Midnight Alias: A Killer Instincts Novel (2 page)

“I’m serious,” Sullivan insisted after taking a long swallow of his beer. “Morgan’s pissed at me. There’s no other explanation for why he didn’t place me inside the club. Me and strippers go together like dingoes and babies. Dubois over here wouldn’t even know what to do with a stripper.”

“I watch,” Luke replied. “That’s all you can do with strippers.” He took another drag, but the nicotine did nothing to eradicate his sense of restless boredom. “And you don’t get to complain either,
mate
. You’re the one who went off grid for six months. You asked for Morgan’s wrath.”

“You know I lose track of time when I’m sailing
Evangeline
.” Sullivan’s light gray eyes glazed over at the mention of his yacht. The guy was obsessed with his boat, had her name tattooed on his back and everything. Then he snapped out of it and frowned. “He didn’t even let me stop at the compound first. I wanted to meet Kane’s new lady. I bet she’s real sweet.”

Luke and Trevor nearly keeled over with laughter.

Sullivan shot them a blank look. “What?”

Wheezing, Luke bent over and gripped his side. Trevor wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

“What?” Sullivan said again.

“Abby Sinclair is neither sweet nor a lady,” Trevor said, still chuckling.

“But, please, can I be there when you call her that to her face?” Luke pleaded.

He pictured Sullivan trying that Aussie charm on Abby, and nearly broke out in laughter again. Abby would eat the other man alive. Sure, she cracked a lot more smiles these days, even laughed now and then, but she was still tough as nails. And truth be told, she still scared him just a little.

Downing the rest of his beer, Sullivan slammed the bottle on the table and got to his feet. He strode over to the sliding door, plucked Luke’s cigarette out of his hand, and hijacked the thing.

Ignoring the scowl aimed his way, he took a few quick drags before handing the butt back. “Time to throw on some clothes.” Sully tossed a look over his shoulder on his way to the corridor. “Unless you ladies want to see my dick again?”

“My eyes hurt when subjected to small things,” Trevor called back.

The ring of a cell phone cut off Luke’s resounding laughter. Trevor headed for the sleek dining table across the room and grabbed his phone. “It’s Morgan,” he said briskly.

About time the boss checked in. Morgan had decided this assignment was too boring for his taste, so he was back at the team’s compound, “coordinating,” as he liked to call it.

Luke hoped this call meant that things were finally starting to move. The team had been in Manhattan for four days now, and had absolutely nothing to show for it. They’d been hired by the DEA, of all agencies, to track down the whereabouts of Carter Dane, an undercover agent who’d gone off the radar. Dane’s supervisors suspected a mole connected to the investigation had blown his cover, a likely scenario considering that Dane’s last cryptic text to his handler had implied that someone had ratted him out.

At this point, the DEA had no clue as to whether the dude was dead or missing or who knew what. If there was a mole, any agents sent in subsequently could face the same fate as their missing colleague, so it was up to Luke and the others to find out what had happened to the guy. It wasn’t the kind of job Morgan’s operatives usually took on, but the boss had admitted during the briefing that someone had called in a favor.

Luke wished Morgan had just told favor-dude to shove it, but Jim Morgan was the kind of man who always paid you back. He was all about honor, which was one of the reasons Luke had signed on to work for the guy. The legendary former Ranger had recruited him six years ago, luring him away from the military to join Morgan’s team of soldiers. Most of the others had already been on board, including Derek “D” Pratt, who’d apparently recruited himself by simply showing up on Morgan’s doorstep one day and reporting for work. Sullivan was hired around the same time as Luke, but Ethan Hayes, the rookie, had joined them only three years ago. As a team, they worked like a well-oiled machine, and their reputation for getting the job done had spread over the years.

Luke would take a bullet for any of the men he worked with, and as far as the job went, he frickin’ loved it. He reveled in the risk, the jolt of adrenaline he received from a particularly dangerous op. And the saving lives part. Sometimes the knowledge that he’d saved a life brought an even greater adrenaline rush than blowing things up.

Across the room, Trevor was muttering a whole bunch of “yes, sirs” into the phone. When he hung up, his brown eyes looked grim.

Luke ducked out to the terrace to extinguish his smoke in the ashtray on the glass table, then returned to the couch and plopped down. “What’d he say?”

