“Hmm,” he said. “Next time you take care of me first.”

Crystal found her fake smile and pasted it back on. “I’m sorry, baby.” She rubbed her hand up his chest and died a little inside. “Can I take care of you now?” Eight more months. Eight more months.

Heat slid into his dark eyes, and he stepped closer until he was looming over her. His arousal was obvious against her stomach. His brows rose in invitation . . .

And that one small gesture resurrected the memory of the man from the hallway. Just moments before, he’d had her pinned against the wall much as Bruno had her trapped against the door now. But Bruno possessed none of that man’s charm and humor and breath-stealing good looks.

Crystal blinked the comparison away. What the hell was wrong with her? Bruno felt as entitled to her enthusiasm as he did her body. She forced the man out of her thoughts and wrapped her arms around Bruno’s neck.

Bruno’s cell phone vibrated, buzzing loudly against the top of his desk. Ignoring it, he kissed her, hard, demanding she open to him, give in to him. The ring cut off, then started right back again.

Groaning, Bruno pulled away with a look that commanded she stay right where she was, customers and everyone else who might need her be damned. He grabbed the cell like he wanted to strangle it. “What?” he answered. Lethal rage poured into his expression. “What?” Pause. “Who the fuck was it?” Pause. “How many? Did you get them?”

Crystal debated whether to stay or go. Whatever this news was, it was clearly going to occupy Bruno for a while. And given his black mood, she didn’t really want to be around him.

As if her thoughts drew his attention, his gaze cut across the room to her. “You see anything unusual out there tonight?” he asked.

For a moment, she stared at him, not realizing he was asking her the question rather than the caller. “Oh. Me?” Those men. Pretty Boy and his friends. Who went to the bar . . . but didn’t have drinks. Instinct placed the idea front and center into her head. “No. Nothing,” she said. Because she didn’t really know, and if she raised a concern and Bruno confronted those guys and they were legit? Uh, yeah. That would be all kinds of bad.

On the other hand, she’d just lied to Bruno.

Not that she didn’t do it all the time. Crystal was well aware that much of her life was a lie, a charade, a play in a never-ending series of one acts wherein the climax determined whether she lived or died, remained free or got lost forever in the dark, seedy, underbelly of the world. Sad, sad fact that this place, this situation, this life wasn’t even close to the worst there was.

And it was more than just herself she dutifully played her part for. Because when your father exacted a post-sentencing courtroom promise from you to do whatever it took to care for your younger, ill sister, you gave your word. And you upheld it like it was the oxygen you breathed. No price too great.

Not working at Confessions.

Not Bruno.

Not the scars on her back.

And the fact that her father had died in a prison-yard fight two weeks later had elevated the significance of her promise even more. Maybe that was why he’d demanded it of her in the first place. Maybe he knew something like that would happen, and it really would all fall on her.

Bruno turned away like she was of no further interest to him, and that was fine by her. “I want status updates every ten minutes. Find out if our other locations were hit, too. And find out who did this. I want their heads on a fucking platter, and I want them now.” Given what it sounded like had happened, it was no surprise that Bruno was a volcano on the verge of erupting. As Church’s director of security, this could fall on his head if he didn’t get a quick handle on the situation. Bruno turned, and his eyes narrowed to slits. “Get out of here and close the fucking door.”

Heart beating in her throat—from her lie, from the shock waves of Bruno’s rage, from the news that someone had apparently attacked Jimmy Church’s operations—Crystal closed the door, left the offices, and darted to the kitchen.

“Where have you been, Crystal?” Howie said, echoing Bruno but without any of the real annoyance of her boyfriend’s tone. Confessions’s longtime food-and-beverage manager had worked his way up from the bottom over a great many years, and as a result they’d known one another Crystal’s whole life. He’d been friends with her father and fancied himself something of a father figure to her. She didn’t mind.

“Sorry, Howie. Got held up.”

She didn’t need to explain. Not really. Knowing the way things worked around here, he nodded with a sigh. “Well, I had to put Macy on your parties. Both complained they’d been waiting—”

Her stomach dropped. “But I’m here now. You know I can—”

“It’s done. With all that’s going on around here tonight, you know they want everything running smooth as glass. So you’re gonna have to split those tips. I’m sorry.” His expression was full of genuine sympathy.

