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Nero Barretti.
I panic.
He hasn’t seen me, he’s too busy frowning at his cellphone, surrounded by a group of his guys. I even recognize a few of them, checking out the dancers on stage, shaking their asses to Rihanna. The group flags down a waitress, joking about something; the fat wad of bills in their hands say that they’re here to play. But there’s only one man who matters to me. Nero. He’s still looking at his phone, distracted.
And then, I realize: They haven’t come here looking for me.
I still have a chance.
I duck through the crowd, drunk and rowdy like usual. I keep my head down, away from the threat, cursing my bad luck.
Of all the shitty strip clubs in Vegas, he had to walk into mine.
“Amber!” One of the other girls catches me by the bar. “Where are you going? You’re supposed to close at four.”
Fuck.
“Cover me?” I ask, pleading. I shoot an anxious look back across the room, but I don’t see him. “I’m… Not feeling great.”
She sighs. “I don’t know…”
“You can take my tips for the night,” I say, pulling loose bills from the stash in my bra. “I’ll close the rest of the week. Whatever you want.”
“Fine,” she agrees, then studies me. “You should get home. You don’t look so hot.”
I don’t feel it either. “I owe you!” I tell her, grateful, and hurry towards the back exit, already knowing I won’t be back. Amber will fade away as easily as I invented her. Just another fake name to add to the list of women that I used to be.
I head down a dark hallway, and out the back door into the alley. I can see the neon lights flickering from the Strip and take a deep breath of relief.Freedom. But I’ve only made it a few steps, when someone grabs me from behind.
I freeze in fear, turning—but it’s one of the customers from inside.
“Baby, where you goin’?” he slurs, eyes unfocused. But his hand is focused all right—right on my ass.
“Sorry!” I blurt, trying to slip under his grabby hands, but the guy holds on tight. He backs me up against the wall, beside the trash cans.
“How much for a dance?” he leers down at me, breath rancid.
I try not to retch. “I’m not a dancer, I just serve the drinks,” I say, putting my hands on his chest and trying to push him away. But the guy’s built like a linebacker.
“So maybe we don’t dance…” Bad Breath shoves me back against the wall. My shoulder hits the brick painfully, and I yelp, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Or care.
He leans in to nuzzle at my hair, pressing closer, pinning me in place so I can’t move. His hand gropes my breast, and I struggle in revulsion, looking over his shoulder to see if Security is around to toss this guy like usual.
But it’s not a friendly face that steps out the back door.
It’s him.
Nero’s making a call on his cell phone, his voice steady and lethal. The light catches his face properly for the first time, and I stifle a gasp. In the ten years since I saw him last, I’ve thought of him a million times. But I’ve been picturing the boy he used to be at twenty. Lanky, still filling out; a mop of dark curls, and a boyish smile that could tempt you into breaking all the rules.
But the man staring in the doorway is cut from raw steel. Hard and unflinching. He looms there, muscles taut against the fabric of his black T-shirt and jeans; mottled tattoos spilling up his neck. He’s unshaven, his hair tousled, and his eyes full of contempt as he barks an order on the phone.
I feel an ache, memories rushing back like a tidal wave. But I force them back. I can’t go down that road, not right now, shoved up against the wall with this drunk asshole about to give the game away.
About to end my shitty life forever.
“Yeah, baby…” The drunk guy’s hand moves between us, and I hear the sound of his zipper. I fight the rising bile in my throat. Nero is still standing there oblivious, barely twenty feet away from us.
He hasn’t noticed us here in the shadow of the dumpster, but if I struggle… If I scream…
