Chapter One #2
cover half a million fuckin’ dollars after you’re gone?”
“You won’t have to.”
“How’s that?”
“Because she’ll be gone.”
Smithie’s brows shot up.
“She’ll—” he started to explode.
He shut his mouth and stared at Marcus.
Then he whispered, “Motherfucker.”
He wasn’t calling Marcus that.
It was a muted exclamation.
Such was his shock, a surprisingly quiet one from Smithie,
who was not a quiet man.
It took him a moment to compose himself and Marcus gave him
that moment.
When he did, still quiet, he also seemed to brace, now
surprising Marcus because it looked like he did it with a hint of fear, and
Marcus had known Smithie for a long time and he’d never known the man to show
fear.
“Don’t go there,” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Marcus asked.
Smithie shook his head. “Again, respect, brother, you got
that from me, you know it, and I’m still askin’ you
not to go there.”
There was the reason behind his fear.
Smithie might be a soft touch in some ways, but he was a hardass in all others.
But no one in Denver challenged Marcus Sloan.
Marcus turned fully to him.
Smithie took a small step back before he held his ground.
“Why would you ask that?” Marcus queried.
“She’s a good girl.”
Losing patience and having other things to do, Marcus
crossed his arms on his chest, prompting, “And?” when Smithie said no more.
“She needs…” he started but didn’t finish.
“She needs what?” Marcus pushed.
Smithie’s focus sharpened on him.
“Peace.”
Marcus felt that one word stab through his chest, feeling it
and remembering the vision of a beautiful woman with lots of hair and a big
smile, hiding the fact she had to be tired in order to help out a friend.
“Peace?” he whispered.
Smithie shook his head again. “She and me, we throw back a
few. She’s got time not dancin’, I hang with her
during some of it. Took her a bit. She don’t trust easy. But she shared. And
what she shared, Marcus, I’m askin’ you, man, just
don’t go there.”
Now Marcus was angry.
In fact, furious.
He did not show this outside the steely edge that was now in
his voice.
“I would not harm a woman.”
“Brother, you got a stable of whores.”
“I do not,” he clipped. “I oversee the management of a
network of men who run escort agencies and I do this to make sure these men run
this network appropriately.”
“Like I said, you got a stable of whores. Or a network
of ’em.”
“You know that story, Smithie,” Marcus said softly, the soft
not gentle, just quiet.
And dangerous.
Smithie did know that story so he left that but didn’t leave
it alone.
“You got other shit you—” he started.
“Not your business.”
“It is, you tie her up in it.”
“She’s not your business either.”
Again, Smithie’s eyes got big and he threw an arm toward the
window. “She’s a Smithie’s girl and she’s not my business?”
Marcus had had enough.
“Do you want a problem with me?” he asked.
“Of course I don’t,” Smithie spat.
“Then cut a set, cut a song in each set, no private dances
and increase her salary, Smithie.”
“Goddammit, Marcus,” Smithie bit out.
“Do it,” Marcus ordered then dropped his arms from his chest
and moved toward the door.
He stopped and turned back when Smithie called his name.
“I won’t have no problem havin’ a
problem with you if you make problems for her,” Smithie declared. “Do you get
that?”
They talked, Daisy and Smithie.
Smithie knew.
Peace.
Marcus nodded.
Smithie jerked up his chin in agitated anger and turned his
back on Marcus.
Marcus walked out of the office, down the stairs, and
through the club, not sparing Daisy a glance.
At that moment, he had business to deal with. He needed his
head in that.
When it was time for Daisy, he wanted his attention fully on
her.
But it would be time for Daisy.
Soon.
Daisy
“Who’s that tall, dark drink of handsome
water?” I asked Ashlynn, my eyes on the tall man with broad shoulders and
fabulous suit who was sauntering out of the club in the manner of a man who
owned it.
In the manner of a man who owned anything he wanted.
“Don’t go there,” Ashlynn answered.
I looked to Ashlynn.
“What, sugar?”
She shook her head. “He’s hot. Knew a girl who’s had him and
I’ll repeat, he’s hot. Took her out four times. All to fancy
restaurants where she had to buy fancy dresses and shoes. And he gave it to her
good at the end of the night, and I mean real good, the way she
described it. He also, like, opened the car door for her and everything.”
