Midnight Alias: A Killer Instincts Novel (3 page)

Starting fresh in a new city required money. Starting fresh in a new city while having to pay for expensive medical treatments? They’d end up living on the streets.

Her best bet was to finish school first. She had one more semester, and then she’d have a degree in hand and a better chance of landing a higher-paying job and supporting her mom. Hopefully a scholarship to law school would be in the cards too, and she could always take night classes if need be.

Vince wouldn’t follow her once she was gone. He would find a new pet to obsess over, a new girl to control.

Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself.

When it came to Vince Angelo, she truly didn’t know how far he would go to get his way. What she did know brought a tremor of fear.

Vince stroked her hair and held her tighter. The buttons of his pin-striped suit jacket rubbed against her chest, irritating the bare nipples beneath her satin dress. He cupped her chin with both hands, his dark eyes searching her face. “I’ve been patient with you, haven’t I, Olivia?”

She nodded.

A smile tugged on his full, sensual lips. His lips were the only soft thing about him. Everything else was hard, sharp. Eyes like a hawk, handsome but cold features chiseled out of stone.

“I saved you,” he went on, pride creeping into his voice. “I know we haven’t spoken about it in a while, but I just wanted you to know that everything I did that night, I did for you. Because I love you.”

Her voice wobbled. “I kn-know.”

Inside, she was seething. For her? How had any of it been for her? She’d wanted to tell the police the truth, but while she’d been in surgery, Vince’s goons had dumped the body, and their boss had spun the police a tale about how Olivia hadn’t seen her attacker. When the cops had backed off without so much as taking her statement, it wasn’t hard to figure out that Vince must have paid somebody off. By then, he’d also paid every outstanding debt she’d owed, officially placing her in
his
debt.

“And that’s why I’m waiting,” Vince said, his soft words jerking her from her thoughts. “I know who you are, babe. You’re not the kind of girl a man just screws. You’re the one he marries and screws.”

Gee, how romantic.

“I’ll wait as long as I have to, Liv. I
respect
you. That’s why I’m letting you continue your schooling. That’s why I allow you to live with your mother rather than push you to move in with me.”

She wanted to scream. Wanted to slap that handsome face of his, rip his hair out by the roots.
Letting
her?
Allowing
her? Wow. And he truly believed that he loved her.

“I’m an honorable man,” he finished, gently tracing her jaw with his index finger. “A patient man. And it brings tears to my eyes knowing that you’re untouched and saving yourself for me.”

Now she wanted to gag. Telling him she was a virgin had been a last-ditch effort to hinder one of his early seduction attempts, and to her shock, it had actually worked. After the attack, when he’d hinted that she could repay him with a fuck, she’d almost thrown up. Instead, she’d played the innocence card, and so far it had served her well. But how much longer? She knew his imaginary honor and supposed patience wouldn’t last forever, which made it all the more imperative to prepare for her escape.

Before he decided to take her to bed without her consent.

“Your honor is my favorite thing about you,” she said in a shaky voice.

A knock rapped against the door, and Cora Malcolm poked her head into the dressing room. Onstage she was Coral Holliday, but to Olivia she was simply Cora, the pretty redhead who sat beside her in nearly every lecture hall. Cora had been the one to set her up with this job, but these days Olivia wasn’t feeling so grateful.

“You’re on, Liv,” Cora announced. Her cheeks were flushed, and sweat coated a pair of perky bare breasts that bounced as she sauntered over to her station.

Vince leaned down and planted a kiss on Olivia’s cheek. “Go on, babe, turn them on, get them nice and hard.”

Said the honorable prince to the love of his life.

She choked down a hysterical laugh and headed for the door, feeling Vince’s eyes burning into her back. In the corridor, she drew air into her lungs, blinked away some more tears, and attempted to regain her composure. After a year of this, she still couldn’t shake the sick feeling in her belly. It wasn’t nerves; it was shame. She hated dancing for the customers out there, feeling all those hungry eyes on her. Her own desperation had brought her to this club, but it wasn’t desperation keeping her here. Now it was fear. Vince had made it painfully clear that he wouldn’t be happy if she quit dancing—not before the wedding, anyway.

