Dodger shrugged. “No, go ahead. I think I’ll head back to HQ.”
“Okay,” 2-Stroke said.
Dodger turned off his comm and slipped it into his pocket.
When he looked up, he stopped dead.
He knew the confident leather-clad hooker marching her way down the street in two-inch black patent-leather thigh-high boots. The shiny black leather painted-on miniskirt was skin-tight in the back, revealing the bottom curve of a fishnet-clad arse he’d know anywhere.
“Anna?” he said and started after her.
2
Anna Keegan hooking in Prague. That sentence made no sense to him at all. Nor did the see-through black tank top revealing the red lace pushup bra and some amazing cleavage or the severely pulled back, dominatrix ponytail swinging across her exposed bra. He knew her as Mad Max’s smart, sexy, gainfully employed baby sister. Not this…this mind-boggling, well-put-together, upscale prostitute.
He slid his gaze over her again, from the boots to the ponytail. He had to get to the bottom of this, then break it to Max after he did. The only reason he was following her was to make sure he wasn’t seeing things and hadn’t mistaken someone else for her. Max would bust his arse if he just let her go on her merry way.
Some things couldn’t be unseen.
She couldn’t possibly be a lady of the evening. No way in bloody hell. Not the Anna who had held her own in the jungle when they went after her brother in Paraguay to rescue him and Jugs.
He couldn’t stop the memory of that night at her sister Rhonda’s wedding. She had looked like spun sugar that night, so different from the hard-edged woman who didn’t miss a step in those I’ll tie you down and school you on who’s your master boots. The thought of Anna tying him down while she wore that outfit made his mouth dry because he was a twisted-up bastard. She started across the square, her boot heels clacking against the polished cobblestones, heading toward the Evzen Hotel on the other side. When she was partway there, the Evzen’s valet got her attention, then slipped her something, and Dodger swore under his breath. The handoff was very professionally done.
This was going to kill Max.
She’d gotten a john here at the hotel, and it was clear the valet was helping out hookers with room keys.
What she did and who she did it with was her business. Bollocks, he didn’t want to think about what she was heading toward and what she was going to do when she got there. It made him…angry.
But really. It was none of his or anyone else’s concern. He should go back to HQ and forget he ever saw her, keep her little dark secret so that Max would never have to know. Dodger was on a classified, active op, and he was already overdue. But instead, he crossed the square, his loyalty to his brother taking over.
A scoffing grin twitched the corner of his lips. Mistress Anna had never been anything but Grade A trouble from the moment he set eyes on her. Barreling in there to stop her would be reckless and draw attention to him. Not what he should be doing on an op. The police could get involved, and this was certainly not something Fast Lane needed with the black eye they’d gotten in losing Angar Said.
If this had been anyone else except Anna, it would have been an easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy decision.
As he entered the hotel after her, Anna slipped by some tourists chattering to each other, drawing eyes as she went. Dodger still couldn’t get his brain around Anna being a hooker. It just was not her.
Habit sent his gaze around the lobby, and he didn’t like the three Czech looking thugs whose oversized jackets could easily conceal weapons milling around in one of the corners along with a Chinese woman and a too-interested Lebanese character. All of them had their eyes on the elevator. He was starting to get a funky vibe, which did nothing to alleviate his concerns regarding Max’s sister.
What in bloody hell was going on here?
Anna disappeared up the stairs, and Dodger was torn between staying here and watching what was going on with the suspicious looking quint group. But his protective instincts told him to go after Anna.
He made a beeline for the stairs, sauntering to keep his own profile low. He got there just in time to see her disappear into Room 210. The only sound in the hall was the click