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I wasn’t surprised. Once all the customers had gone for the night, a couple of the displays had been rolled to the sides to create an open space for dancing.

But that didn’t mean I was ready for it.

Brinley and Elena parading out on their heels, bodies beginning to sway in the wash of moody candlelight.

Both of them were giggling and being a little goofy.

My gaze fastened on Elena.

On the entrancing rhythm of her hips and the enticing roll of her body.

“Boring as fuck around here. Only women here are one, my sister, two, my brother’s wife…” Brody started ticking them off on his fingers like we needed help keeping count. “Three, my grandmother, and four, that lady that Elena hired.”

“What, you not one to go for older women?” Silas razzed.

“Oh, I’ll take them all, cougars and panthers included. Your boy does not discriminate. But Peggy or Patty or Penny or whatever the fuck her name is doesn’t seem too game.”

I would have slit his throat if he even thought about it. Penny was definitely beautiful. In her early fifties. But there was something haunted about her.

Hurt.

Lonely.

And I wouldn’t stand for any of these assholes messing with her.

I’d seen a couple of our older Crows eyeing her tonight from where she basically hid out behind the main counter, though now, she sat with Meems and Kai in the corner.

I was going to have to take the issue up at our next Church meeting.

Warn them away.

I nearly scoffed at myself. Like I had the right to be making any rules when it came to her, and sure as hell not with the sins I’d been committing.

The betrayals I’d been dishing.

But there was something about Penny that made me feel protective of her. Like we needed to be careful. Hedge her in our security.

“That’s because she probably threw up in her mouth a little bit when she saw the abomination that is your face.” Phoenix issued it as he took a sip of his whiskey.

Brody gave him a look like he’d eaten his last Oreo. And the dude loved his Oreos.

“You wound me, Phoenix. You wound me. A knife straight through the damned heart. And here I thought we were friends.” It was a jesting accusation.

Phoenix actually chuckled. “Keep dreaming, buddy. Keep dreaming.”

“Life goals, man, we all have them.” Brody was all grins.

Phoenix only shook his head with the hint of a smile denting the dimple in his left cheek. You’d think it’d soften him, but it only made him look even more unhinged.

Kai suddenly tottered out from where he’d been sitting on Meems’ lap, bouncing his way toward Brinley.

Arms over his head. Wearing jeans and a button-down and Vans. Cute as fucking hell.

My chest tightened a fraction. The wound right there and forever threatening to rip wide open.

I glanced at Elena, watching to see if she would look at him with the sorrow she’d spoken of last week.

But she was all love and smiles, taking his hand once Brinley scooped him up. The three of them danced together, making Kai squeal and laugh as they twirled him around.