“You were very helpful . . .” His brows rose expectantly, and he gave her a crooked grin that tempted her to smile in return.
Bewildered, she stared at him, just soaked in all that easy charm and raw masculinity. And then she realized he was waiting for her to . . . Oh! “Crystal,” she said. “You’re welcome, sir.”
Wearing a satisfied smile, he eased back a step. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”
Doubtful. “Okay.” Seeing her chance to get away, Crystal took off again and didn’t look back. Though the urge was definitely there.
Whatever. She had enough on her plate without fantasizing about a man she didn’t want, couldn’t have, and who probably wouldn’t want her anyway.
Crystal made her way down the dim hallway to the far end, where offices sat behind a steel door. Unthinkingly, she entered the code onto the keypad, waited for the mechanical click, and stepped into the nerve center of Jimmy Church’s gang operations. Or one of them, at least. Usually, the girls weren’t allowed in here. But Bruno was one of the Apostles in Church’s operation, just as her father had once been, and her association with those men earned her the privilege, such as it was.
She made her way through the empty outer office and to the second door down the hallway. With a knock on the frame, she leaned into the open door.
Bruno glanced away from the computer, and his expression slid into a scowl when he saw her. “Where have you been?” He rose and rounded the big mahogany desk that dominated the room and clashed with the wall of pin-ups: nude models, bad-ass motorcycles, and classic hot rods. Strip-club chic.
“Uh . . . I’m sorry. I’ve got two bachelor parties,” she said, peering up at him and trying to gauge his mood.
With mountains of muscles built from steroids and hours spent lifting, Bruno Ashe was a wall of a man, his arrogance and ego filling the office and making him seem twice as big. Once, she’d thought his unruly brown hair softened the severity of his face, but now all she could see was the perpetual scowl he wore, made more pronounced by a scar from a knife fight on his cheek. God, how had she ever been attracted to him? How had she ever thought he was the answer to her problems? What she wouldn’t give to go back four years and give her nineteen-year-old self a kick in the butt.
“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.