“Tonight you focus on a specific dancer. Livy Lovelace.”

Sullivan reentered the main room in time to overhear Trevor’s last words. “Livy Lovelace?” he echoed, laughing. “Say that five times. Total tongue twister.”

Luke turned away so the others wouldn’t see him gulp. Fuck, out of all the girls in that club, he had to focus on
her
? Livy Lovelace, or whatever her real name, was a goddess. The sexiest woman he’d ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on.

Lord, all that wavy chestnut brown hair spilling down her regal back . . . high, firm breasts tipped by dusky nipples . . . endless legs . . . bottomless moss green eyes. Just the memory of her got him semi-hard, and now he was crossing his legs so his buddies didn’t catch
that
response.

Before this job, he’d firmly subscribed to the strip-clubs-are-sleazy philosophy, but the first time he’d seen the goddess dance . . . he’d sprung a boner. No other way around it. Watching her up on the stage, so vulnerable and so sexy at the same time, had been pure torture.

“Did Morgan say why to focus on her?” he asked, finally finding his voice.

“Whoever he’s got on the inside thinks Lovelace might know something,” Trevor answered, already heading for the hallway. “I’m gathering up my gear. We leave in five.”

Sullivan, who’d changed into a pair of black trousers and a snug long-sleeve, bent down to unzip a duffel bag on the floor. He strapped on a shoulder holster, shoved a nine-millimeter Beretta into it, then reached for a black trench coat and shrugged it on.

Noticing that Luke was still on the couch, Sully shot him a puzzled look. “You coming or what?”

He smothered a sigh. “Give me a second.”

Breathing through his nose, he willed away the annoying erection straining against his zipper. Fuck. He couldn’t even use lack of sex as an excuse for this juvenile reaction. He’d hooked up with a waitress at his favorite bar in Tijuana less than a week ago, and the sex had been damn good, so he definitely wasn’t hard up.

But something about that dark-haired dancer totally got his blood going.

“Get off your ass,” Trevor ordered as he strode back into the room in a getup similar to Sullivan’s.

Releasing the sigh, Luke stood up. And hoped that neither of his teammates spared a glance at his crotch. When Sully hooted, it was clear his current state of discomfort hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Giving his buddy the finger, he awkwardly marched out of the living room to get his gear.

* * *

“You’re on after Cora.”

Olivia Taylor shifted her gaze from her reflection in the mirror to see the Diamond Mine’s newest dancer saunter into the busy dressing room. Candy Cane was the name she used, and the costume she’d chosen reflected it: a red-and-white-striped bustier with lace cups and a sheer mesh body, dental-floss G-string, and a garter with red lace trim. She wore crimson lipstick and pink eye shadow, which made her appear both innocent and erotic at the same time. Candy had been working here for only two months, but she was already a big hit with the customers. Even Vince was impressed with her, and the boss wasn’t easily impressed.

As Candy flopped into a chair at the neighboring vanity table and began removing her makeup with a cotton ball, Olivia stood up and adjusted the straps of her dove gray satin cocktail gown. An exotic dancer in a cocktail gown—she didn’t miss the irony of that. But Vince had ordered her to look elegant tonight. He insisted that the customers welcomed a break from the trash every now and then, that they longed for a taste of class.
And you, babe, are the epitome of class.

Said the pimp to his whore.

Okay, that was a tad melodramatic. She was
not
a whore. But as Olivia gazed at her reflection, she didn’t see the subtle makeup, elegant gown, and strappy heels. She saw the skimpy thong, the silver garter belt, and the glitter-dusted breasts that all those men out there were about to leer at.

Her throat tightened. God, she didn’t want to do this anymore. Every night when she left the Diamond, she felt dirty. Dirty and exposed and so utterly drained it was a miracle she managed to drag herself out of bed in the mornings.

When a friend from NYU had hooked her up with this job last year, she’d told herself it was temporary. After her mother’s cancer came back and the bills started piling up, Olivia’s waitressing salary simply didn’t cut it anymore. The rent needed to be paid. Her tuition. Her mom’s latest round of chemo treatments. Groceries, phone bill, utilities. Seemed like there was an unending stream of
must-pay
in Olivia’s life. The price was never right. It was high. Always high.

Shake her ass, count the bills in her G-string, and graduate. That had been the plan, except now there was no chance of that happening. Not if Vince Angelo had anything to say about it.

