Inside, R&B vibrated the walls and carpet underneath the soles of Kylan’s boots. At the end of the red-painted hallway, he turned into the club’s main room, heading straight for the VIP section at the back.

‘Razor’ Ray Castle sat in his velvet throne on the balcony that overlooked the stage, a young brunette on his knee wearing platform stilettos, thigh-high stockings, and a red G-string. Her large breasts sat high on her chest, inflated to the point they looked painful. Not that Raze would care. As long as the snatch wasn’t ripe to the point of being legal to drink alcohol, everything else was a bonus.

Kylan and Ivan sat at the end of the curved, velvet booth seat. Ignoring their presence, Razor licked his lips, dipped his head and sucked on a rosy nipple, the teenager attached to it clasping a hand either side of Razor’s freshly shaven face. Kylan didn’t believe for one second she was enjoying Razor’s mouth on her as much as her expression conveyed, but what the hell did he care? With any luck, Razor would assign him his job and he could be on his merry way. He could think of better ways to spend what was left of this night, and none of those ways included Raze getting his rocks off.

But that was never how these things went down. Razor might be the big, bad, self-appointed boss of the city, but he was fucking needy. He would make Ivan and Kylan sit quietly on their obedient asses while he swung his ginormous dick and pounded into any hole available.

Kylan never understood the need for an intimidating entourage. He was a born lone wolf. There’d been a stint when he was younger and he’d enjoyed the company of others, but that time had long gone. Now, he could barely stand to be around anyone. Including himself. He did what had to be done until the day he wouldn’t have to do it anymore. Living wasn’t an issue for him. All that mattered, for now, was survival.

After allowing Razor to push her lacy G-string to one side and bury four fingers past the knuckle in her bare pussy, thrusting like he was trying to dislodge something stuck up there, the girl left the VIP section with a smack on her ass and a firm message that she’d be required for her services later.

Razor pulled a black business card from the inside pocket of his open suit jacket and held it between two fingers. Kylan leaned around Vick—Razor’s muscle—and took the instructions, exchanging the card for the phone he’d stolen earlier. He didn’t look to see what the card said. Instead, he tucked it into his pocket and stood up to leave.

That was easier than he’d been expecting.

“Sit,” Razor commanded.

Kylan sliced him a look, but his boss’s eyes were on the flexible dancer spinning on the pole, bending her lithe body in unnatural ways. She was fully naked up there. Only in Razor’s club would that shit fly. The grand reveal of on-stage pussy kept a substantial chunk of the borough’s police force in Razor’s bulging pockets, and only those who’d been thoroughly vetted were granted entry inside the illusive whore den.

Sitting back in his seat, Kylan’s face mask trapped his irritable sigh, and his annoyance with the man who thought he ruled him remained his secret.

“You’re a handsome fella,” Raze said to the wide-open space in front of him. He could have been talking to fucking anybody, but Kylan knew this speech had been prepared for him. “Wish I had a face like yours to stop the traffic. Which one would you like, eh? Take your pick. She’s on me. You could say I’m feeling generous.”

Kylan tugged his face mask to rest under his mouth. He didn’t like to show his face when he could help it, but there was no way Razor would be able to hear him with another body between them—especially one as wide as Vick—and the thumping music. “I appreciate your offer, but not tonight.”

Raze laughed, a sharp, loud bark mottled with condescension. “Don’t tell me you like the boys? Didn’t have you pegged as a fag, but each to their own.”

Kylan wasn’t gay, and he didn’t care to clear up the misunderstanding. What Razor thought of his sexual preferences couldn’t be lower down on Kylan’s list of things he gave a fuck about. He wouldn’t put it past Razor to send one of his henchmen out onto the street and drag back the first rent boy he found loitering on the corner.

Kylan’s fist clenched in his pocket, his jaw tightening. Inhaling through his nose, he loosened his muscles and stretched out his neck. It wouldn’t do him any good for Razor to see he was stressed. Razor thrived on any form of visceral, negative reaction, and he’d bleed Kylan bone-dry if he gave him as little as one drop. Kylan had seen him do it plenty of times to other, weaker foot soldiers. Weeding them out in painful embarrassment. They were all examples. Everything in this world was for fucking show. There wasn’t a shred of meaning in any of it.

Like he was a fucking magician, Razor clicked his fingers, and a half-naked girl appeared. “Cheer him up,” he said to her. Then he leaned in, curling his finger for the girl to do the same. Almost nose-to-nose, Raze said in a low, icy-cool voice, “If he isn’t smiling like the goddamn Joker in the next ten minutes, you will be.”

The girl’s face fell at the blatant threat. But then she straightened her spine, plastered on a smile that was as plastic as her chest, and stalked over to where Kylan was sitting, hips swaying.

From the corner of his eye, Kylan saw Raze finger the blade of his knife. This was just as much a test for Kylan as it was the barely legal stripper. Neither of them would be going anywhere until an unnecessary loyalty was proven.

Kylan had been a low-ranking foot soldier for one of the city’s most notorious gangs since he was fifteen. That was almost three years of carrying out every dirty, illegal job that had been asked of him without making a fucking peep.

But that was what Razor did. Threw his weight about and dished out constant reminders not to bite the hand that fed you. He was God on a power trip, and none of them were allowed to forget it. But however much Razor Ray believed he was Kylan’s boss, Kylan worked for no one but himself. When he was done with Razor, done needing the money that had kept a roof over his head, food in his belly, and clothes on his back, there was nothing stopping him from walking away and never coming back. No threat or bounty on his head could keep him tethered to a world he had no place in. This gig was up when he said it was up. It was the only comfort that helped him sleep at all at night.

