Could my dad be wrong, for once?
“Huh,” my brother mumbled. Shade suddenly fell over the room. Lifting my eyes in confusion, I saw how he was blocking the window with a giant piece of cardboard. “This used to be up here. There’s still tape stuck on the sill.” With one toe, he nudged the pile of broken blinds on the floor.
Setting the dress on the bed, I joined him. Carefully, I ran my fingers over the window latch. Air was still blowing in through the bottom, where it hadn’t been fully shut. “She said he broke in through her window, yeah.” Lifting the glass pane with a grunt, I leaned out. The fire exit stairs were rusted, but reachable from the Dumpster below.
Imagining the bastard skulking around Sammy’s home, waiting for her to return . . . it had my knuckles whitening from how hard I choked the sill.
“Shit!”
Banging my head on the window, I spun around to see what had made my brother cry out. Even with colors flashing in my eyes, I was groping for my gun. If the attacker had come back, then this was about to get messy.
Hawthorne faced me, his hands stretching up a pair of silky red panties. “Well, well, well,” he said, smirking sharply. “Your lady friend has some surprisingly nice taste. Was she wearing something like this when you two—hey!”
Ripping the underwear away, I shoved him backward. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with you?” he countered. Eyeing me doubtfully, my older brother nodded at the open clothing drawer behind him. “I was just investigating. Chill.”
“Investigating her fucking panties?” I threw the underwear back in with the others, slamming the dresser shut.
Hawthorne hadn’t stopped watching me. His voice came out low and cautious. “You’re not just messing around with this girl, are you? Holy shit.”
“You think it’d be okay to dig through her stuff if I was treating her like a fling?”
“I think you’d care a whole lot less, yeah.” Shrugging, he leaned on the dresser. “I haven’t seen you like this before.”
“Sure you have.”
“Nope.” Shaking his head, he messed with his short hair. “I’ve known you your whole life, Kain. I don’t ever see you talking to the same girl after she does her walk of shame. You can’t fool me, Sammy is more than just a hookup to you.”
“So what if she is?” I asked suspiciously.
“That right there,” he laughed. “Defensive as hell. Here’s some advice for you, Brother. You’re massively see-through.”
Standing taller, I said, “Thanks for the insight. Can I give you some advice, too?”
“Shoot.”
I gripped his shoulder solemnly. “It’s creepy to dig through a woman’s lingerie.”
Pushing me off, he laughed. “Let’s get out of here. Costello is waiting for us down by the Hill.”
The Hill was a part of the city known for crime. It wasn’t that long ago that people would warn against the area, unless you wanted to get a bullet in your guts. My father had done a lot of good in cleaning the area up—even if his methods were often questionable.
But why argue with the results?
Still, even with our thumbs crushing so many of the local gangs, one had recently made it a point to start ruffling our feathers. The Deep Shots were our major suspects in causing the police raid, so they were also our likely suspects as far as attacking Sammy went.
That meant it was time to meet up with them for a chat.
If Thorne is right about them trying to use her because they thought she had a personal relationship with our family, Francesca is going to feel awful.
On the way downstairs, something familiar flickered in my vision. Sammy’s purse was hanging on the back of a kitchen chair. She’d like to have that back, I’ll bet. Snatching it up, I brought it with me outside.
Hawthorne opened his car door, eyeing the purse. “New accessory. Nice.”
With a wink, I hooked it on my shoulder. “Thanks. I hope the Deep Shots like it.”
“I’m sure they will,” he said, starting the engine. “About as much as they’ll like seeing our pretty faces.”
It had been a sore spot for some time that every strip club in the city was either owned by my family or the owners were being paid by my father to follow his rules. It might sound scummy, but my dad had a good reason for being so controlling.
Rhode Island had a dirty little secret—one few knew about unless they were in the game or looking to be a part of it. You see, while everyone treated Nevada like it was some magical place that you could go to legally fuck a girl for cash . . .
It wasn’t some special, unique snowflake like people expected.
My state had one hell of a law, one that allowed people to pay for play all they wanted—as long as it was behind closed doors. That meant the strip clubs could indeed have full-on sex in the champagne rooms. Or the bathrooms, if someone was really desperate.
But we didn’t like that law. Not me, and not my family.
We didn’t want any of the girls working the clubs to feel like they could be forced into sucking a dick for a few bucks. That lifestyle led to bad shit, and my father had worked very hard to keep the bad shit out of our city.
And so, the sore spot I mentioned.
Since we owned or controlled the clubs, it meant people couldn’t get their dicks wet. Every big gang in the area wanted to run a piece of the flesh-for-cash game, and we were stopping them.
Guess who definitely didn’t like us for this?
Right. Our friends, the Deep Shots.
All that was left for them was siphoning cash out of dive bars and illegal betting. My dad didn’t care about any of that, though. He always said that you had to let the rebels feel like they were sticking it to you somehow.
Otherwise, they actually would.
Hawthorne parked his car in the alley of the shit hole they called a bar. It was the kind of building that was all old brick and graffiti, no windows—no signs. It was magical that the place didn’t crumble in on itself.
The Deep Shots loved money—who didn’t?—but they were notorious for taking a cut from the businesses they controlled, then never putting anything back in to help them thrive. I wasn’t kidding when I’d told Sammy that I figured we’d been attacked out of jealousy.
We were the Badds.
And we owned this city.
Who wouldn’t hate us for that?
“Hey,” Costello said, pushing off of the filthy wall by the bar entrance. He was dressed in a leather jacket that had to be making him sweat in this heat. Like always, his face was so calm that you’d think it was October instead of humid, sticky June.