Lee glared at me.

I looked to Eddie and the instant I did, he said, “Don’t fuck this up.”

“I can’t guarantee that,” I told him honestly. “What I can do is do my best to make certain this is about me and Darius and it doesn’t leak to the rest of the posse. And I’ll do that.”

But Lee was now glaring at Eddie, and after I finished speaking, he bit out, “You cannot be cool with this.”

“I’m not. Then again, hermano, I haven’t been cool with this shit for seventeen fuckin’ years,” Eddie replied.

Lee again closed his mouth.

He wasn’t cool with it either.

I took in a breath and held it.

Lee looked back to me. “I’m not involved.”

This was disappointing. It was also unsurprising. There was never a time when there wasn’t a Lee, Eddie and Darius. Even when Lee and Eddie were fighting (which happened often) and when Darius was on the wrong side of the law and Eddie was a cop.

They had a bond. They were brothers.

And if you love your brother, you had his back and backed his plays.

So I nodded.

Lee’s body partially relaxed when he informed me, “You don’t know this but he takes care of them.”

“I do know that. It isn’t about money and protection, though,” I replied. “It’s something bigger and you know it.”

“He does what he can do,” Lee stated and I totally dug it that he was defending his best friend.

But he needed to wake up.

“Your baby is growing in my best friend’s belly,” I reminded him and his head jerked. “And God forbid something happens between you and Indy or to you to change you or take you away from them in any capacity. You think on that. You think on Indy going it alone raising your child. She’d have money, no doubt. But you know that’s not even the half of what it takes. And, last, you think on your child growing up without knowing all the righteousness that is you. That would be a tragedy. So you think on that, Lee. Then you come back to me and tell me I’m doing the wrong thing. I still won’t believe you and I’ll still do what I intend to do. But I’ll be even more disappointed in you.” I looked to Eddie and finished, “The both of you.”

I thought that was a good parting line so I made it one, moved forward, shoved past Lee and walked out the door.

* * *

“Babe, it’s going to be cool.”

That was me, sitting with Ren at his dining room table, watching him not eating the seafood linguini he’d made us and instead sipping wine, staring at the table and brooding.

I’d told him everything. About what was happening at Smithie’s and about the wheels I set in motion in regards to Darius.

I did not expect him to lay a hot and heavy celebratory kiss on me after he shouted, “All right! My woman is going to be in the line of fire tonight!”

So I was giving him his space, but I still wanted to assure him I was going to be all right.

I mean, Mace and Luke had my back. That was nothing to sneeze at.

At my words, he turned his head to me, sipped more wine and when he was done, he stated, “I’m gonna be there tonight.”

I fought back a sigh but nodded.

I expected that. It was intrusive and maybe wrong. But my man had a protective streak, and until he was entirely down with what I was doing, I needed to give him some leeway.

He went back to brooding.

I reached out and touched his thigh. “Honey, I’m gonna be okay.”

He looked at me and declared, “Santo got into Snookie Rivers’s apartment today. He has a room dedicated to pictures of you. He’s a stalker, and not the tame harmless variety. The sick and twisted variety. Lucky was on him and he must have made him, because when Lucky went to get the drop on him, he got the drop on Lucky and got away.”

I shot back in my seat.

Holy shit!

“There’s an unknown weirdo out there taking pictures of me?” I asked.

“Yeah. Everywhere. All you. At work. At home. Both of ‘em. Your apartment and here. Just you. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them.”

Hundreds was bad.

But thousands?

“I… what…” I stammered, then pulled myself out of my shock and got it together. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know. My mind doesn’t work like that. What I do know is while I’ve been thinkin’ on this and whether or not to tell you, I didn’t think on whether or not to give Darius the heads up. So I did. And you might be pissed, but he’s at your back often so he needs to keep an eye out. I left it up to him, and now you, if you share with your brothers. But my vote, you do, and someone, I don’t give a fuck who, closes that guy down.”

This grossed me out, but still.

“I’m not sure it’s illegal to take pictures of someone, Ren.”

“The way he’s doin’ it?” he asked, but didn’t want an answer mostly because he already had one. “Fuck yeah it is. You need a restraining order. Which won’t do jack. So that means he gets a message. And I’d like it to be me that gives it to him. But if Darius, one of your brothers or one of his men get there before me, I won’t argue.”

This did not make me feel warm and fuzzy.

“It was that bad?” I asked quietly.

“Thousands of pictures, Ally,” he answered, not quietly.

Whoa.

He wasn’t being broody about my job that night.

He was being broody because I had a sicko taking photos of me.

“Do we have a picture of him so I know who I’m looking for and they will, too?” I asked.

“Darius says he’s got Brody on that. DMV. Whatever. Brody will find somethin’ and he’ll give it to me.”

I nodded.

“You watch your back. You also drive to work tonight with me.”

Oh man.

“Ren—”

“Do not fight this, Ally,” he cut me off. “It’ll get ugly, I assure you, baby, and you won’t win. I got a man fixated on my woman and you gotta let me do what I have to do. You with me?”

I thought on it, but not long enough for the Italian Hothead to wake up and decide he needed to make his point.

Then I said, “I’m with you, honey.”

He took in a deep breath and let it go.

Relief.

“Though, I’ll say, I miss our fighting,” I continued.

His chin jerked back and his brows went up before he asked, “Have you lost your mind?”