Opened the car door for her.
And everything.
Oh my.
“Ended it with him giving her a gold bracelet,” Ashlynn
carried on, recapturing my attention. “Pure class.” Her look got intense as she
stared into my eyes. “And he’s trouble.”
I glanced to the door that he’d obviously gone through
because he’d disappeared, then back to Ashlynn.
“Trouble?”
Ashlynn didn’t answer that question.
She just shook her head again and declared, “He wouldn’t
date a stripper anyway. Like I said. He’s class.”
I felt my mouth get tight.
I was not a big fan of judgment. I’d had that shit shoved
down my throat from the time I could cipher. A mother like I’d had. A father
like I’d had. The creeps, losers, and assholes my momma had no problem parading
through her daughter’s life, our home. The jobs Momma would get and lose and
the reasons she’d lose them. The clothes I had to wear, bought at yard sales,
garage sales, thrift shops. The crap people would say, not even worried I might
hear. I didn’t matter and my feelings sure didn’t so they might not say it to
my face, but they didn’t do anything to shield me from it either.
I got out of that and it didn’t get much better. Pretty much
every bitch and dickhead felt they had a highly-tuned white-trash-o-meter and
took one look at me, thinking it binged at the highest frequency.
Okay, so my momma wasn’t all that. My daddy really
wasn’t all that.
But I’d gotten on a bus and left all that behind
and never looked back.
Did that matter?
Hell no.
Yeah, so I’d found my own trouble in a variety of ways,
mostly after Miss Annamae died, doing a stint at juvie that wasn’t all that fun
and learning my lesson.
And yeah, so I’d hooked up with some boys who weren’t much
to write home about, mostly because I liked boys, boys liked me, and a girl’s gotta have a first kiss (and second, and third, etc.) and
they were the only ones who asked me out.
They might not have been much, they might have been trouble,
they might have treated me like crap, but at least they all (every one) were f-i-n-e, fine. I could pull in a looker like no
other even before one of them bought me my boob job. It just sucked they were
all also varying shades of asshole.
But I got my first job when I was sixteen and I was never
late, never sick. I worked hard and showed respect that wasn’t showed me,
eating shit when I had to, pulling the knife out of my back and getting on with
it whenever someone shoved one in there. I got my high school diploma. I might
not have graduated with honors but I was on the AB honor roll every term.
No matter, they saw a woman with big hair and big hooters
with a Southern drawl, a way with eyeliner and a penchant for rhinestones, and
they thought they knew me through and through.
Sure, now I was a stripper.
And I’d been a cocktail waitress. A hotel maid. A grocery
store clerk. And the hostess at a restaurant that, even though I’d been young,
I still knew the majority of the clientele were scary individuals in the sense
they were feloniously scary individuals. I knew I got that job and got
paid good to do it because I had huge knockers and the ability to keep my trap
locked shut.
What I was not and never had been was white trash.
Miss Annamae knew exactly what I was and she knew
everything.
I could work a rhinestone, a lip liner, and a G-string, but
I was a good girl where it mattered.
“He’s also loaded,” Ashlynn broke into my angry thoughts.
“Men who got money like he does got the means to get themselves some that don’t
gotta shake it in guys’ faces in order to make it.”
“Well, if he’s got a problem with seein’
past that shit, sugar, then he might not want me even if he did expend the
effort to look at me, which he did not, but I don’t want me any of him,
either.”
Ashlynn looked like she let out a sigh of relief.
Whatever.
I turned my attention back to the door. “What’s his name?”
“Daisy—”
I looked back at Ashlynn. “Don’t wanna
know it to go after him, honey bunch. Wanna know it to avoid him.”
Ashlynn nodded. “His name is Marcus. Marcus Sloan.”
Oh yeah.
That name said it all even if the suit and the hundred
dollar haircut didn’t.
He was class.
He was loaded.
He was trouble.
And I was a good girl.
So he’d been a good view for a few seconds.
And just like you always had to do in life, you took the
good when you got it as you got it.
And when it was time for it to be done, you didn’t hold on.
You moved on.
So I put Marcus Sloan out of my mind and I moved on.