“Let’s go up to the bar. There’s less chance of any of the girls getting in your face if you aren’t down on the floor taking attention away from them.”

She didn’t say anything. Her eyes were big in her face as she was taking everything in. There was a lot to see. The naked girls onstage. The lights changing colors as they skipped over bare, glittery skin and drooling customers. The burly security guards that were wandering around keeping an eye on things. The scantily clad cocktail servers that scuttled by on dangerously high heels with trays full of drinks. It was loud and flashy but underneath it was sadness and hopelessness that seemed to permeate every single corner of the club.

I sat Reeve down at one of the black leather bar stools and waited until the bare-chested bartender that looked like he should be on a billboard selling something unnecessary to rich people handed her a drink. I saw the door to Nassir’s office swing open, so I bent forward and pressed my lips to the back of her head.

“Sit tight. I’ll be back in a second.” I stiffened for a second before remembering we had an audience when she swiveled around and touched her lips lightly to mine. It wasn’t really a kiss; just a touching of mouths, but it was still enough to have my pulse thundering and my cock tightening.

“Hurry back.” Her voice was singsongy and full of amusement. I grunted and made my way over to where the dark-haired club owner was lurking in his office doorway.

Nassir was several inches shorter than me and his build hovered on the slender side but none of that tricked me into thinking he wasn’t a threat. His eyes burned a strange bronze color that seemed almost unnatural and there was an otherworldly chill that always seemed to surround him. He was equal parts deadly and sophisticated and I never knew what was going on in his head. He was an ice-cold operator and not someone I would ever trust or be fooled into thinking was on my side. Nassir cared about one thing and that thing was Nassir. He was his own agenda and that made him pitiless and merciless when it came to the way he handled his business.

“How does Bax feel about you cozying up to her?”

He didn’t beat around the bush. “I haven’t given him the chance to tell me how he feels yet.”

“She sold Dovie out. She was in Novak’s pocket. How does that work for you, cop?”

“I don’t have to like her to fuck her.” The words left a bitter taste in my mouth because they were too close to the truth I was struggling with.

Nassir laughed a little and it scraped across my skin like razors. “Yes, you do. There’s a reason you’re with her and a reason you brought her here. I bet there’s also a reason that one of my girls got cut up and tossed on the dock like trash. If I was a betting man, which we both know I am, I would wager it has something to do with the fact she looked a lot like your new piece of ass.”

I felt my shoulders stiffen as I glowered down at him. “Why was your girl on the docks that night? You send her out there to meet a client? No one goes into that part of town without a reason.”

His glinting eyes shifted up to me and I had to force myself not to look away. He really could be one scary motherfucker.

“I already told you she wasn’t working that side of things. She was just a kid. She danced and that was it. Chuck walked her out the night before she was found and he said she got in her car—alone. Just like she always did. You can keep asking and you’ll keep getting the same answers. What about you, cop? Why do I think you and this girl mean more than you’re sharing?”

“It’s not my job to share with the criminal underground, Nassir.”

“It is if you don’t want to be in the way when I do your job for you. If you can’t find the guy, I bet if I got your new girl involved, I could draw him out.”

“No one is doing anything.” I bit the words out and gave him a hard look to let him know I didn’t like him even thinking about messing with Reeve.

“We’ll see about that. It looks like your girl is about to get into something all on her own.”

I pivoted just in time to see Reeve jump to her feet, sending the bar stool skipping backward with a clatter. She was putting her index finger in the face of the only other woman I had ever seen that was as pretty as she was. Keelyn Foster was as much a part of the Point and Spanky’s as my brother was. She had been around a long time dancing under the stage name Honor and she wasn’t a woman anyone would mess with if they were smart. Up to this point, Reeve had shown she was very smart and could read people like a book, so I had no clue what she was doing.

Keelyn flipped her auburn hair over her shoulder, flashed a smile that was all teeth, and said something that had Reeve turning red enough that I could see it from here. There was no warning as the dark haired knockout dove for the sexy redhead and they went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Reeve was dressed, Keelyn was not. That was a whole lot of sexy woman-on-woman action happening and the crowd noticed.

Nassir chuckled as I started to move forward in order to break up the catfight.

“What?” I barked it him over my shoulder as I moved forward.

He laughed again. “I would’ve charged more at the door if I had known you were going to bring that kind of entertainment in with you, cop. When she figures out you’re just using her and you drop her on her ass, send her my way if she wants a job. I’ll oil her and Honor up every night and make enough to buy and sell this piece-of-shit city a hundred times over.

“Fuck off, Gates.”

I pushed through cheering bodies and waving arms until I could get to the spot on the floor where the girls were rolling around. I was assaulted with a chorus of boos and hit with more than one flying beer bottle as I pried Reeve off the stripper. They were both breathing hard and bleeding from various scratches.

“Seriously?” I asked the question as I set Reeve on her feet and watched as she shoved her long hair out of her face. I sighed and grabbed her hand as I started to drag her to the back where the bathrooms that the girls used were instead of the ones that were there for the customers.

“It’s fine.” Her voice was shaky as I shoved her into the room and hit the light switch.

“It’s not fine.”

She laughed a little shrilly and then the next thing I knew she launched herself at me so that I had to use both hands to catch her.

“You’re right.” I wanted to demand to know what she was thinking. I wanted to ask why she had decided to throw down with a stripper, but before my tongue unleashed the words, her mouth locked on mine and then there was no thinking. There was just heat, the tang of blood, and all the sweetness that always seemed to rise above the tartness when it came to this woman.