Hawk and I walked inside, and we were immediately surrounded by women who obviously thought we were there for a good time. We politely declined, trying to focus on finding Mona, because we couldn’t even imagine the kind of trouble she’d gotten herself into. The place had been crawling with Las Balas, and we tried to keep a low profile, because the minute any of them recognized us, all hell would break loose.
“Did she tell you that she was going to do this?” I asked Hawk.
“She told me that she was going to do whatever it took to get us the answers we needed, but I never thought that would mean she’d come here, to flaunt herself at El Diablo, just so she could get a confession out of him,” said Hawk. I could see the hurt in his eyes, but he knew that she just wanted to be helpful.
“We’re going to find her, and we’re going to make sure that El Diablo doesn’t lay a finger on her,” I said. “If she’s here to entice him, that means that we don’t have long before this truly goes down. We know how El Diablo treats the women around him, and I don’t want Mona to get caught up in all of that.”
I knew that this was a hard pill for him to swallow, because we were probably going to have to have Mona do the very same thing she’d set off to do on her own, but it hit us out of nowhere, that we were so scared something terrible was about to happen. There was no warning, no indication that she was going to start tracking him on her own, and if we’d even begun to doubt that she would stand down until we were ready, we would’ve kept a closer eye on her.
I glanced around at the strippers on stage, at those that were leading men behind curtains, presumably to give them the kind of enjoyment they were looking for. I couldn’t see Mona or El Diablo anywhere, but Lacey had said that they were here, so I had no choice but to keep looking. I just wanted to get in front of El Diablo, to give him hell for everything he’d put us through and make him pay for all the terrible things he’d done to the Outlaw Souls. Everyone had been right from the very beginning, suspecting that it was the Las Balas who had been behind Chalupa’s arrest. I just didn’t understand how a man like El Diablo could’ve gotten the DA on his side. The only thing I could think of was that the payout El Diablo enticed him with had to be a considerably large sum, something that man just couldn’t pass up.
I hated that Lacey had to be anywhere near him, especially seeing how dangerous he was. I was so worried that he was going to catch on to the fact that she was aware of what he’d been up to lately, and I knew she was going to have a hard time getting out of that one.
I knew that she would want nothing more than for me to find her best friend, to bring her to safety, because she didn’t need to be caught in the middle of all of this. I knew that Mona was just trying to do her best, just trying to keep the people she’d come to care about out of trouble, but I didn’t want her to end up as another one of El Diablo’s victims.
I searched for what felt forever until I noticed that someone had opened one of the back curtains to reveal a familiar face giving a lap dance to none other than El Diablo himself. The minute that Hawk caught sight of what was going on, seeing Mona there like that, made him so angry he was about to barge in and put a stop to it himself.
“Wait, wait! If you storm in there like that, Mona isn’t going to get what she needs out of El Diablo, and they’re probably going to kill her before you even have the chance to save her. Give it a moment. We’ll keep a close eye on her to make sure nothing happens, but if she went through all this trouble to get that confession, then we have to let her see it through. We’ll stay here, watch the curtain, and make sure that El Diablo doesn’t lay a hand on Mona, okay?”
I could see the pain in Hawk’s eyes while he tried his best to keep his head held high, to let the woman that he loved do this for the sake of the Outlaw Souls, for the sake of keeping the people that had become his family out of jail. Mona truly was our only hope, the only chance we had at finding a way out of this, and as much as it hurt to see him like that, he knew that I was right.
If we had stormed in there, they probably would’ve had their guns out before we even had the chance to reach for ours, and I certainly wasn’t about to let anyone get hurt because we couldn’t stay still for a few more minutes. Hawk’s eyes were burning through the small slit in the curtain, watching Mona do what she needed to do, but keep a safe distance away from El Diablo’s hands, because she knew the minute he touched her, it would all be downhill from there. Just as we were sure she was getting him to talk, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and when I turned around I was staring at a face I really didn’t want to see in a place like this.
“Lacey?”
Thirty
Lacey
Why would Mona put herself through this knowing that it was quite possible she wouldn’t be able to walk away? Doesn’t she know how dangerous this is? When I find her and make sure that she’s all right, I’m going to kill her for trying to do this on her own.
