“Is that so? Well I hope I don’t see her at my bar, at the restaurant I own.”

“Wow, you own a restaurant? That’s so exciting!”

“It sure is sweetie. Hunter Smith, nice to meet ya,” he oozed. “What are you drinking?”

She flinched back and her elbow collided with my spine.

“Ouch,” I hissed, only loud enough for her to hear.

“Just a martini. Nothing special.”

“Well I think a special lady like yourself deserves special attention. Why don’t you come over to the booth with me and some friends? We have bottle service.”

Yes. YES. This is what I needed.

She hesitated, fumbling for an excuse not to follow him, but then I delivered a highly discreet message through a series of coughs, sneezes, and sniffles. “Go.” Cough. “With.” Cough. “Him.”

“What? Did the nun just say something?” Hunter asked.

Jo scooted her barstool back. “She’s been saying it all night, ‘go with him’, meaning Jesus I guess. Let’s get away from her.”

I peered over my shoulder just in time to watch him lead her back to his corner of the bar. He put his hand on her lower back and she sidestepped away from him with a laugh. Oh god. I could only imagine the sort of drivel coming out of his mouth. Hopefully she’d managed to turn on her recorder before he dragged her off.

“You look like the president of the Dead Poets Society.”

Motherfucker. I would have recognized that deep voice anywhere.

I turned to my left just as Dean took a seat at the bar beside me.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, peering behind him for Julian. If he stomped over and punched Hunter in the face for flirting with Jo, my whole plan would be ruined.

“Josephine can’t keep a secret,” he said, waving down the bartender so he could order a drink.

That two-timing whoreface. She deserved to be Hunter’s bait for the night.

“And?” I asked, scooting closer to him.

His brown eyes cut over to me and his lips curled up into a smirk. “And I’m going to help.”

My jaw dropped. “Wait. Wait. You’re not going to make me sit through some chastising speech about how I should have let you handle it?”

He laughed and turned to me. His knee brushed mine and his hand dropped to my thigh. I stared there as he continued, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said the other day. I’ve tried handling it my way and it didn’t work. I’m willing to try your way now.”

I nodded, completely in shock that he was on board with my plan. If I’d been a betting person, I’d have put a million dollars on Dean sabotaging the scheme. “So then where’s your disguise?” I asked with a smirk.

“Ah,” he said, dipping his free hand into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and extracting a small brown mustache.

I burst out laughing as he pressed it on above his upper lip. Beneath it, he was still as suave as ever: smooth, wavy hair, a clean-shaven jaw, and a fitted black suit. However, with the mustache in place, it was completely impossible to take him seriously.

“How do I look?” he asked.

I laughed. “You look like Tom Selleck.”

He smiled, causing the mustache’s cheap adhesive to fail on one side. “Did you come up with code names for the night?”

“Hmm, we could be Bonnie and Clyde,” I suggested.

“A little too obvious.”

I tapped my finger on the bar. “What about Sam and Frodo?”

He laughed. “You’re Sam.”

I smiled. “You know, some people think Sam and Frodo had a little thing going on while they were climbing those mountains. There were lots of lonely nights on the way to Mount Doom.”

He curved his arm along the back of my chair and leaned forward so that his skewed mustache tickled the side of my face. “Frodo definitely had a thing for Sam.”

I shivered and turned to kiss him, mustache and all, but then I noticed movement near Hunter’s table out of the corner of my eye. I whipped my head in their direction, nearly falling off my barstool.

“Shit. They’re leaving!” I hissed, reaching for my wallet so that I could close out our tab.

Dean let go of my leg and turned to the bar. “Go ahead. Follow them and I’ll catch up.”

I nodded and flew toward the entrance of the bar. “We’ll meet again, Frodo!”

Chapter Forty-One

Dean

By the time I paid and walked out of Oak Bar, Lily, Hunter, and Josephine were nowhere in sight. I checked my phone and tried to call Lily, but she didn’t answer. I scanned down the street in both directions, but they were gone. I ripped the cheap mustache from my upper lip and shoved it into my pocket just as my phone vibrated with a text.

Lily: Can’t talk. Hot on the trail.

Dean: Lily, where are you guys??

Lily: CODE NAME.

I growled, even though she couldn’t hear it.

Dean: SAM, which way did you head? Are you in a car or are you walking?

Lily: Oh no…

Dean: What??

A second later, my phone rang with a call from Lily.

“Can you hear me?” she whispered.

“Hardly. Where are you?”

I felt helpless standing in the middle of the sidewalk with nowhere to run. They could’ve been halfway across town already.

“Hunter and his friends just went into a place called Tease.”

I groaned and took off running. Tease was just two blocks over from Oak Bar. If I ran, I could get there before Lily went inside.

“Lily. Wait for me to get there. Tease is a strip club and a sleazy one at that.”

“What?” she yelled. “Josephine is in there with them!”

“Lily. Did you hear me? Do not go in without me.”

When she didn’t reply, I glanced at my phone and found the call had already ended. Fuck. I sped up and rounded the block. She wasn’t going to listen to me and now she and Josephine were inside a shady strip club, all so Lily could carry out her half-baked plan to either ruin Hunter’s restaurant, marriage, or both. The only reason I’d agreed to help was because I knew Lily wouldn’t stop until Hunter paid. I should’ve known she wouldn’t make it easy. She never does.

The bouncer guarding the door at Tease had beefy arms and a tiny head. The combination was unsettling, and when I tried to run past him, he held out his meat hook to stop me.

“What’s the rush, buddy?” he asked.

I glanced down at his hand on my chest and then narrowed my eyes on him. “My friend is in there. I need to get her out.”

He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Better not be talkin’ ’bout a dancer. We don’t need a jealous husband goin’ in there and wreckin’ business.”

“She’s not a dancer,” I sneered, stepping back so his hand fell from my chest.

He studied me for another second and I clenched my fists. The longer I was out there talking to SmallHead McGee, the longer Josephine and Lily had to fend for themselves.

“There’s a cover,” he said, drawing out his words in a way that grated on my nerves.

I reached for my wallet. “Great. What is it?”

He cracked his fat knuckles. “For you?” He sized up my suit. “Thirty bucks.”

That’s it? He knew I needed to get in, he could have asked for any amount, and he’d come up with thirty dollars?

“All right, buddy,” I said, throwing his word back at him and handing him forty dollars. “Keep the change.”

He grinned as I walked through the door, staring down at the forty bucks like he’d just won the lottery.

The strip club was clouded with cigarette smoke and furniture straight out of the 80s. Red vinyl chairs rimmed three separate stages, a large one in the center and two smaller ones that flanked it on either side. Red and yellow lights flickered overhead, illuminating the girls dancing on each one. They were the afternoon crew, the stragglers, the dancers that had no dance left in them. They looked like they needed a week’s vacation and a few less days spent inside the tanning bed.