Better When He's Brave

Race snorted and shrugged. “No, and I’m not sure why everyone seems to think it’s my job to keep tabs on him. I don’t have the guy microchipped. He can come and go as he pleases.”

Nassir’s caramel-tinted gaze switched over to me. It was hard not to flinch under the intensity of it. This guy was scary, and it had me wanting to rethink this hasty plan.

“What are you doing here?” There was only annoyance in his tone as he spoke to me.

I cleared my throat so I could speak without my voice cracking. It was never a good idea to show fear in front of a predator. “I want you to find me something to do in the club so that Conner will make a move. All this waiting is getting us nowhere and he’s escalating. I’d rather you go toe-to-toe with him than the feds, which is the next option. They pulled my deal off the table.”

Nassir didn’t say anything for a long moment. His tawny eyes shifted between me and Race and then one of his pitch-black eyebrows shot up on his forehead. “This was your idea?” He asked the question of Race.

The blond man shook his head in the negative and hitched his thumb in my direction. “All her, and she even cleared it with the cop.”

The second eyebrow winged up to joined the first on Nassir’s face. “The cop knows if the Irishman comes anywhere near me he isn’t going to walk away breathing. He would never agree to that.”

“Desperate times.” I couldn’t really explain Titus’s motivation in agreeing to this new scheme, but as long as he was supporting it, I wasn’t going to tempt fate by digging too deep.

“What exactly do you want to do? Get up onstage?” His eyes rolled over me and white flashed as he gave me a lecherous grin. “I could work with that.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes at him. I refrained from elbowing Race in the ribs as he muttered, “Told ya,” out of the corner of his mouth.

“No, I don’t want to dance. I told Titus that wouldn’t be part of it. Can’t you put me behind the bar or something?” I didn’t ask about cocktail serving because even those girls had to work topless, and while I wasn’t shy, I wasn’t okay with having my lady bits within grabbing distance of drunken hands.

“There isn’t room behind the bar. And that job is murkier than getting naked onstage. The cop would have a fit if he knew you were messing around with dirty money.”

Both Race and Nassir looked so suave, so clean cut, that it was easy to forget they had their hands on piles and piles of illegal cash from running the city’s underground. All that dirty money needed to get clean somehow and running the bills through the bar at a strip club was obviously a no-brainer.

Race agreed and then grinned at me. “You know how you’re focused on building yourself a new club and always complaining about how you don’t want to be here? Put Reeve in charge. She thinks Spanky’s is butt ugly and was just telling me how someone needs to show it some love. Why not let a woman do it? The dancers would probably like having a softer touch around here. She thinks they need something to value as their own. She thinks that would’ve kept Honor around.”

“Keelyn.” Nassir and I barked the woman’s real name at the same time and eyes that were the color of spiced cider switched from annoyed to speculative.

“What do you mean, give them something to value?”

I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “You hire the prettiest girls you can find. You give them a degree of security they wouldn’t have out on the street, but they are still getting naked for strangers and that can be demeaning. Class the joint up. Get rid of the pink everywhere. It’s gaudy. Make this place feel expensive and worthwhile and the girls won’t just work here, they’ll own it. Plus you can charge more and bring in a better class of loser. This place feels like a throwback to harder times, and after that shootout . . .” I shrugged again because he wasn’t stupid and knew exactly what I was talking about. “You need to breathe new life into this place just like you’re trying to do with Novak’s other old businesses.”

Nassir muttered something in a language I didn’t understand but it sounded exotic and sexy. No wonder Key ran. Having all that smoldering intensity and sexy appeal focused solely on her had to be nearly impossible to resist.

“You think a new coat of paint and some new decor would have kept Key here?” He sounded skeptical.

“No. I think she had to go so when she comes back she can do it knowing she’ll probably never leave again. That’s a hard pill to swallow. I think if she knew she was more than just tits and ass and a pretty show you would’ve gotten a lot further with her.”

He grunted at me and sat down in the chair behind the ugly desk. He looked at something on the computer and then over my shoulder to where Chuck was still standing as a silent sentinel.

“What do you think? Is this a crazy idea?”

The giant African American man barked out a laugh that had me jumping a little. “No way. It’s fucking brilliant. The regulars are too comfortable and you have too much on your plate. Let her tear this place apart and fix it up. Let her make it as pretty as she is. No one will know what hit them.”

I shot Race a look out of the corner of my eye and then shifted my feet nervously. This wasn’t what I had expected at all. “Uh . . . I can’t play around with laundering money. The feds already have me on their radar and Titus will kill all of us after he locks us up if he thinks any of that is going on.”

Nassir flicked a look to Race then back to me and he folded his hands together and leaned back in the chair. He looked like a devil sitting on a tattered throne.