Chapter Three
Start with Your Toes
Mo
She was on the stage, busting out a performance to
Shakira’s “Loca,” and making Mo, for the first time since he started with Hawk,
wish he had another job.
Honest to fuck, if he managed to get through the whole
night, and all three of her feature sets (this was number two), without jumping
off the stage and punching every motherfucker watching her in the throat, it’d
be a miracle.
He got why she was the headliner.
He got why it was a packed house.
She was graceful. She knew how to dance. She was beautiful.
She had an awesome outfit on (or was taking it off).
And she was sexy AF.
Christ.
He’d learned during the first set that he needed to watch
the crowd, which was his goddamned job, and not her or he’d be standing in the
shadows just offstage, unable to take his eyes off her at the same time
fighting his dick getting hard.
Which was what every motherfucker out there was doing.
And why Mo wanted to punch them all in the throat.
Fuck.
If they didn’t get this guy and soon, this was going to be
torture.
Mo knew this without a doubt.
And he knew it wasn’t just about her dancing.
It was also about her just being her.
But he was trying not to go there.
And failing.
Her house was the shit.
Her fridge was as neat as his (if he went grocery shopping,
which was rare, he was too busy working and hanging with his buds and his
family, but if he did, the inside of his fridge looked like hers, mostly,
without the lining up of shit, but he’d start doing that the minute he got the
shot).
Her barefoot, all that blonde hair tumbling down, in that
tight tank and those jeans with her little ass he could palm in one hand, for
fuck’s sake.
That massive bed he’d give his left testicle to fuck her in.
The fact she could concede a point in a discussion without
being a bitch about it.
Her huge, bright white smile.
And most of all, how she’d taken the news from Hawk and
Smithie.
She read the letter. Hawk’s call. Smithie had not liked it
(and honestly, Mo didn’t either), but Hawk wanted her to understand the
seriousness of the situation.
Mo knew she’d been freaked.
Her face got a little pale, and that was it.
But he could smell it on her.
Then she listened to Smithie, and after, Hawk, total eye
contact, short head nods, complete focus.
No interruptions.
No hysterics.
No backtalk.
Almost the same when he was going over things with her.
Sure, she balked at the shower gig. Sleeping in her room. He
got that. It was an intimacy and invasion of privacy she wasn’t ready for.
She still didn’t give him shit and make him spend half an
hour explaining precisely why he knew what he was doing, and she had to listen
to him.
And she’d agreed not to bring in Eddie or Lee and his boys.
This, Mo knew, was to protect them. Those men had lived
through a lot while claiming their women. Car bombings. Kidnappings. One of
their women shot. Another one raped.
There’d been peace for a few years. They’d had weddings.
Made babies.
It was all copasetic, or as much of that as it could be with
Rock Chicks in the mix.
They’d go apeshit at that letter.
And Lottie knew it.
So she agreed immediately to protecting them by keeping them
in the dark.
It was the smart call.
But for her, it was more the loving one.
Charlotte McAlister was a class act. Funny. Smart. Talented.
Thoughtful. Together. Professional.
And sexy AF.
Yeah.
This job was totally going to be torture.
“Jorge, other side,” Hawk said in his ear and Mo turned his
head to look at his boss who was standing behind him. Mo was unconcerned and
unsurprised Hawk got the drop on him. If the man wanted to, he moved like a
ghost. “Need you a minute.”
Mo only left his place to follow Hawk when he looked across
the stage to see Hawk’s second in command, Jorge, standing there.
Jorge was not watching Lottie, his attention was on the
crowd.
This was good.
Mo trailed Hawk as he walked down the back hall past the
dancers’ dressing room to the end where there was a door to the back. Quieter
there, but you could still hear the music.
Hawk stopped and turned.
Mo stopped and shifted slightly to the side so he wouldn’t
have to waste the nanosecond it’d take if he had to make a full turn to get
back to Lottie if she needed him.
“You saw her first set,” Hawk noted.
Mo nodded.
Hawk jerked up his chin.
Then he asked, “You gonna be able
to do this?”
Hawk Delgado was not stupid.
And he knew his men.
“Fuck no.”
His boss didn’t look surprised, but he started to look
impatient.
“Mo—”
“But I’ll do it,” he finished.
“It’s just a job. Her job. Three sets. A couple songs. Then
she sits back in the dressing room because Smithie doesn’t want her mingling,”
Hawk told him something Smithie already briefed him on.
Smithie didn’t want her mingling not because it made her
seem elusive and exclusive.
