I think they all flew south after that last dancer.” Kyle laughed.
“Go to hell,” Mac mumbled, his attention on Marks. Before, when he walked through the crowded club, stopping occasionally to speak, he’d had his normal swagger, arrogance clinging to his thin frame like the cheap suit he wore.
With this group, he was all smiles, grinning like a damn Cheshire cat as he spoke to the men, Mac thought. He didn’t sit at the table with them, although there was an open seat. After several minutes, one of the men said something that wiped the smile off Marks’s face.
“Damn, I wish I could hear what they were saying,” Kyle said, watching the exchange as well.
“Whatever it was, it knocked that stupid-ass grin off Marks’s face,” Mac said, grunting.
“Think they’re connected with Medeiros?”
“Probably. We’ll follow them when they leave, get a make on their transportation and run a check.”
“I gather we’re not going home very soon, after all.”
“No. I think we’ll be sticking around for a while. We just may come up with something more interesting than returning a runaway.”
“Man, we ain’t making no money hanging around here,” Kyle groused, but Mac ignored him.
The image of the dancer’s sensual glides against the pole flashed in Mac’s mind. Marks wasn’t the only reason he wanted to stick around the Sweet Kitty for a few days more.
4
“What do you mean you’re ready to quit? Who told you that was your choice, bitch?” Damian Marks walked closer to Sienna, crowding her, shoving her until her back touched the back of the door.
Sienna was so afraid she felt close to peeing on herself, but she knew if she backed down now, the asshole would never let her go. She swallowed her fear and tried to shove at his chest.
“Back up off me, Damian! What the hell is wrong with you? I’ve paid you the money I owe you, then some! And I’m done with this life! I want out. I finished school and I’m ready to take care of my brother now!”
A sharp crack split the air, forcing her head back and away when his hand connected with the side of her face.
“Take care of your brother? That retarded mother—”
“Don’t! Don’t you fucking say it! Don’t you say anything about my brother!” Sienna cried, biting back the tears that sprang to her eyes. She raised her hand to hit Damian, and he caught her raised fist in a punishing grasp.
“Don’t. Don’t make the mistake of hitting me, Sin. I would hate to see something happen to Jacob.”
Sienna’s eyes widened in alarm and her heartbeat slammed against her chest. The flat expression in his soulless eyes scared her to death, and promised sure retribution if she hit him.
She could handle his retribution against her. That didn’t scare her.
What made her back down was the knowledge that he’d carry out his ugly threat and hurt her helpless brother.
“Now get your ass out there and make me some money,” he said.
She held his gaze for long moments, refusing to look away.
He broke first, turning away from her. The breath she’d been holding rushed out of her. She’d opened the door to leave, until his next words halted her in her tracks.
“Tonight I want you working the floor.”
“What? You know I don’t—”
“Tonight, and any other night I want you to, you will do what the hell I tell you to do. Now get your ass out of here, and get to work,” he said, and turned away from her in cold dismissal. “And Sin?”
Sienna half-turned to face him. “What?” she asked in a low voice.
“If I were you, I’d be careful. Very careful. You owe me, and when I say the debt is collected, then the debt is collected. Don’t make me have to remind you who’s in control around here, again, bitch.” The threat, along with the deadpan expression across his thin, pale face, sent chills racing down Sienna’s spine.
“I think I have trouble.”
“What trouble, Damian?” the low, deep voice asked, his tone calm, casual, conversational.
Immediately Damian raised his thumb to his mouth and began to chew nervously on his nail. He paced the length of his office. In disgust, he yanked his fingers out of his mouth, forcing himself to resist the urge to bite his nails to the skin.
A weakness he tried his damndest to overcome, but whenever he talked to Carlos—even on the phone—the old habit reared its ugly head.
“One of the dancers wants to quit.”
“And?” the man drawled in his smooth, barely accented voice.
“It’s Sienna,” he said abruptly, and waited.
There was a heartbeat of silence.
As he waited for the response, the nerves in Damian’s gut clenched to the point that he felt like hurling.
“What have you done?” The voice that was once smooth took on a sharper tone, the accent became thicker.
Damian nervously grabbed the expensive bottle of Glenfiddich single malt and poured it into one of the Waterford Crystal shot glasses set on the bar in his office.
“I have every confidence that you will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t happen, sí, Damian?”
“Uh, no. I mean, yes. She’s not going anywhere. I’ll make sure of it. You can count on me, sir.”
“Good, Damian. That is good. Because I would hate for something unfortunate to happen, were she to leave. I’ve so enjoyed our association.”
The dial tone on the other end signaled the end of the call.
Damian hung up the phone and sat down listlessly in his chair; fear and the consequences of what Carlos would do to him if Sienna left churned a hot path through his gut.
He looked around at the elegance of his office, at all the rare, expensive prints carefully hung on the wall, the expensive leather furniture, the wine rack with an assortment of high-priced wine—all of it represented how far he’d come from the poor snot-nosed kid from the wrong side of town who ran away.
He was no longer the picked-on street kid who was trying to make enough money to make rent because his strung-out whore of a mother was too fucked-up most times to give a damn if he ate, and mostly forgot he existed, nine times out of ten.
Not only did he own one of the most profitable strip clubs in downtown DC, but he was an associate of one of the most powerful men in the city. Even if the man didn’t acknowledge him in public, had to keep a certain “distance,”