And she knew better than most what Vince Angelo did to people who made him unhappy.

Chapter 2

A man could get lost in those eyes. They reminded Luke of the Spanish moss growing in the bayou back home, a lush earthy green that left you feeling calm and sated. And she had incredibly long eyelashes. Probably those fake stick-on kind, but if they were real, then
damn
. It didn’t escape him that he was sitting here ogling the dancer’s
eyes
, while all the other sleaze buckets around him were staring at her breasts. Not that her breasts weren’t as spectacular as her eyes. Because they were.

Luke shifted in his seat and took a long swig of his beer. There was something extremely disconcerting about having a hard-on while surrounded by a bunch of other men. He’d never understood the appeal of strip clubs. Why look when you could touch? It didn’t take much effort to walk into a bar, find a willing female, and touch the night away. Looking
sucked
.

Or maybe it didn’t. He had to relent as the stunning brunette on the main stage began grinding against a silver pole.

Focus
.

He drew in a breath and heeded the voice in his head. Morgan might have ordered him to keep an eye on Livy Lovelace tonight, but that wasn’t the only task at hand. He’d paid the extra cover charge to get into the roped-off VIP lounge, which was up on the second floor and offered a perfect line of sight to the stage below. The VIP area boasted a smaller stage with a counter around it, where a voluptuous blonde in a white corset was dancing for a couple of high rollers. A lot of hair tossing, pelvic grinding, and hip jerking going on, but Luke was more interested in the happenings on the main floor.

He rose from the comfortable padded armchair and strolled up to the railing, his gaze sliding over the activity below. Scantily clad waitresses rushed from table to table, while half-naked dancers worked the room, making conversation with customers, sizing them up as if to calculate how much dough they could score from a particular mark. Luke ignored the females, studying the men instead. He examined, discarded, moved on to the next.

Carter Dane’s face was imprinted in Luke’s memory, but he saw no sign of the missing DEA agent. Not among the customers, nor the various bouncers and staff moving through the club. If Dane was here, then he must be in the restricted areas: the employee section in the back or the upstairs management offices. If he
wasn’t
here, then he was probably dead, which was beginning to seem likely.

Dane had been ordered to buddy up to Vince Angelo as a means of reaching the agency’s real target: Ric De Luca. The Diamond Mine was nothing more than a glorified washing machine—De Luca laundered his money and ran his drugs through there. And if Luke were a betting man, he’d go all in on the wager that Carter Dane’s cover had been blown. De Luca was too smart to let just anyone infiltrate his organization, no matter how outstanding the person appeared on paper.

Okay, he concluded, no Dane in sight. Poor dude was probably six feet under or chained to a cement block at the bottom of the Hudson. But until they had confirmation, the team couldn’t pack up and leave.

Draining his beer, he signaled the waitress for another, then watched the beautiful dancer finish out her performance. The slinky cocktail dress she’d sauntered out in lay in a puddle of satin on the floor. The heels were gone too, but she still wore a silver G-string and a garter belt jammed full of bills.

The waitress returned with his beer. This time he sipped slowly. Couldn’t afford to get hammered on the job.

When he felt a pair of eyes boring into him, he realized the waitress hadn’t left. She stood next to him, watching the stage. “She’s good, ain’t she?” the top-heavy blonde drawled.

“Beautiful,” he heard himself say.

The music died, and his goddess was rewarded by deafening applause and lewd shouts. He noticed the waitress moving away and cleared his throat. “How much for a private dance?”

She giggled. “I don’t do that. I just wait tables.”

He hooked a thumb at the stage below. “I meant with her.”

Disappointment flashed in the blonde’s eyes. “That one’s expensive.”

“How much?” he asked again.

“A hundred out on the floor. Five hundred in the VIP rooms.”

Luke whistled softly. Five hundred to get the goddess alone? Pretty damn steep.

On the other hand, he pictured her beautiful face, the heart-stopping body, and decided it could actually be considered a bargain. Ignoring the waitress’s amused expression, he pulled out his wallet and did a quick count.

“Arrange it,” he said, his voice coming out gruff.

