Laura Kaye - Hard As You Can

A few minutes later, he was in black from head to toe. Boots. Jeans. Tee. Holster. Beat-up leather jacket. He slipped the butterfly necklace he always carried into his pocket, tucking it deep so it couldn’t fall out. Back at the mirror, he threw on some shades to see the effect. Nothing like the clean-cut look he’d sported the previous night. He grabbed a fake ID, his Sig Sauer, an earpiece, and a blade, then made to fly.

Anticipation flashed through his veins. If the gang had roughed Crystal up after they rescued Charlie last night, that damage would rest on his shoulders. At least partly. At this point, he couldn’t not go back and check on her. Just his sense of duty at work. What else would it be?

Nick was waiting for him in the living room, ass propped against the back of the couch and ankles and arms crossed. “I don’t like your going in alone.”

“Won’t be alone. I’ve got the communication equipment from last night’s op. And this is strictly fact-finding. No intent to engage.”

Nick gave a tight nod. “Good. That’s good.” They clasped hands, a familiar understanding passing between them. Shane turned for the door. “And Shane?”

He paused. Too much to hope for a clean getaway.

“Eyes on the prize, brother. Are we clear?”

Shane hated that Nick thought he needed a reminder to keep focused on the mission, but after Shane’s outburst, part of him wasn’t surprised to receive it. He reached the door and tugged it open. “Crystal.”

Shane bit out a curse under his breath. The pun wasn’t lost on him as the door clanked shut.

On a short break, Crystal leaned into the dressing-room mirror and tilted her face into the light. The swelling had gone down, so between her makeup and the dim lights of the club, the customers didn’t seem to be noticing that she’d been struck. Bruno was too damn strategic to use his fists on her face, but he had no qualms about using an open palm, nor about taking out his frustrations on the rest of her body.

And last night, having lost Church’s prisoner and the guys who’d stolen him, he’d had frustration to spare.

Of course, he’d apologized, wrapped her in his coat, and escorted her home afterward. Normally, she drove herself crazy worrying about Jenna when she slept over at one of her college friend’s apartments, but last night she’d been grateful into her very marrow that her sister hadn’t been home to see what Bruno had done. Again.

When the abuse first started, Crystal had fallen for his apologies and made excuses for him. After all, he’d saved her from far worse. Now, she recognized the apologies as the reprieve they were, smiled and made nice, and bided her time.

Thanks to a merit scholarship that covered her tuition and a bunch of summer classes the past couple years, Jenna was on track to graduate from college in December. So they only had about eight months until Crystal could put her escape plan into action.

Where to escape to Crystal still hadn’t decided, but the anonymity of New York City’s teeming crowds looked really good. Maybe Crystal could find a job in the Garment District working for a big-name designer, and one day she’d have the resources and contacts to design her own collection . . .

“Hey, there,” Brandy said, pulling Crystal from her fantasies and slipping into the space next to her. A cleavage-revealing white robe around her shoulders, the raven-haired woman had a beautiful, lithe body and a serious meth addiction, and had worked at Confessions longer than Crystal although as a dancer, not a waitress. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Crystal said, chancing a smile at her.

Brandy’s gaze landed on her left cheekbone, and her expression faltered for just a moment. “Yeah? That’s good,” she said, her voice less successful at hiding what she’d seen.

“Is it that obvious?” Crystal grabbed her compact as she turned back to the mirror.

“No, not really. The fluorescent lights in here show every damn thing.” Brandy fished through her cosmetics bag. “I know just what to do. Look here.”

Embarrassment heating her cheeks, Crystal turned in her chair and faced the woman, who couldn’t be more than a few years older than her. They were friendly but not exactly friends. To Crystal, friends were people you could trust implicitly. Around here, it just wasn’t safe to give anyone that kind of power.

“Your skin is so pretty and so fair,” she said, holding back the loose curls on the side of Crystal’s face. “I always wanted red hair.” She stroked a brush over Crystal’s cheek.

“Why? Your hair is gorgeous and mysterious.”

She shifted the brush to Crystal’s other cheek. “And yours is rare and unique.” Her hand sagged into her lap. “What happened?”

