Jack didn’t answer; he was too busy improvising a plan in his head. In silence, he pulled her up streets, down alleys. More gun shots rang out. A bullet whizzed past his ear, and he swore. If this son of a bitch harmed a hair on Morgan’s head, Jack was going to enjoy beating him senseless with his bare hands.
Ducking into a busy store, they narrowly avoided crashing into an elderly woman. Stepping aside so the scowling grandma and her walker could pass cost them precious seconds.
As soon as the path cleared, he took Morgan’s small hand in his again and tugged, forcing her to run again. Out the back of the store, down a narrow walkway, into a darkening alley. Thank God he knew this town as well as the shape of his own face.
Another series of staccato blasts sounded again, this time in front of the store they’d just exited.
Shit!
“Run faster, cher.”
Panting, sweating, she merely nodded. And picked up the pace.
At the far end of an alley, they came to a metal door with scarred black paint and red lettering that read Sexy Sirens. Even with the door closed, it vibrated with the pounding of raucous music and the rowdy crowd inside—despite the fact it was barely three in the afternoon.
From experience, Jack knew the door would be locked. Raising a fist, he hammered on it with all his might, not caring if he left a dent. While he waited, he looked over both shoulders to see if they were being followed.
A blast of gunfire erupted, kicking up chunks of brick not six inches from Morgan’s side.
With a quick scan of the alley, he cursed. It was ripe with trash bins and overgrown with crawling vines, providing plenty of places for her shooter to hide.
“Son of a bitch!” he banged on the beat-up metal surface again. “Someone answer the damn door.”
Finally, a familiar bleached blonde wrenched the door open. “Jesus, Jack. What the hell is wrong?”
He pushed Morgan inside, then followed into the back room cluttered with empty beer cans. “Shooter out there. I need your help.”
A child’s stick pony and a riding crop lay right next to the stage entrance. Angelique had apparently just performed.
He slammed the door the door behind him and again scanned the darkened room, illuminated by a single red bulb and decorated with peeling black paint. One thin door separated this area from main stage and the throbbing music in the club beyond.
“A shooter? Holy. . . Who have you pissed off now?”
“Alyssa, this is Morgan,” he shouted over the music. “She’s the hostess of a cable TV show—”
“You’re Morgan O’Malley! I love Turn Me On!”
Morgan, who had doffed her sunglasses, extended her hand to Alyssa. Hmm. Blue eyes rimmed in red, a smattering of freckles, very fair skin—not Brandon’s usual type. But times changed, he supposed.
Jack drawled, “Then I’m assuming you’d like to help me keep her alive long enough to do more shows. The shooter was aiming at her.” Jack turned to the other woman. “Morgan, this is Alyssa Devereaux, owner of Sexy Sirens. The most famous—or infamous—gentleman’s club in southern Louisiana, depending on your point of view.”
Brandon’s little woman flashed a weak smile, trying her damndest not to stare at Alyssa’s inch-thick makeup, near indecent skirt, and f**k-me boots. There was nothing subtle about Alyssa. She still dressed like a stripper, though she hadn’t danced around a pole in years. She sucked a c**k like a woman trying to ingest the brass off a doorknob. She had worse language than him. But she also had a big, big heart.
Alyssa would use her wicked tongue to take the skin off his balls if she had any idea that Morgan wasn’t a client but the means to achieve revenge. She might run an establishment where women took their clothes off for horny men, but she made sure no one crossed the line with any girl under her roof. Jack planned on crossing every line he could think of.
“Why would someone shoot at you?” Alyssa asked Morgan with a frown.
“That is a very good question,” Jack answered, piercing Morgan with an unrelenting gaze, one he hoped like hell would persuade her to tell him the truth. He hadn’t had the chance yet to establish more than the barest amount of authority. She had little reason to trust him. Damn it, another few hours, and he would have spent time in her bed, deep in her body, establishing his dominance. He would have had some assurance that she would accept his help. As it was now…he had nothing.
Not at all the way he’d planned his revenge.
“Jack?” she said his name experimentally, voice erratic, still shaking.
He wasn’t pleased to hear the edge of fear and wariness in her voice. He much preferred a sultry “sir” coming from that pillowy mouth while she pretended indifference.
But they’d get back to that, just as soon as he got to the bottom of this shit.
“Morgan, tell me what’s going on, cher?”