“You got it, big spender.”

As she flounced off, Luke released a heavy breath. What the hell was he doing?

What you were asked to do. Investigating.

Well, sure. Morgan
had
ordered him to pay closer attention to the stripper, hadn’t he? Nothing closer than a lap dance.

A few minutes later, the waitress returned and gestured for him to follow her down the wide spiral staircase. With the blonde taking the lead, they wove through the tables scattered around the main room, past several curtained alcoves and the hallway he’d noticed staff members coming in and out of. Didn’t go near the second spiral staircase, which intel told him led up to the management offices, including Angelo’s. Luke suppressed his disappointment. Ah well. The opportunity to snoop around would present itself eventually.

They went beyond the bar area, stepping into a shadowy corridor lined with half a dozen doors on each side. The waitress led him to one at the end of the hall, where a dark-skinned bouncer with massive shoulders stood guard. The behemoth’s sharp gaze pierced Luke.

“No touching,” the bouncer said curtly. “We’ll be watching. You touch, you’re out.”

“Yes, sir.” He appreciated the warning. It told him that the folks at the Diamond Mine didn’t fuck around. Someone was looking out for his girl’s safety.

Your girl?

The girls
, he mentally amended. The bouncers looked out for the girls who worked here.
All
of the girls. Not just the one who got his blood going.

The big man opened the door for him and Luke stepped inside, surprised by the tasteful interior of the VIP room. He’d expected a strobe light and tacky decoration, but instead found a plush leather couch in a semicircle shape, walls draped in red velvet, and an old-fashioned-looking light fixture emitting a romantic glow.

“Drinks are free,” the bouncer barked, nodding to the wet bar by the couch. “Livy will be in soon.”

As the door shut behind him, Luke bypassed the bar and sat down. He studied the room, immediately pinpointing the locations of the three security cameras. Did they pick up sound too? He’d get Holden to check it out later, but right now it meant he couldn’t be too direct in his fishing expedition. If Livy Lovelace had any information about the missing DEA agent, he’d have to use some subtle digging to pry it out of her.

He was considering pouring himself a drink after all when his goddess sauntered into the room.

The saliva in his mouth turned to sawdust. Oh boy. The woman wore nothing but that silver thong and garter combo she’d stripped down to onstage, and her bare breasts, high and round, gleamed in the dim lighting of the room. Jeez, she was even more gorgeous up close. Smooth golden skin. Movie starlet face. And tall, he realized, as she walked toward him, hips swaying.

He opened his mouth to say something—
Hello
would probably have been a good start—but no words came out. His vocal cords had turned into limp spaghetti noodles.

She didn’t speak either. Just advanced on him like a wary jungle cat, green eyes locked with his. When she was standing a foot away, Luke saw her face change. Gone was the wariness. The tension in her jaw eased. And she went into seduction mode.

“Hey there,” she murmured. “Mary said you like the way I dance.”

Mary? Right, the waitress. Luke still couldn’t remember how to talk, but he managed a quick nod. Her voice was not what he’d expected. It was husky, throaty, with a musical lilt to it.

“Not much of a talker, I see.” She tossed her long chestnut hair over one bare shoulder and smiled wryly. “All right then.”

Music began to pour out of the speakers mounted on the walls. It was some slow, jazzy beat, but he paid no attention because really, how could a man pay attention to a
song
when the sexiest woman on the planet was climbing onto his lap? With one fluid motion, she straddled his thighs, her breasts inches from his face, swaying softly as she moved to the music. The scent of her flooded his nostrils. Surprisingly sweet, with a hint of lemon and quite possibly strawberries. Fuck, he was suddenly really hungry.

And horny. Incredibly horny as the goddess ground her lower body against him, her green eyes slitting sensually as she danced for him. On him. Whatever.

Luke kept his hands at his sides, battling the impulse to reach up and touch her. Each time she rubbed her pelvis against the aching ridge in his pants, he wanted to grab her by the hair and bring her down for a kiss. He sat there, trying not to move a muscle, but the erection throbbing down below didn’t want to cooperate. It strained against his zipper, jerking each time the goddess’s warm mound made contact with it.