Crystal pursed her lips and shrugged. Brandy knew what’d happened. Everyone around here knew what had happened when she showed up with a mark on her skin. And they all looked the other way.

“You’re too good for this place, Crystal. You know that, right?”

She gave a half laugh. “We’re all too good for this place.”

Brandy shook her head. “I’m being serious.” When Crystal didn’t say anything, the woman continued. “You’re talented and smart. What were you studying to be in college?”

“How did you—”

“God, girl, your father was so proud of you, he wouldn’t shut up about it. ‘First in the family,’ he’d say.”

“Oh,” Crystal said. Once, she would’ve glowed to hear such a thing about her father, but after she’d learned what he was into, it had gotten a lot harder to keep idolizing the man who had failed her and Jenna so spectacularly. It shouldn’t surprise her that Brandy had known her father. Lots of people around here had. His position as one of the Apostles meant that he’d been well-known and well respected.

But then his imprisonment and death and the revelation about his indebtedness to Church put an end to college for her before the end of her sophomore year.

Now, school felt so long ago it was as if Brandy spoke of another person. What life would be like if getting along with her college roommate was her biggest problem. God, how naïve she’d been. About the world. About her father. About everything.

“I hadn’t decided,” she lied. But she just couldn’t sully her dreams of becoming a clothing designer by giving voice to them in this place, especially given how she’d bastardized those dreams by occasionally making costumes for the dancers. Now it just sounded stupid. Childish. Impossible.

Brandy stroked more blush on Crystal’s cheeks. “Well, I’m sure it was going to be something great.” She grabbed a tube from her bag. “Let’s do this, too,” she said, rubbing some red lipstick on a sterile applicator.

Crystal turned back to the mirror and smoothed the bold color onto her lips.

“It’s way more than you usually wear, but you can totally pull it off, and it hides the mark,” Brandy said, echoing Crystal’s own thoughts. The rouge and lip color made the rest of her skin paler by comparison, but Brandy was right. The color on her face now looked intentional, hiding the redness by highlighting it.

“That is better. Thanks,” she said, glancing at her cell phone. Break time was over. “I guess I better get back out there before someone comes looking for me.”

“Hang tough, hon,” Brandy said, giving her hand a squeeze. “You have more of your father’s strength in you than you know.”

Crystal nodded and bolted for the door, suddenly feeling as if the walls were closing in on her. People around here didn’t often talk about her father. His arrest, conviction, and death provided an unwelcome reminder of where this life could take them if they weren’t careful. For her, his arrest and later death had been just the beginning of everything she’d lost, including her ability to trust. Because if you couldn’t count on your own father to tell the truth and protect you, who could you count on? She’d had no idea what he’d been into until his arrest.

Back on the floor, Crystal switched off with Amber to cover the section in the back corner of the club. Monday nights were always on the quiet side, and for that she was grateful. She moved between the tables, taking orders, delivering drinks, and offering flirtatious conversation. Just another role to play. But as this one earned her money, she always gave it her all.

“Welcome to Confessions. What can I get for you this evening?” she said to the man sitting by himself in the next-to-last booth.

He lifted his gaze to her. And all the air sucked out of the room.

Steel gray eyes.

Pretty Boy.

She gasped and took an unthinking step backward. Oh, God. What is he doing here? Crystal forced herself to ease her posture. If she called any attention to herself right now, things could get bad. For both of them.

“I’ll have a beer, please. Whatever’s on tap. And Crystal?”

She almost asked how he knew her name, but then she remembered telling him when they’d spoken last night, when she thought she was helping someone who belonged here.

“Just breathe.”

She turned away, her brain sorting through a variety of choices. Tell. Run. Avoid. All of which were fraught with potentially negative consequences for her. If she told them she recognized this man from last night, it would reveal that she hadn’t told them everything she’d seen. Namely, the man’s face.

The man’s exquisitely handsome face. Chiseled jaw. Playful, full lips.

God, what was wrong with her? If he didn’t get his sexy ass out of here, they were going to be in deep shit.