Damn. Church already withheld her hourly pay and half her tips to pay her father’s debts, so having to split her tips further threatened to sink her stomach into her uncomfortable heels. Crystal refused to let it. If she allowed every little setback to knock her down, she’d be plastered to the floor by now. “Okay, I’m sorry, Howie. Listen, I need food for—”

The older man grasped a tray from the metal counter and handed it to her. “They called up looking for it,” he said with an arched brow.

“Oh.” She attempted a smile as she took the tray loaded with a plate of chicken tenders, fries, and bottled water. Howie squeezed her shoulder, and she left.

Feeling like her head was on the chopping block, Crystal dashed down the private hall and rounded the corner that led to the basement steps. Damn, did she hate going anywhere near this part of the club. Horrendous memories and a desperate, miserable energy clung to the walls down here as if they were the varnish on the old, dark paneling. With a deep breath, she glanced around the tray and double-checked her footing on the first step down.

Commotion erupted from below, then a pounding sounded from in front of her. Two men barreled up the steps wearing masks. The first guy carried a gun aimed straight at her chest. And the guy in the rear held an unconscious man over his shoulder.

She rushed back, causing the bottle of water to fly off the tray, though her hands clutched onto the plastic as hard as her throat held on to the scream suddenly lodged there. Her brain attempted to process what was happening. Jimmy Church’s operation had been infiltrated here, too? Jesus, who would risk pissing off the most notorious gang in Baltimore? And, oh God, no way this was a coincidence after whatever Bruno’d learned on the phone. She’d win some big-time favor if she sounded the alert, if she could just get her voice to work.

All of a sudden, the men reached the top of the stairs, and, though they wore masks, Crystal recognized the steel gray eyes peering through the holes, the way that dark shirt hung over obviously defined muscles, the clean, masculine scent.

Pretty Boy.

Who the hell was this guy? And what kind of a death wish did he have?

Whoever these men were, they were busting Church’s tortured prisoner out of here, and she couldn’t help but think escaping this basement was an absolute good. No one deserved to be held against their will, tortured, abused, or—the thing that terrified her most—sold.

When she spoke, she wasn’t sure what she would say until the words were coming out of her mouth. “There was a call. They’ll be coming,” she whispered, her chin dipped in case she was within the shot of the camera trained on the exterior door. “I have to scream now, and you have to hit me.”

“What?” the first man rasped under his breath. Through the hole in the mask, his eyes were horrified by her demand.

“If you don’t, they’ll know I helped you. And I can’t . . .” What am I doing? Jesus, what am I doing? “You have to. Please.”

Hating her reality, she screamed so loud her throat hurt.

She didn’t have time for his morals, and neither did they. “Please.”

A storm rolled across those eyes. “Pretend to fall and cradle your stomach.” The man swung a fist at her gut. She braced for an impact that never came. Relief and gratitude flooded through her as she played her part for the camera and threw herself backward, the tray of food flying to the ground with a thud. Her head and shoulder glanced off the wall, setting off immediate aches that had her moaning.

When she looked up, the space where the men had stood was empty.

But her scream had worked. Church’s men came running. Crystal curled into a ball on the floor, attempting to make herself as small as possible to avoid getting trampled by the boots pounding down the hall toward the exterior door. The one through which two masked men had just stolen her corrupt and violent boss’s prize prisoner.

With her help. Or, at least, without her hindrance.

Gunshots, shouts, and the squeal of tires against pavement erupted outside the heavy industrial door. More men ran past her. No one stopped or paid her any mind, like she was invisible. And in all the ways that mattered, she very nearly was.

Her head throbbed in time with the pulsing bass beat out in the main part of Confessions, the walls nearly alive with the sound. Fear and adrenaline barreled through Crystal’s veins, making her shaky and unsteady as she pushed to her feet, trying not to step on the food scattered across the floor. Being upright exacerbated the ache in the back of her head. The one she’d caused herself. Because the man hadn’t hit her like she’d demanded. He’d only pretended to.