“He didn’t use the guy’s name?”

“No. I told him I didn’t share Novak’s business with anyone, but that Mr. Fancy had been in on poker night more than once. Not alone either. He brought his own entertainment, if you know what I mean.”

I scowled as Ernie leered at me.

“Race didn’t say what he wanted with the guy?”

“No, but shortly after that, Benny and the boys went and roughed up the chick he was shacking up with. Sent him over the edge. Always thought Race was a smart guy, but then he marched into Novak’s compound, making threats and talking crazy. You don’t tell a man like Novak his time is coming to an end, not unless you want to end up in the ground. Boy wasn’t as smart as I thought.”

I didn’t like the sound of any of that. Race was smart and he knew not to make idle threats. If he had something on Novak big enough to sink an entire criminal empire, it was no wonder he was off the grid, and it explained why Novak had all his minions looking for him. I didn’t understand the timing, why he was back, why he had waited until I was loose to make his move, and I had no clue what he had in his bag of tricks that he thought he could hold over Novak. It was starting to make me uneasy. I didn’t do uneasy.

“The guy he was looking for, he have business with Novak?”

Ernie snorted and tapped his too-long fingernails on his desk. “Like I told your boy, I don’t discuss Novak’s business. That’s why I’m still here and why I got all the best girls. You saw Honor; she miss you? I always heard those girls had a thing for you. I think you broke a couple hearts when you got busted.”

The girls liked me because I got what I was after and left them in peace. I didn’t want to hang around and bitch about my day or discuss my work, I just wanted to get off and go home. Fortunately for them, I was fairly considerate in the sack. I always tried to make sure I gave as good as I got, unless I was in a hurry.

“Right now Novak’s business and my business are one and the same. Tell me what you know, Ernie.”

I cracked my knuckles and let my hands curl into fists as he lumbered to his feet and leaned on the desk.

“Saw that you brought Race’s redhead in with you. I don’t know what it is about that girl that has you boys all in a lather, but I think Benny and his boys would love to know you somehow managed to hook up with her right after Race disappeared. Maybe, just maybe, she’s the key to getting him to pop back up.”

I didn’t like being threatened. I liked him threatening a seemingly innocent young woman even less. Dovie might live the hard life, might be familiar with the sacrifice and struggle it took to live on this side of the fence, but everything about her was soft and untouched. She didn’t need Ernie or Benny dirtying her up.

It took two steps and a single lunge to get Ernie around his sweaty collar. He swore at me and I used all my upper-body strength to pull his flabby bulk over the desk. He didn’t have the strength or the leverage to fight me as he swore and scraped at my wrists to get purchase.

“She is off the table. Do you understand?”

He swore at me again and tried to knee me in the balls. A totally pu**y move by a guy who had others do his dirty work.

“I don’t have pull, Ernie, but I still have a temper. You might want to pass along to Benny and to Novak when you see them that nobody wants to be on the wrong side of it after five years on the inside. That’s a really long time to stew in your own fury.” I gave his hefty body a violent shake, which had his teeth snapping together. “What was the rich guy’s business with Novak?”

“I don’t know. He wanted something done and came looking for someone to handle it. If he was looking in the Point, it wasn’t something legal, and Novak never met a rich person he didn’t want to exploit and have in his back pocket.”

I stared at him hard, until I determined he was giving me as much information as he had. I shoved him away and took immense satisfaction in watching him hit his office floor assfirst. He swore and glared up at me as I went to pull the door back open.

“You’re useless now, Bax. You aren’t in the game anymore, and Novak thinks you’re a loose end. Your days are numbered. You might want to consider how you want to spend your last days. Race let you go away without a fight. Novak would’ve let you burn. Any normal guy would walk away, hook up a few times, and go out with a smile. Why you gotta stir shit up and piss everyone off?”

This time when I smiled, it actually had humor in it.

“It’s what I’m best at. If you hear anything about Race, you better pass it along, or our next visit will be far less enjoyable for both of us.”

In the hallway, I rolled over what Ernie had told me. Race came from money. His family was tied into a lot of really wealthy families and charities on the Hill. He knew a lot of really powerful men from his life before. He could’ve been asking about any one of them and if the guy he was asking about was in Novak’s pocket, that meant whatever he wanted done was big and all kinds of bad. It was a shame I couldn’t just go to the source and ask. If I got in a room with Novak, one of us wasn’t coming out alive and I wasn’t cocky enough to automatically assume I would be the one walking away unscathed.

“Hey, Bax. Benny and his boys just rolled in and headed right for your redhead. You didn’t tell me you broke the old guy’s nose. Bet he was pissed.” I liked Chuck. He was a solid dude who just followed orders, and I think he was a pretty good judge of character.

I pointed to my black eye. “He sucker-punched me not even a minute after I got my first taste of pu**y in longer than I want to think about. He’s lucky the only thing I broke was his nose.”

“I always said none of those boys knew what they were doing messing around with you. Even when you were a kid, you were still twice as scary as the lot of them together.” Chuck sounded proud of that fact.

I lifted an eyebrow and nodded.

“I tried to tell them that. They never wanted to listen.”

I made my way back into the club and immediately saw Benny and two of his guys hovering at the edge of the booth where I had left Dovie. Honor caught my eye and gave me a wink from the stage. I rolled my eyes and shoved past Benny to slide back in the booth next to the redhead.

