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“You can call if you want.” He flicked off his seatbelt. “I’m going inside.”
“Shit.” Boychenko threw the SUV into park and scrambled to follow him. “Danny! Wait!”
“You don’t have to come.” He glanced at Roman as he strode toward the garishly pink building. “You can wait here.”
“Oh, sure. Let me just wait here while you get the shit beat out of you over this redhead. That’s definitely not going to get me slapped by Nikolai,” Boychenko yelled after him.
Danny ignored Boychenko’s muttering and glared at the car parked next to the dumpster. There was a strung-out dancer inside giving head to a man who looked old enough to be her grandfather. He grimaced at the sight and wondered if Kostya had any idea what was going on at his property.
This early in the afternoon, there was no bouncer at the door. The place wasn’t technically open for business. The thumping music was probably dancers practicing new acts or tryouts. He didn’t want to think about what sort of desperate women would audition to dance in this shit hole.
Danny stormed into the club. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were more lights on toward the center of the small space. The neon glow assaulted his retinas, and the blaring music irritated his eardrums. He ignored all of that and scanned his surroundings, taking in the drunk half-asleep at the table to his right and the three men at the bar. Paulie and two of his hired thugs, useless boys who liked to flash steel and act like they were gangsters. With Boychenko at his back, the trio would be no problem.
His gaze flicked to a wide bar top that doubled as a smaller stage—and he froze. It wasn’t the two pretty blondes with their knockout curves barely concealed in see-through fishnets and bikini tops. No, it was the redheaded beauty standing between them.
Macy.
His greedy gaze roamed her nearly naked body. Waves of red hair fell around her shoulders and back. The bubble gum pink and cotton candy blue striped thong hid nothing from his gaze. One tug on the loosely tied sides, and she would be bare for all to see. Her nipples were hidden behind hot pink pasties, and her legs looked impossibly long in the stockings that matched the thong.
She was sin personified, a petite goddess with pale skin and a ballerina’s curves. She looked criminally young, and he knew exactly what sort of dirty fucks would want to touch her and offer money. The kind who craved virginal innocence in a tiny package. The kind who were one deep web search away from making friends with the FBI’s cybercrime unit.
Standing up there, Macy didn’t look proud of her sexuality. She didn’t look confident or happy. She looked beaten down, humiliated. She looked like she was about to cry—and he was going to kill everyone in this room for hurting her like this.
The second he stepped toward the stage, Macy spotted him. She froze in shock. The women trying to teach her how to dance were pulling on her hips and talking loudly to her, but she didn’t see or hear them. Her gaze was fixed on him.
There was a flicker of relief in her eyes as if she had been dreaming that he would come through that door to save her. A moment later, he saw shame and then anger. He understood, and he would fix that later. But right now...
“This ain’t working, Cherry!” Paulie shouted in his awful twang. How the redneck had ingratiated himself with the Albanians Danny still hadn’t figured out, but here he was, benefiting from Besian’s largesse. “She has no titties! She’s like a ten-year-old boy up there! We’d be better off putting her in an altar boy’s costume and offering her up in the backroom for our special customers.”
“It’s not her fault!” Cherry bit back. “She’s trying! She’s just a baby! She doesn’t know what she’s doing yet.”
“Well, she better learn, or else her mama’s never gettin' out of jail and those kids are going to foster care,” Paulie warned. “Honey,” he shouted at Macy, “turn around and bend over. Let’s get a look at your pu—.”
With a vicious growl, Danny grabbed the back of Paulie’s fat neck and slammed his face into the bar. He pulled his gun at the same moment Paulie’s nose crunched and pointed it at Idiot Number One. “Hands up.”
Number One did what he had been told. Boychenko has his weapon on Number Two who smartly complied.
Still gripping Paulie’s neck, Danny lowered his head and hissed, “I fucking warned you not to mess with her.”
Paulie coughed and gurgled as the blood spurting from his nose and mouth impeded his airway. “I didn’t! She came here! She asked me for help!”
Danny didn’t believe that for one second, but he glanced up at Macy to make sure. She glared down at Paulie with disgust. Shaking her head, she said, “He told me if I didn’t come wait tables he would have Janie hurt in jail. He told me if I danced this weekend he would make sure I got the money for the bond.”
Danny tore his gaze away from hers. “Help, huh?”
Paulie flinched at his snarl. “They owe! Besian told me to collect. I did my job!”
“Yeah? Well, why don’t you call your boss and have him find me later? We’ll see if he told you to pick up a girl who barely graduated high school to put on this stage.” He thrust Paulie’s face back into the bar top and then stepped back. “Piece of shit.”
Up on the stage, Macy wrung her hands. Her eyes were wide with terror. She looked ready to bolt, and he wasn’t having it.
Danny held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
She hesitated for a heartbeat before placing her small hand in his. She stepped closer, moving from the center of the stage to the bar top edge where Paulie sat bleeding and blubbering.
Danny grasped her hips and lifted her right off the stage. Their gazes were locked as he lowered her to the floor. She wobbled a bit on her ridiculous shoes and clutched at his shirt. She glanced up at him shyly, igniting those protective instincts he had long held toward her.
Torn between wanting to kiss her or yell at her, he tamped down those urges. “Get your stuff. We’re leaving.”