Stupidly, as the stripper idled an inch from his knees, Kylan’s mind went straight to Skylar. Sitting in his apartment nibbling on ten-dollar pizza, probably wondering when he was coming home. His stomach practically dropped out of his ass when the girl who’s age could be as low as—god, he didn’t want to think about it—straddled his thighs, grabbing hold of his jacket by the collar and leaning in for a kiss.

Kylan flinched, correcting himself as soon as he’d realized his mistake.

Jesus. How many unsheathed cocks had been between those glossy lips tonight?

He snatched her hands in his and stood up. The girl slid off his thighs, confusion and fear skittering over her features and settling in her pale blue eyes. Silently, he marched her across the balcony and down the stairs, crossing the main floor to a sectioned-off hallway where the private rooms were situated.

Inside one of those vacant rooms, with his hand wrapped around her weak biceps, Kylan deposited the girl onto the black leather sofa. She hit the seat with a dull thud. “Ow. Watch it, asshole.”

The sofa curved the length of the room, and the walls were all mirror, a silver pole center-floor mounted on a small, circular stage. Kylan sat opposite the girl. She narrowed her eyes on him and crossed her legs and arms.

“Mess your hair up and smear your lipstick. Do whatever you need to to make it look like I’ve fucked you raw at both ends. Because if you don’t, you’ll be left to die in this club with your face sliced ear-to-ear.”

The only sign of surprise the girl gave was a tiny frown that crimped her painted-on brows. That didn’t bode well for her, but all Kylan could do was warn her. Recruiting another foot soldier and trusting him to keep the expanding empire on the up and up took work. Razor needed Kylan on the ground. There were plenty more pubescent females out there who could suck Razor’s cock dry, though.

“You could just do what you brought me in here for,” the girl said boldly. “He’s paying me.”

“You want me to fuck you?”

The girl tilted her chin up, flicking Kylan an adamant look. “What, am I not good enough?”

That was one reason. There were about a hundred more.

“How old are you?” Kylan asked.

That made her laugh. “How old are you?”

Kylan didn’t answer, and the conversation ended where it started. After fifteen minutes, and some noisy huffing on the girl’s part, Kylan walked over to her. He put one hand on the seatback, towering over her compact frame. A spark of the fear she’d shown earlier zinged across her face as she looked up into his eyes.

He wiped the pad of his thumb across her lips, spreading the gloss over her cheek. The girl sat there and let him, her mouth parting, the glazed look in her eyes one Kylan had seen too many times.

He’d had a girl or two, so he could safely say he knew his way around one. But he didn’t make it a habit, and he’d never been between the legs of someone he cared even an ounce about. Sad as fuck, but true. He had other, more important, things to be taking care of. And getting off wasn’t one of them.

His mom used to tell him he was so handsome she couldn’t handle it. Part of him believed she might have meant it, because she was gone the day after he’d turned twelve. He wished he could say it was the worst birthday he’d ever had.

Nudging the girl’s legs apart with his knee, his gaze remained locked with hers while his hand breached the front of her G-string. She was wet, but it was hot as Hades in here, so Kylan had no right to take any credit.

The tense muscles in her thighs slackened and she relaxed into the couch. She was probably used to being on her knees all day, dealing with carpet burn, and Kylan had to make sure he made it home tonight. No one would get in his way of that.

He pinched her swollen clit and stroked her in long, slow sweeps with the callused pad of his thumb, spreading her moisture. Her thighs spread wider, and Kylan increased the pace, plunging two fingers easily past her entrance. The girl’s eyes drifted closed, her naked chest pounded, and then she was clenching around him, whimpering as she pulsed on his fingers, her shallow breathing loud rasps in the closed-off room. She mewled like a cat, clinging to the lip of the seat. Didn’t take long.

Kylan pulled out of her slowly, slid his fingers between her lips and watched her suck off her juices obediently. “Let’s go,” he said.

***

Kylan waited until he got back to the apartment to read what was on the card razor had given him.

A name and address for collection. And that was all he needed.

He entered the apartment through the front door, twisting the lock and sliding the chain back into place after him. The television was still on in the living room, the low drone from an eighties comedy tinny, mechanical white noise.

Kylan shucked out of his rain-slicked leather jacket. Next, he tugged his hoodie over his back and took off his face mask. His wet jeans plastered to his legs, and he peeled them, his boots and his socks off in the boxy bathroom, swapping them out for clean, dry sweatpants. He scrubbed his hands three times, removing all traces of where his fingers had been, and brushed his teeth.

Bare-chested, he navigated the darkness and lay on the side of the bed that had become his whenever Skylar was here, and he stretched out on top of the sheets, propping one arm behind his head and staring up at the ceiling.

Skylar was facing away from him, toward the window where the sheer curtain rippled in the breeze that seeped in through the peeling rubber sealant. Her long, dusky blonde hair fanned out over her pillow, strawberry and mint drifting under Kylan’s nostrils. His stomach clenched, and he turned over, giving Skylar his back when he felt the familiar stirrings from lying next to her, her scantily clothed body mere inches from his

It was ironic really. Skylar took two trains into the city because she thought she was safe here—with him. She didn’t have the faintest idea it would be safer for her in a starving shark’s tank strapped with a ten-pound meat float. Kylan would laugh if the thought didn’t give him serious fucking heartburn. He’d survived on his own coming up six years now, but the blonde-bombshell cheerleader, with secrets he still hadn’t asked about, was becoming a dangerous distraction he hadn’t planned for.

He couldn’t keep bringing her here. Not when he already knew how his story ended, and there was a chance hers could be rewritten.