Page 97 of Direct Action

Pure fucking torture.

Not only because she was in black leather pants that hugged her magnificent ass, a black halter top that showed about six inches of her toned stomach, black heels, and a fuck ton of silver jewelry coupled with dark and dramatic makeup around her eyes and devil-red lipstick.

The torture of that started when she’d walked out of the bedroom, declaring she was ready to leave. Thankfully the woman was always punctual, with a personal philosophy that if she wasn’t ten minutes early, she was late. That meant she’d given me enough time to drag her ass back into my bedroom before I peeled those leather pants down, used my mouth between her legs to explain exactly how I felt about the hair, makeup, and outfit. After that I fucked her bent over my bed. We left my house with her hair no longer looking early 2000s sex vixen but instead a thoroughly fucked sex vixen.

She was on time to work, but not her normal early.

No, the real torture was sitting across the room from where she swayed her hips, watching every asshole within viewing distance also watching her sway her hips. And if their eyes weren’t locked onto her ass, they were practically drooling as they stared at her tits. Making matters worse, Blackwell was one of these assholes. As was Len Taylor. It gave me no relief seeing Beck sitting at their table.

Now I was going to have to sit through her second song of the evening. Thank fuck after she was done, she only had another hour before her shift was over, and then Gavin would be there to pick her up.

I wouldn’t admit this to Chloe, because she loved her Mustang and was more than a little pissed it was damaged, and not only that, but she was going to be two weeks without it. I on the other hand was happy her car was out of commission; therefore she couldn’t argue about the drop-offs and pickups from the Vault.

Further from that, I was happy my ass was at a table inside the bar—even if I was fighting back the urge to carve out half a dozen assholes’ eyeballs from their heads. I’d rather endure the rage than be sitting down the road with a boulder in my gut, with nothing more than hope that Chloe was safe while she was working.

What I wasn’t happy about was even though today we’d made progress, it wasn’t much. After hours of digging through Lucy MacMillan’s and Amber Sadler’s finances, we’d found a credit card charge putting Lucy at Bozeman airport two and half years ago. And Amber had used her debit card in a vending machine eighteen months ago at a private airport in Rhode Island. Both of those charges were made within thirty miles of where Sterling Blackwell owned property. It wasn’t ironclad proof he had something to do with their disappearances, but it was a nail in his coffin.

I’d gone back over Cynthia’s charges, and the only out-of-state purchases had been in Henderson, Nevada. Chloe had explained, due to the timing, she was relatively certain those charges were made when Cynthia went to Poppy’s family’s house for Thanksgiving. Since Blackwell didn’t own property in Nevada, it didn’t matter. Her in-state charges hadn’t gone farther than Santa Barbara, and, again, Blackwell didn’t own a house near there.

We still didn’t have dick on Dex. None of the searches on any of the vehicles we’d tagged coming and going from the Vault could be traced to anyone with that name. Another look into Summit Jets didn’t come up with anything either. Which meant I hit Len Taylor’s client list just to double-check, and nothing was there either. The guy was a ghost, and without knowing what he was driving, we couldn’t even try and get a picture of him from a traffic camera.

Dead end.

And the only thing I hated more than dead ends were motherfuckers staring at my woman’s tits. Especially when that motherfucker was Sterling.

Pete kicked my foot under the table. I didn’t take my eyes off Blackwell. Now that Justin Timberlake was going on about rockin’ some bitch’s world on the dance floor and Chloe was back to dancing, this time doing more than swaying her hips, the ass clown was practically salivating.

“Brother, cool it.”

I rearranged my features but didn’t look away. If anyone saw me, they’d think I was watching Chloe, enjoying the show. After all, that was what the servers at the Vault were there for.

Entertainment.

That was part of the appeal of the bar.

My gut clenched, and I went back to wanting to carve the man’s eyes out of his head.

My woman was not for the motherfucker’s entertainment.

Yet, she was.

Christ.

I wanted . . . no, needed this shit to be done.

“Beck’s gotta—”

“Cool it,” Pete interrupted. “He needs to play it the way he’s playing it.”

Fuck. He wasn’t wrong, and I hated that he was right.

I leaned back in my chair and suffered through the next four minutes of agony while my woman showed a room full of men how well she could move that tight little body of hers.

It was then I made the decision, after this shit was over, she was never going to a dance club without me, and she certainly wasn’t hitting the floor without me by her side to beat back the assholes who’d most definitely want a piece of her.

After the longest two hundred and forty seconds of my life, the song came to end and the servers went back to doing the second part of their jobs, pushing booze.

“Can I get you gentlemen another round?” Naomi, the bitch who’d cornered my woman, asked.