“Bet you could break her if you had enough time,” the other one said, and they both laughed, too sharp and too quick.
I memorized their faces. If they ever tried, I’d break them instead.
The show cycled through two more dancers before Harper reappeared on the floor, now in a cocktail dress and heels that looked less “stripper” and more “ambassador’s mistress.” She walked the floor with a tray, stopping at VIP tables and collecting compliments like arrows to the chest. She didn’t touch, didn’t smile, just nodded and kept moving.
I drained my water. The server came back. “Would you like to see a menu, sir?”
“I’m waiting on a friend,” I said, and let my gaze linger just a hair too long. He nodded and left. I knew Wrecker was in place, covering the parking lot and the back door. All I had to do was wait for the signal.
Harper made her rounds. She never looked at me. I wondered if she recognized my scent, or if the years had burned that out of her nose. I watched her hands: steady, sure, never trembling. She was working. She was surviving. I respected that.
Another set ended. The crowd thinned a little as the clock edged past midnight. The club was quieter now, the soundtrack dialing down to a slow, orchestral pulse. I saw the manager, a tall, bleach-blond asshole in a sharkskin suit, make a circuit of the floor. He stopped at each dancer, whispered something in their ear. When he reached Harper, she stiffened, then nodded once. He kept his hand on her back for a second too long, then moved on.
My teeth ground together hard enough to rattle the fillings.
A couple in business casual moved to the bar near me. The woman wore heavy perfume, but underneath I caught her anxiety, the edge of some fight they’d been having all night. The man ignored her, watched the stage instead. The woman noticed me noticing, and for a second our eyes locked. She looked away fast, but not before I caught the look of “what the fuck are you doing here?” on her face.
It was a fair question. I didn’t belong. But neither did Harper.
I counted out the seconds as she finished her floor rotation and disappeared into the corridor behind the bar. I considered whether to follow, but Bronc’s voice in my head reminded me: patience. Mission first. Get the data, get the timeline, then get the girl.
But my wolf had other ideas. He wanted to kick down the door, take her by the hand, and run for the hills.
I checked my phone. A single ping from Wrecker: “Manager headed up to the VIP rooms. It’s arranged.”
Upstairs, it was all glass and hush. The main stage was a memory; up here, it was just corridors of carpet, soft gold sconces, and the quiet pulse of money moving unseen. I texted Wrecker: “Phase 2. Ten minutes.”
When I made for the VIP corridor, the bouncer at the curtain looked me up and down. “You on the list?”
“You bet,” I said. “Mike Rodgers.”
I dressed the part. Black suit, crisp white shirt, gold cufflinks. Left my own boots but buffed them to a spit shine. The trick with these places: look like money, but not the kind that needed to brag about it.
I was at ease since I knew Wrecker would be shadowing the lot from a street over. My credentials tonight were the ones Parker had cooked up: forged driver’s license, a packof corporate credit cards tied to a legitimate Houston holding company, and a stack of hundreds to grease the right hands.
I was shown to the “Infinity Suite,” which cost more than a month’s rent in most places. The host swiped a card to let me in, then shut the door without a word. I stood there, letting my eyes adjust to the low light. The room was larger than an efficiency apartment. Real leather couches, a white marble bar with decanters pre-poured, and a crescent stage in the middle of the wall, empty but for a single pole lit by a cold blue spot.
I took the seat farthest from the lights, my back to the wall. I made note of the camera light in the upper right. With a twist, I yanked out the small jammer from my jacket and turned it on. The camera’s red light blinked twice, then went dead. Thank you, Wrecker.
They made me wait ten minutes, just enough to remind me who controlled the clock. When she finally arrived, she did not look up. Harper’s hair was down, silky and pale in the low light. She wore a black sheath dress, and her arms were bare but for a single silver cuff. She carried herself like someone heading to their own execution—measured, resigned, already halfway to the gallows.
She stopped five feet from me.
I let the silence draw out. It was a tool; silence. It let you see how long someone could last before their nerves snapped. Harper lasted longer than most. She didn’t fidget, didn’t speak. Her wolf was strong, even in this place.
After a full minute, I spoke. “Take off your dress.”
She hesitated. Just a flicker, a ripple down her neck. But then her hands went to the zipper, and in one smooth motion, she pulled the dress off. She wore nothing underneath, not even the thin stage thong. Her body was paler than I remembered, but the muscle was still there, hard and clean. The mesh of old scars on her knee shone like a watermark.
She dropped the dress to the floor and waited.
“Your shoes,” I said, my voice dry and flat.
She bent, slipped off her heels, and set them neatly beside the dress.
“Now dance.”
The room’s sound system was voice-activated; I whispered “play” and some slow, unfamiliar song started up, the kind meant for closing time and final calls. She stepped onto the stage, climbed the short riser, and put her hands around the pole.
