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 fuck-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 cock 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?”
Her skin still had all the color of a corpse, especially framed by the dark coat and the
floppy hat, which was too large for her small body. She was terrified out of her mind, but
still managed to nod. Jack breathed a sigh of relief.
“A—about three months ago, someone started sending me mail. Pictures of me in
different places, mostly public. Weird, but not threatening. About five weeks ago, he
started taking pictures of me in and around my house, through windows. O—one he took
of me pulling out of my driveway while he was in my garage. I can tell he’s angry. I don’t
know why.
“I came to Houston to be with a…friend and to escape him.” She blew out a breath,