CAIN
I know she’s not Penny.
And yet, as I race my black Navigator down the street—with the air-conditioning cranked to max—toward Cherry’s apartment, to deal with impending disaster, the name
Just like Penny that first day she walked into my dive of a club, asking for a job.
I don’t fuck my staff. Ever. I’m here to help them get on their feet and away from the sex trade, not drag them down further by being the sleazy boss who treats them like whores. From that day almost nine years ago, when I laid down the payment for The Bank—the club I owned before opening up Penny’s—I’ve maintained that code with stoic resolve. Of course, a young guy surrounded by strippers throwing themselves at him daily was a true test of willpower.
I had a lot of cold showers those first few months.
I figured I’d be fine. Then Penny walked in and, well, she was impossible to ignore.
Impossible not to love within seconds.
And if I had just stuck to my policy and stayed away from her in the first place, she wouldn’t have ended up with her head bashed in just steps away from my office.
If Penny’s death did anything, it stopped me from ever getting distracted from my purpose in this business. It sure as hell isn’t love.
Here I was, thinking I had put that tragedy behind me and moved on. Until tonight, a Penny lookalike walks in and blows my recovery to smithereens.
What did I do? I gawked at her like a fucking pervert. I stared at her body, I avoided her polite handshake, I made her squirm under my gaze.
And then she dropped her dress and that spark—the strange concoction of intrigue, hope, and lust that’s so much stronger than just a waiting naked body should provoke—hit me. The one I have felt only once before. When Penny walked into my office.
I went hard as a rock in an instant.
Ginger was right, though. She’s different. Unreadable, for the most part. Not cold, but she’s either very skilled at controlling her expressions or she’s not expressive at all. Aside from that blush when I pulled her dress up, she seemed unfazed through the entire ordeal. And that’s not normal. In all the years, in all the interviews, I’ve never seen a woman so calm as she asks for a job in my club. The women are always nervous. They’re usually flirting heavily. Once in a while, I’ll turn my back for a second and find them spread-eagled on my desk.
Not this woman, though . . .
She has never worked a private room. I caught that hard swallow when she stated that she’d like to work both. Either that or . . . she
I’ll certainly be passing her paperwork on to my private investigator. The one who does the kind of in-depth background checks average employers don’t bother with. I know it’s not normal, but
Speaking of illicit . . . I pull into the parking lot outside Cherry’s apartment complex, wondering how long before this goes sideways.
“You sure you’re fine?” Nate’s booming voice thunders over the Bluetooth speaker in my Nav.
“Yeah,” I mutter. The passing streetlights cast enough light to reveal my swollen knuckles. I can’t believe I injured my hand, but I guess it
But Cherry’s ex is a special kind of scumbag—a small-time coke dealer with a penchant for slapping around pretty strippers. I guess he thought the “never so much as bat an eye at Cherry again” warning had a one-year expiration date. A more permanent removal from Cherry’s life was necessary.
And I think we made sure of that tonight.
While waiting for me outside Cherry’s apartment, Nate saw her son playing at the neighbor’s place, so we knew he wasn’t in imminent danger. A quick walk by Cherry’s window found her bent over the couch, clearly not fighting him off, while the jerk-off plowed into her from behind, in prime view of anyone passing by.
It took everything in me not to kick the door in. I was livid. Livid with her for letting the guy in.
Livid with her for allowing him to use her like that.
Livid that he’s still breathing.
As much as the idea of pummeling him into the ground appealed to me, there are better ways of getting rid of this cockroach. Nate stood guard while I ran back down to the parking lot. I popped the locks on the guy’s truck—some talents you just never unlearn—and, once inside, planted a sizeable bag of coke in the glove compartment.
I may avoid the drug scene at all costs, but I have connections wherever I need them. Tonight, on my way out to Cherry’s apartment, I needed them. For her and her son.
We waited for him to leave Cherry’s. As I suspected, he was carrying, but it took nothing to disarm him and throw him up against the wall. I didn’t even have to pull my own gun.
I had no intention of laying a hand on him. But then the stupid fuck went and called me a pimp. I shouldn’t care what a degenerate like him says, but I do—because I know that, to anyone outside, it’s exactly what I look like. I got a couple of good shots in on Cherry’s “boyfriend” before Nate pulled me off. We let the jerk stumble away to his truck. I even gave him his gun back—unloaded and wiped clean of my fingerprints—and then we tailed him until the cops I’d notified of an intoxicated driver pulled him over.