Those eyes, so green and leafy-colored, were hard, but I could see the fear lurking in the darker veins. I didn’t want to know exactly what Benny had done to her last time, but I wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t going to put his hands on her again without facing blowback from me. I pulled her so that she was flush up against my side. I ran a hand across the back of her neck and got a fistful of all that orange-red hair. The curls were soft and springy where it was gathered up off the elegant curve of her face. Her freckles were dark against the pale canvas of her skin and her mouth looked like all the things I had dreamed about while I was locked up. She wasn’t going to like what I was about to do, but I hoped she was smart enough to just roll with it. If not, it was every man for themselves and she could figure out her own way to get Benny to leave her alone. I didn’t need her to like me or respect me when all this was said and done, I just needed her to do what I wanted and stay out of my way while I handled business.

I brushed my thumb along the full sweep of her lower lip and saw her eyes widen in a flash of understanding right before I claimed her mouth with my own. I held her still with the hand I had wrapped around the back of her neck and held her face with my other hand so she couldn’t jerk away and set Benny off. She was stiff as a board and her hand was digging into my thigh like a claw. I was right, though; she was every kind of sweet and unsullied. She tasted like fresh strawberries and purity, and good God, that mouth, I could press my own to it forever and never get tired of it. The last thing she needed was a guy like me pawing at her. She didn’t open her lips, didn’t let me invade the moist heat of her mouth with my tongue, which I totally would have taken advantage of and done if she’d let me. It was probably a good thing. If Honor’s little bump and grind had elicited an unwanted erection, this closed-lip, virginal kiss with this bothersome girl had me ready to come in my jeans like a kid. I couldn’t feel anything other than the plush press of her mouth against my own, but it was erotic and a total turn-on, which was just one more surprise Race’s little sister had in store for me. I could only imagine what it would be like if she loosened up and actually let me kiss her for real.

I grinned against her pursed lips and licked the tight seam for good measure. I felt her tremble, in either desire or annoyance, and I didn’t care which. When I pulled back, I winked at her and saw that she was glaring daggers at me. I squeezed her neck in warning and turned to look at Benny with a smirk.

There was no missing the black-and-purple bruising around the white bandage that covered the bridge of his nose. He looked pissed.

“I think it’s an improvement.” I nodded at his battered face and grinned just to get a reaction.

He growled at me and I moved Dovie so she was pressed all along my side. She didn’t want to relax, and that wasn’t going to do anything to sell that I was into her to Benny. Not to mention she wasn’t my normal type, so chances of him buying it were slim already.

“Your buddy is gonna crawl out from under his rock sooner or later, Bax, and then you’re all mine.”

“You gonna sucker-punch me again, Benny? Might be harder now that I know you’re coming.”

His gaze flicked to Dovie and then back to me. “Picked up right where your boy left off? There really is no honor among thieves.”

I snorted. “Well, we all know Race owed me. And like you said, five years is a long time to go without. I’ll take my payback however I see fit.” I tilted my head in Dovie’s direction and tried not to grunt as she dug the pointy tip of her elbow into my ribs.

“Why her? I’ve seen the girls you usually roll with. She doesn’t fit the bill.”

I lifted an eyebrow and looked at her sideways. I could literally see where she was biting the inside of her cheek to avoid saying anything. She was pretty cute when she was indignant and put upon. Just to aggravate her a little more, I snatched her slouchy hat off her head and snapped the elastic band holding her hair back off her face. The red waves sprang free like they were escaping from jail.

“I’ve lived in grime and filth for my whole life. Maybe now I want something clean and unblemished by this life. Don’t pretend like you know me, Benny. You never did.”

“I’m starting to think this girl has something magical going on. First Race and now you. Maybe I’ll have to give her a spin to see.”

He wanted me to react, to get mad, so he could have his goons work me over and pay me back for his nose, but I wasn’t stupid, and this was a game I had written the rules to, so I just reclined in the booth and pulled Dovie with me. She put a hand on my stomach and looked up at me under her rusty-colored eyelashes. She wasn’t happy, but she was smart enough not to fight me.

“You can try. A couple of black eyes and a crooked nose will be a picnic after I’m through with you if you do it, but you’re more than welcome to push your luck.”

He grimaced and pulled his pants up with a jerk on his oversize belt buckle.

“Maybe she wants to try a man on for size instead of a boy. Roxie said you forgot all about what a woman wants while you were gone.” He turned to Dovie. “How about it, sugar? Wanna give ol’ Benny a try?”

His leer was enough to make me want to punch him in the nose again, not to mention the fact that he was actually stupid enough to proposition a girl he had just recently knocked around. What a douchebag. I was going to tell him to piss off, to just leave her the hell alone, but I didn’t get the chance because she grabbed my face with both hands and pulled me down so she could kiss me.

There was no closed-lip, restrained press of mouth against mouth this time. Her quick little tongue darted between my surprised lips and stroked across my own. Her fingers curled into the side of my face, rubbing over the black star inked at the corner of my eye and around my neck, and every breath she took I breathed in and felt like she was trying to give me something I had never had before. I nipped the inside of her bottom lip with my teeth and pulled her closer so I could show her what happens when I kissed someone like I meant it. By the time she finally pulled back, her already-full lips were puffy and devoured-looking and her dark green eyes were almost as black as my own. Her chest was rising and falling in a rapid rhythm, and all we could do was stare at each other. Kissing wasn’t a big deal; in fact, it was normally boring and just a motion I went through to get to the main event. This wasn’t boring at all, and now I really, really wanted to know what she had going on under those ugly, baggy clothes.