“You okay?”

She blinked away the tears threatening to spill over and pasted a smile on her face. When she turned her head, she found Candy staring at her. The concern in those blue eyes had Olivia averting her gaze, pretending to be fascinated with the chaos around her.

The huge dressing room had twenty makeup stations, costume racks against one wall, a luxurious bathroom, and a bank of lockers at the far end of the room where the dancers stored their belongings. All around her, girls were dressing or undressing, chatting with one another or into their cell phones. They were in their twenties or thirties, came in all shapes, sizes, and races, and most of them were here for the same reason as Olivia: money.

Across the room, one of the other dancers, Heaven Monroe, was busy applying makeup to her gaunt face, but Olivia doubted any amount of beauty products could rid the girl of that gray pallor. Heaven was a junkie, had been for as long as Olivia had worked here, and for the life of her, she still couldn’t figure out why Vince kept the girl on.

“Olivia?” Candy was still eyeing her.

“I’m fine,” she lied. “I just have a bit of a headache. I’m worried the spotlight will only make it worse.”

“You sure it’s just a headache?” Candy reached for an elastic band, tied her long blond hair into a ponytail, and rose from her chair. “Every time I look at you, you’ve got the saddest expression on your face. What’s going on with you?”

Uh, other than the fact that our boss covered up a murder for me?

She hastily broke eye contact again. Candy seemed like a nice woman, but confiding in her wasn’t an option. Vince had eyes and ears in every inch of this club.

“I said I’m fine.” Her tone came out sharper than intended, but it got the job done.

With a wounded look, Candy slunk back to her station. An apology bit at the tip of Olivia’s tongue, but before she could voice it, the door swung open and Vince walked in.

“Evening, ladies,” he announced in that silky-smooth voice of his. “Give me and Livy a minute, okay?”

Not a single dancer so much as protested. Even those in a state of undress obeyed the boss, filing out of the room without a word. When they were alone, Vince stepped closer, his dark eyes softening as he looked at Olivia.

The mere sight of him made her nauseous. The fact that he was actually quite handsome made it even worse. In his mid-thirties, Vince Angelo was Italian to the core, with slicked-back black hair, shrewd brown eyes, and a gym-toned body forever clad in tailored suits. He was constantly on the receiving end of appreciative female attention, but Olivia knew better than the women who checked Vince out.

And she didn’t appreciate a damn thing about him.

“You look beautiful, babe.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

Another step closer. His arm came out as if he wanted to touch her, but then he dropped it to his side and smiled ruefully. “Fuck, babe, don’t look so sad. We got good news yesterday, remember?”

We? No,
she’d
received good news.
Her
mother was in remission. But Vince had a habit of acting like they were in this together. A sliver of anger pierced her, but she forced her expression to remain neutral. She couldn’t let him see the anger. It would only provoke his own ire, and Olivia knew quite well what happened when Vince got angry.

So she mustered up a smile and said, “I know. It’s just hard to be hopeful. The cancer already came back twice before. I don’t know how long the remission will last this time.”

“If the disease returns, we’ll deal with it.”

The way you dealt with that customer’s body?
she almost blurted out. She stopped herself, though. A part of her still hoped that if she never mentioned the attack, Vince might forget about it. Release her from the debt she owed him. But she wasn’t naive enough to give much credence to that hope. Whether she liked it or not, she
did
owe him. For paying her tuition, and for taking care of her staggering medical bills, not to mention her mother’s. She hadn’t asked him to do any of that, but he had, and now he owned her.

“Come here, let me hold you for a moment,” Vince said huskily.

He opened his arms. Olivia hesitated before stepping into them.
Play along. It won’t be forever. You’ll find a way out soon.

A way out. God, she dreamed of that every night. The salary Vince paid her went toward rent, bills, and groceries, but her tips went directly into her escape fund, and since Vince didn’t monitor those, he had no idea how much she’d already managed to save. She’d definitely amassed a decent amount this past year. But not decent enough. If she’d been on her own, she would have skipped town months ago, but no way would she leave her mother behind. That just made things more difficult, though. She couldn’t uproot her mom unless she had a job to support them both with. Kathleen was still recovering, still required the epoetin injections to help her produce the red blood cells that her damaged kidneys denied her body.