He did it because he knew, like Mo knew, that a lot of men
were assholes, those who weren’t were whackjobs, and
the ones who were neither of those were at home with their wives.
In other words, Smithie didn’t want her in danger.
Where she was now.
Because she stripped.
“I’m on it,” Mo stated.
“It’s just her job, Mo. She’s good at it. She’s famous for
it. But to her, it’s how she pays her mortgage,” Hawk told him.
He didn’t need another lecture about stripping that day (or
ever again).
But he was surprised Hawk would press this with him.
Mo had four older sisters.
Hawk knew Mo had four older sisters and a mother, all of
whom Mo looked after since he had his first coherent thought, so no way he’d
ever be down with a woman taking her clothes off for money.
That didn’t matter.
It wasn’t about it being her job.
It was about it being his job to protect her.
And he could do that.
“I’m on it, Hawk,” he repeated.
Hawk gave him a look.
Mo just stared at him.
Hawk got his meaning and because he did, he shared, “Callin’
in a favor with a friend at the FBI. That religious fanaticism shit, Lottie
might not be the first for this asshole. Sent him a copy of the letter, he’s gonna run it through their system to see if there’s any
language quirks that match.”
Good.
Mo nodded.
“Postmark gives us nothing,” Hawk carried on. “Doing an
analysis on printer, toner, paper, envelope, stamp. Stamp was self-adhesive, so
no DNA, also no print, which does not bode well. Could be some on the flap.
Took prints off the letter. Got one of our friends at DPD to run ’em.”
Lottie hadn’t touched the actual letter, just a copy.
The actual letter would have his, Hawk’s, Smithie’s and
maybe the perp’s prints on it.
Mo hoped like hell if it did, the guy was in the system so
this could all be over and quick for Lottie, but also for him.
“Jorge and I had a sit down with all the bouncers and
bartenders on tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll hit any who were off tonight. And the
dancers,” Hawk continued. “Askin’ if anyone’s seen someone that gives off a bad
vibe, a regular that creeps them out, anyone who’s said something that’s off.”
“Know the drill, Hawk,” Mo reminded him. But he asked,
“Anyone give you anything?”
“It’s a strip club. Every second asshole out there gives off
a bad vibe, creeps someone out or says something that’s off.”
Great.
“We’ll get him and we’ll get him quick, Mo,” Hawk assured
him.
Mo nodded again.
The music ended, the crowd went wild, and without an order
from Hawk, or a word to him, Mo pivoted fully and strode swiftly down the hall.
He met Lottie coming off the stage, shrugging on a robe.
She barely glanced at him before she rushed across the hall
to the dancers’ dressing room.
“Man coming in!” she called as she pushed through the door.
He hesitated a beat, two, but that was all he gave it for
the girls to get situated before he followed her.
He was fighting a sea of strippers heading the other way as
he walked in.
“Got it covered, Mo,” he heard Hawk call.
Mo glanced over his shoulder, lifted his chin at his boss,
then looked away before the door closed him in on Lottie.
He’d been in there earlier as she got ready, sitting in
front of one of those mirrors with the lights all around that you see in
movies, makeup and hair shit scattered all over the shallow counter in front of
it. She’d gotten dressed behind a screen, something that had surprised him,
considering what she did for a living, but after watching her act the first
time, he was grateful for it.
The other dancers had clearly been warned about his presence
before they’d showed.
Some of them did the behind-the-screen thing, some of them
did their thing right out in the open.
He didn’t watch. He wasn’t there for material to have a yank
later.
But he was beginning to understand the difference between
life and performance.
This was their space, and for some of them, they needed it
safe.
Out there, it was a job for bills only.
Other than that, Mo hadn’t bothered to take much else in
because he didn’t give a shit what a stripper’s dressing room looked like.
He didn’t take anything in then because Lottie was on him.
He automatically flexed his body solid when she put her
little hands into his chest and shoved with all her might.
He didn’t move an inch.
Before he could ask what the fuck, she was shouting at him.
“Where were you?”
Ah, hell.
He opened his mouth to say something, but she kept shouting.
“I did a turn, looked for you, and you weren’t there!”
Right.
He could smell she was scared.
But now she was showing it.
Big mistake.
He never should have done that to her.
She should not be feeling what she was feeling.
Most of that was not on him.
But he shouldn’t have left her.
No way.
And that was absolutely on him.
The worst part about it, he didn’t feel bad because he
freaked her, and he shouldn’t have.
He felt bad because he freaked Lottie, and he
didn’t want her to feel that, or more of it.
He’d had so many bodyguard jobs, he couldn’t count them.