I slumped in the chair and stared at the clock. Thirty minutes until I had to go out there again, sell myself one more time.
I wondered if Jess was still here. If he’d try to save me, or if he’d just laugh while I burned.
Either way, I had to get through tonight. I smoothed my costume, wiped the runny mascara from under my eyes, and made myself stand up.
The wolf inside me bared her teeth.
I had no choice in the matter. This was my life, my shame through no fault of my own. I’d take the stage like I did almost every night, and I’d own it.
Chapter 4
Arsenal
The Eyrie stood two stories tall on the old business loop, every inch of its limestone facade bleached by years of the Texas sun. I parked in the alley like a good customer and walked around to the front. The entrance had all the signals: valet in a tailored vest, a security man in a tailored neck, a pair of bronze doors with etched glass and nothing to see inside. I stopped just shy of the entry, got my head straight. You only got one first impression in a place like this, and the wrong one would end you before you reached the coat check.
The vestibule was marble and velvet and expensive as fuck. They’d taken every cliché of a gentleman’s club and upmarketedit until even the wallpaper looked smug. A hostess with a diamond chip in her incisor greeted me before I’d taken a full step inside. She wore a matte black sheath and heels that could’ve killed a small mammal. I noticed her scent: anxious, sharp, undercut by a designer floral that tried too hard.
“Good evening, sir.” Her smile was professional, with a trace of the same smile a flight attendant gives to a man she’s already decided is harmless. “Is this your first visit to The Eyrie?”
“It is,” I said. I kept my voice pitched low, unthreatening. That always made them more nervous.
She showed me past the check-in podium. I scanned the room as we moved—chandeliers set to a dim gold, bars at each corner manned by white-jacketed staff, the stage dead center with a circle of dark wood tables radiating out like the rings of a target. I clocked two off-duty cops at the bar, sleeves rolled, eyes hard. The waitresses wore navy bustiers and garters but moved with the wary economy of people who knew exactly how fast a night could turn. The air hummed with low music and the metallic tang of old bills.
“The main floor’s nearly full,” the hostess said. “Do you have a reservation?”
“Friend of Mr. Corbin,” I replied, dropping the name from our last recon. “Said I should check it out.”
The smile stayed pasted on, but her pupils flared for a fraction. She nodded, led me past a pair of glowering bouncers, and seated me at a half-moon booth with a polished brass rail. “Service will be right with you. Anything else, just ask.”
I watched her heels click away, then took a long scan of the perimeter. Two exits, one on each wing. Main stage up front, three dancer poles. There were at least eight servers on the floor, and I counted six cameras in sight. I ran a thumb over the ridge of scar on my left hand, comforted by the weight of the Glock at my back.
A server appeared at my elbow. He wore the same fitted jacket, hair slicked back, no jewelry. “Welcome to The Eyrie, sir. Will you be needing a drink menu?”
I told him just water, then looked up at the main stage as the lights faded and the music changed.
The crowd surged, not with hoots or howls but with the controlled anticipation of men who bought their excitement in measured, expensive ounces. The DJ didn’t announce the dancer’s name. She just walked out under the lights, and every eye in the place locked on.
Harper.
It was her, and the wolf in my chest nearly burst through my ribs. She looked taller than I remembered even from when Gunner and I were here a week ago. I was so shocked I barely noticed anything past her face. She looked like she had more muscle and curve in her hips, her long legs carving geometry out of the blue light. Her blonde hair, all one sheet, fell straight down her back like a curtain about to drop. She wore a mesh bodysuit that glittered at every angle and left nothing to the imagination but everything to want.
She didn’t smile. Not in the way the other dancers did. Her face was blank as glass. She didn’t flirt with the crowd; she looked above them, over them, through them. Every movement was deliberate. She took the pole with a single hand, spun a slow half-circle, and the mesh caught the light in patterns across her skin. The first drop brought her to a split, then she rolled up easy as breathing, never breaking rhythm. The bills started raining almost immediately—tens, twenties, a few hundreds. The other dancers worked the corners and the floor. Harper stayed in the light.
I couldn’t stop watching. I told myself it was recon, that I was here to observe, but every flicker of her body called to the wolf in me and made it impossible to focus. I saw the way menwatched her. I saw how their faces went slack, how their hands gripped their drinks tighter. One patron in a golf shirt leaned forward so far I thought he’d fall out of his seat. My hands clenched the brass rail. The urge to break his teeth buzzed in my forearms.
She didn’t see me, not once. But I saw the way she watched the bouncers every so often, as if confirming which ones were on duty, which ones carried guns, which ones cared enough to do more than stare at her ass. She’d learned to scan the room the way I had—always knowing where the danger would come from.
She did a series of spins, fast and sharp, then landed in a crouch that sent a wave through the whole crowd. She made it look easy, but I knew how much control that took, even before whatever had made that left knee weak. She let her hair fall forward, hiding her face, and for one second she looked more animal than dancer—more wolf than girl.
When the song ended, the lights faded, and she gathered the bills with an efficiency that bordered on bitter. No blown kisses, no winks. She vanished offstage in a blur of pale skin and shimmer.
I took a breath. My water arrived. I sipped, then scanned the club again. The servers moved like chess pieces, always three tables ahead of the customer. The men drank slow, calculated. There wasn’t the raucous energy of a regular strip club, no sense of release or abandon. Every man in here wore his mask tight to the bone; the only thing real was the hunger.
I slouched in the booth, arms spread. The upholstery was soft, but itched at my shoulders. I dialed up the burn in my glare, just enough to keep anyone from getting ideas about chatting me up.
I caught a fragment of conversation from the next table; a stocky guy with an oilfield tan and a thinner man in a checkedshirt. “You see her?” the thin one whispered, low and reverent. “Fucking poetry, man.”
“She don’t fuck if you don’t have enough cash,” the stocky one replied, not taking his eyes off the stage. “That’s what makes ‘em want her.”
