Page 43 of Pretty Lies

“No pictures!”

Shit.

That stripper had finally stopped shaking her ass in front of him.

So, hey.

Maybe he wasn’t so good at multitasking after all. Apparently, the stripper hadn’t realized that he was having a whole conversation on his phone because he’d been using the Bluetooth in his ear. Or she just didn’t care until he brought up the phone with the camera ready.

His phone dinged with an incoming text. J wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted Cory to keep him updated on Della. Her brother responded to Cory’s first update of the week faster than he thought he would.

J’s reply to the text image of Della and Luis? Fuck. That’s her ex. That was all J said. It was all Cory needed to know, too.

The stripper snatched Cory’s phone from his hand with a palm raised to swing at him at the same time everything clicked. He rolled away from the hit with his mind running a mile a minute while he climbed out from behind the table. The stripper was shouting for management and security.

Cory headed for the people now looking his way. Della’s eyes stayed wide.

Luis, on the other hand, looked ready to go. Go a round or two with Cory. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one with recognition of who was in the room. Good.

Gang involvement, they said about Della’s attack. Possibly related to her work for her father, but that was iffy. The connections didn’t matter. He didn’t have the details.

Luis was the gang involvement. The attack—or that’s what Della’s people thought. Cory just hadn’t been given the asshole’s name, or which gang, or the whys. He was only supposed to be her backup, right?

The gang involvement was an ex.

Yeah.

Cory understood exactly why Frankie Costello hadn’t made the situation clear. He didn’t want people knowing his daughter had connections to a gang when she was also working under his umbrella in the Outfit.

Smart, really.

No one wanted someone to think a small gang might be infiltrating into Outfit business, even in that sort of way. Then, others might think they could join.

Or force their way in.

Still.

He wondered if he wasn’t told because Frankie thought Cory was a little too close to the boss, and he didn’t want Della’s involvement with the gang—regardless of what their relationship was—getting back to Tommas. Or was it something else?

Cory would figure that shit out later.

And get his damn phone back, too.

Whether it was because Della was a recognizable face in the club to the owner, or Cory just looked like fucking murder strolling across the floor, the security didn’t follow him. He didn’t miss how Luis’s men had all scattered, too, taking different positions in the room to make everything a bit sharper to Cory.

They moved to the doors.

To the hallway.

Right behind Luis.

Cory recognized what the men were doing—flanking their boss, covering the room, and making sure they had the upper hand in whatever was about to go down.

“Rossi,” Luis greeted when Cory was but a step or two away.

He didn’t drop the man’s stare as he circled around to stand at Della’s side. Nor when he slung a leather-covered arm around her side to pull her slightly closer to him. His gaze did drop then. Straight to the hand that Luis was still using to keep a hold on Della.

“Let me go,” Della demanded, her tone quiet but firm.