser paying for a blowjob from a mouth like that made me want to puke. Ugh, why did I care? Maybe the fantasy of a handsome man coming to save me was getting my rocks off. It was perverse.

  But to my surprise, instead of following the girl to a private ro
om, he waved her off. She straightened up and pouted, looking rather pissed. It wasn’t often attractive guys came into strip clubs, because they could get their cock massaged for free anytime, anywhere, by anyone. So when one did, all the girls pounced.

  Yvette said he hadn’t been looking at the girls, so maybe he wasn’t yanking my chain. Not entirely.

  Once the stripper was gone, I stepped past the group of men I was lingering behind and slid into the booth opposite Chaser. He raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” he said, giving me the once-over. His gaze lingered a little too long on my breasts, and I thumped my fist onto the table.

  “You need to leave me alone,” I said, giving him the biggest stink eye I could.

  “You can cry and beg all you like, darlin’, but I’m not going anywhere.”

  Don’t let his hotness dazzle you, Sloane, I thought. He’s trying to lure you into his trap. This isn’t about sex. It’s about a paycheck. Money means more to him than a quick fuck.

  “How many times do I have to say no before you get the hint?” I asked, practically seething. “Is that how you treat all women, or am I just special like that?”

  “I’m not a rapist, Sloane,” he said with a chuckle. “With a face like this? I don’t need to force any woman onto my cock. They just slide right on.”

  “Some men like the fight,” I retorted, squeezing my thighs together.

  “Seems like you do, too.” He leaned closer, his teeth tugging on his bottom lip.

  “Get fucked!”

  He laughed and slouched back, throwing his arm over the seat again.

  “You need to leave me alone or…” I began, trailing off like the lame loser I was.

  “Or what?” he asked, his expression darkening.

  He was showing off his true nature. What did he do for my father? Was he a bounty hunter? A hired killer? A ‘man who could get things done?’ Whatever it was, it wasn’t anything good. His tone suggested I didn’t have any say in the matter, and one way or another, he was delivering me as promised.