Driving down to the strip club where I was bound to run into some very terrible people, I only hoped that Moves and Hawk got there before I did, otherwise I was probably going to be facing a lot more trouble than I realized. I pulled up outside of the strip club to see that Moves’ bike was parked outside, and I took a breath of relief, because at least I knew that he was in there looking for Mona.
When I got inside, the women in the room barely batted an eyelid at me. They were probably expecting a man to stroll in there with a large wad of cash to pass around, and seeing me no doubt disappointed all of them. At least they weren’t going to be a distraction while I tried to find my best friend, who was off doing the stupidest thing she could’ve possibly thought of, even if I did know she was just trying to help.
I had told her what the stakes were, and how dangerous it was going to be for her to get involved with this before any of us had the chance to provide the backup she was most certainly going to need. I knew that Mona had been an exotic dancer back in college before we met, but I had no idea that she was going to try to use that to get what she needed out of El Diablo. We hadn’t even had the chance to discuss how we planned on getting a confession out of him, but I just didn’t want my best friend to get hurt.
She was strong, and she was determined, but that didn’t mean that she knew exactly what she was getting herself into. I could only imagined the kind of terribly disgusting things El Diablo has done with women just like Mona, who wanted something out of him, but my greatest fear was that he’d be able to see right through her before she had the chance to get any sort of confession out of him.
She had never gone undercover like that before, and as much as we explained to her exactly what she wasn’t supposed to do, that didn’t mean that she was anywhere near ready to be alone with a man like that. El Diablo was a sex trafficker, he ran drugs, and he’d built his entire empire on exploiting people. I didn’t know what I would do if something bad happened before I had the chance to get Mona out of there, to remind her that she had her whole life ahead of her, and that there had to be another way to do this.
I searched for what felt like forever in the rather large strip club, the heels of my boots catching on the awful red carpet and the stage lights shining overhead in different colors, creating the kind of atmosphere I didn’t want to be caught in right about now. That was because I could see that the room was full of bikers who obviously didn’t belong to the Outlaw Souls, and that only told me that they had to be Las Balas. We were certainly outnumbered, and I had to find Moves and Hawk before something terrible happened to me as well.
I was scared and my heart was pounding heavily in my chest as I walked through the strip club to the very back where I saw Moves and Hawk standing there, peering into a room, and when I joined them to see what they’d been looking at, I realized that Mona was right behind the curtains. I tapped Moves on the shoulder, and he turned around to look at me, wide-eyed like he didn’t expect to see me.
“Lacey? What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay away,” he said, and I shook my head.
“I know what you told me, but this is my best friend, Moves. I have to do everything I can to protect her. Is she in there right now with El Diablo?” I asked angrily, and Moves nodded.
“She’s getting him to talk,” said Moves, “and I know that you think she’s in immediate danger, but we’re keeping an eye on her to make sure that El Diablo doesn’t touch her. She went through all this trouble to get a confession out of him, so if we stand in her way now, and storm in there to save her, it would all be for nothing.”
“You can’t just stand there and expect me to wait here while my best friend is shaking her ass for a man that is that dangerous. I don’t care what the stakes are, Moves, I won’t be able to live with myself if something bad happens to her, and I know that you wouldn’t be able to either,” I said.
He nodded. “Come here, Lacey. I need you to listen to this,” Moves said, and I inched closer to him, peering into the curtain, hearing Mona getting El Diablo to finally spill what he’d been up to. It seemed that I had misjudged her, and that she was much better at this undercover work than I expected. He seemed to be quite taken with her, quite enticed by her appearance and the way she moved her body, but I could tell that Hawk had a considerably more difficult time paying attention to it all. I knew that it hurt him to see her like that, but Moves was right: the only reason she was doing this was to get that confession and protect the Outlaw Souls from crumbling to the ground.
It dawned on me that we wouldn’t have anything to use as solid proof that El Diablo had been in contact with the DA, much less making deals with him unless Mona could get this confession out of him, and it surely was our last chance before everything came crashing down around us.
The Outlaw Souls were hanging on by a thread, because the minute El Diablo gave the order, I knew that the LPPD was going to start rounding up every biker that wasn’t from Las Balas, and there was no way I’d be able to get all of them out from behind bars. I gulped, trying to pay attentionto what was going on in that room with my best friend, but I couldn’t help but be distracted by just how angry Hawk had been.
