My heart pounded as I tried to think of a reason for Stephano to be angry with me. He couldn’t have known that I met with Chase and Jackson, or maybe he did? He could have found a totally unrelated reason to be pissed off with me. I had no idea, but what I did know was that I needed to just follow his directions and do whatever he asked of me.
Then I remembered that I was supposed to give Stephano half of the money I got from having a John at my house. I had totally forgotten about that. I had some cash from my tips that night, though, and it would cover the $500 I had told Stephano I would give him.
I walked into his office and sat down in the chair across from his desk.
“Stephano, I’ve got your money,” I said as I tried to calm him down.
“I don’t want you fucking money, what were you doing with that guy? Was that the John from the other night? Did he pay you to fuck him in the back room? I don’t know what’s come over you lately. You use to be one of my best girls.”
“I’m sorry, Stephano.”
I learned a long time before that arguing with Stephano was never a good idea. The best possible way to get him to calm down was to admit that I had done something wrong and then promise to never do it again.
He continued to rage on about the importance of a woman’s virtue and how I didn’t have any. He talked for nearly a twenty minutes before he asked one of his goons to take me out of the building.
“You need to think about what you’re doing. A guy like that is only using you. He doesn’t want to marry you. If you’re going to start turning tricks, that’s fine. But you are the one who told me you were above all of that.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” I said as his goon walked me out the back door of the club.
PART TWO
Chapter Seven
JACKSON
Roxanne was a smart woman. I could tell it had pissed her off that I didn’t trust her to get the information we needed. But did she really expect me to leave Ana’s fate in her hands? I was the trained professional. I was the one who Chase and Jordan had hired to get the job done. If we didn’t come back to Atlanta with Ana, it was going to be my fault.
Roxanne knew how to use her body to get what she wanted, but our interaction seemed much more than just a ploy. She wanted me. There was no way she could pretend as well as she had. But I had to admit, I wanted her, too.
If she had started to fuck me right there in the lap dance room, I wouldn’t have argued. The moment was hot, it was primal, and it left me wanting to bring Roxanne back to the hotel and fuck her until she couldn’t take any more. It was weird how she drove me absolutely crazy, and yet I wanted to have her naked in bed. I had never been around a woman who had such an effect on me.
I did as Roxanne had instructed me to and I waited thirty minutes and then drove around to the back of the club. But she wasn’t there. I pulled off to the side of the building and walked up to the back entrance to see if I could get a look inside.
My gut said that something was wrong. I didn’t know what it was just yet, but my senses were on high alert. I looked back and forth around the area to see what was going on. I didn’t want to get jumped by some security guard of Stephano’s or anything like that. I wasn’t going to go inside, and I wasn’t going to confront anyone. Part of being a good investigator was staying out of the eyesight of people so you could take note of what was going on.
Then, I saw something that made my blood go cold. A man had his hand around Roxanne’s throat and she was pinned up against the building. It must have been Stephano. He probably figured out that she was feeding information to someone and he flipped out. I didn’t have time to figure out who it was for sure or what was going on. I needed to neutralize the situation.
I came up behind the man and wrapped my arm tight around his throat. I held onto him as tight as I could as I pried his fingers away from Roxanne’s throat. She crumbled to the ground and gasped for air, but at least she was trying to breathe. The man I held onto was about 30 seconds away from passing out because I had his oxygen supply totally cut off.
Although I currently worked as a private investigator, I had many years of experience in a Special Forces unit. My training had taught me how to deal with men like that in a hand-to-hand combat arena. There was nothing he could do at that point; my grip was perfect and he didn’t have the skills necessary to free himse
lf.
“Are you all right?” I asked Roxanne as she stood up and started to punch the man I was holding.
“You fucker! You goddamn motherfucker! You tried to kill me,” she screamed at the man.
But within seconds, his body went limp and I let him slide down to the ground. For a second, I saw a look of concern in Roxanne’s eyes. I assumed she thought I had killed the man. If you hadn’t seen a man pass out before, it was quiet concerning. But I wasn’t about to get in trouble for killing a man. I just wanted him to sleep it off until we were long gone.
“He’s just unconscious,” I said as I grabbed her to bring her to the car.
She pulled away from me and started to kick him in the stomach before I was finally able to pull her away. There appeared to be a lot of pent up anger toward that man and as much as I didn’t mind her kicking him, we really did need to get out of there.
“You should have killed him,” Roxanne said as we climbed into the car.
“Who was he?”
“One of Stephano’s goons. He’s a lowlife. Stephano was pissed that I had brought a John back to my house and that the same guy had been in my private room with me. He thought I was whoring myself out.”