“No. Without fights there’s no angry sex.”

That got him

His lips quirked. He put down his wineglass and picked up his fork as he asked, “Am I fallin’ down on that part of the job, babe?”

“I will point out, we haven’t had sex today,” I shared, also digging back into my linguini.

I was lifting a load to my mouth when I felt his eyes on me. So I gave him mine.

“The day isn’t done,” he replied.

I grinned.

Then I quit grinning so I could shove delicious linguini and shrimp into my mouth.

* * *

 “I get him, you get off stage. You get the girls in the dressing room and keep them there. You keep the dressing room door closed and locked. Lenny’s gonna be outside. You keep your phone in your hand and you hear something you don’t like, you call 911. And you keep the girls calm.”

I was giving the instructions Lee gave to me by text to Lottie.

I was about to go on. And Lottie was going on with me.

Double the viewing entertainment, double the distraction from what would be going on in the club.

I’d briefed her and Lottie knew what was happening.

All of it.

And she was all in.

I got closer and said quietly, “This ends for them tonight. But our jobs aren’t done tonight.”

She nodded.

“He get them all?” I asked something I didn’t want to know but, alas, needed to know.

She nodded again but said, “He’s partial to JoJo. Sometimes he has a taste for Meena. But he’s tried them all.”

I lifted my hands to the sides of her head and pulled her to me so our foreheads were touching. “We’ll see to them.”

She nodded but said, “Smithie’s gonna unravel.”

Smithie knew nothing about this. This was because Smithie would first commit murder.

Then he’d unravel.

“We’ll see to him, too,” I promised.

She nodded again.

“You do that onstage, I’ll give you both fifty bucks as a bonus and I’ll name my next fuckin’ kid after you,” Smithie said as he approached.

Lottie and I broke apart and looked his way.

“We’re already dancing a double,” I reminded him.

“Yeah. I know. This is why you’re in my fuckin’ will,” Smithie replied as the music silenced and the girls ran off the stage.

I drew in a deep breath and grabbed Lottie’s hand.

Smithie went onstage and walked across it to get the microphone.

“Remember,” I said, staring through the crack in the curtain. “When I get him, you get the girls.”

“I remember,” Lottie replied on a hand squeeze. “And if, when you get his gun, you accidentally squeeze off a round, I’m your witness that it was accidentally.”

Great minds think alike.

“So put your hands together, motherfuckers!” Smithie was concluding his introduction. “’Cause the Rock Chick and Lottie Mac are teamin’ up, and it’s gonna blow your motherfucking minds!”

It certainly would.

In a lot of ways.

The club went black, Smithie stumbled off and Lottie and I dashed on.

In the dark, the opening riffs of Nickelback’s “Something in Your Mouth” hit the space. The rest of the band kicked in, the bright lights hit the stage and Lottie and I hit each other.

It was an ingenious plan. No man in that room would look anywhere but at Lottie and I as we double teamed. Squatting down and sliding up each other’s bodies. Smacking each other’s asses. Circling a pole low while the other went high. Flicking each other’s hair. Kicking a leg over the other who was in a squat. Both of us swinging our asses out to the audience in tandem.

And frequently, we sucked on our thumbs.

And each other’s.

If this wasn’t part of a mission, I would have giggled my ass off through the whole thing. It was a blast. Absolutely. And the light in Lottie’s eyes told me she felt the same.

We were both down to sequined bras and panties and platform stripper shoes when we broke off. Lottie caught attention by catching the pole high, swinging out, rolling off and hitting her hands and knees, crawling on the stage with back arched, ass high, lips parted, hair in her face.

She was the total shit.

I jumped off the stage and it was during one of the rapid-fire rap parts of the song so I could make some moves on a couple men on my way to my target.

And as the song broke down, I did a lot of gyrating, hair whipping, slow walking, dipping my ass into laps only to pull away before flesh hit flesh, and shimmying.

I found my way in front of Gibbons just as the song kicked it up again.

I looked into his eyes.

He was looking at my breasts.

Fuck yeah.

It didn’t matter my last name was Nightingale. It didn’t matter that I might be a threat.

I had tits.

And that meant I had him, the asshole.

I leaned down, putting my hands to his knees and whipping my head around. I turned around and gave him a personal, long drawn out ass sway when Chad Kroeger did the kickass drawn out “everyone.”

I flipped around and mounted his lap.

His hands immediately went to my hips.

I barely controlled a lip curl at his touch and I moved on him. I put my hands on his shoulders, pulsing my hips under his hands, whipping my hair in his face, catching his eyes to see his at my crotch.

Yeah.

I had him.

So I took him.

Reaching in his jacket, I went right for his gun.

His fingers on my hips bit in and his eyes shot from my crotch to my face.

I felt for the snap, flipped it and yanked his gun out just as I jumped off his lap, his hands sliding clean free since I was oiled up (and good).

I got three feet back and pointed the gun in his face.

The music stopped and the lights went up. There was some clapping, but everyone around Gibbons and me had seen the dance change and were shuffling away, seeing as there was a stripper with a gun.

Gibbons stared into my eyes, and I knew he was about to go for me right when he was out of his chair and being slammed face first into the floor by Mace.

Luke came to me and took the gun out of my hand.

“I need to find a way to erase the last three minutes,” he muttered, sounding aggrieved.