He yanked her to his side as he hit the code into the keypad. He heard the latch unlock and pushed the door open.

He looked to the man inside watching a bank of twelve monitors with visuals that s.h.i.+fted every five seconds. Visuals that fed from the thirty cameras throughout the club.

The man took one look at Nick's face and immediately lifted his hands, not at all happy he'd watched his boss f.u.c.king a woman considering that boss was right there, clearly about to get in his s.h.i.+t about it.

"She said-" he began.

"Delete it," Nick ordered.

The man instantly turned to the monitors. One cleared then showed the now empty social chamber.

Within five seconds, it blanked.

Without another word, Nick dragged the girl out of the monitoring room and closed the door.

"You're done," he told her. "Pack your s.h.i.+t. Out."

Her eyes got big.

"You're firing me?" she asked.

f.u.c.k, he hated stupid b.i.t.c.hes.

He'd smelled that on her the minute he met her. It concerned him, not only for the purpose he bought the place-to get access to Olivia Shade-but because he owned the f.u.c.king place and no employer wanted a stupid b.i.t.c.h for an employee.

But she was liked by the old owners.

What she pulled, that no longer factored.

"Yes," he answered, letting her go. "Get your s.h.i.+t and out."

"But we-" she began.

"There is no we," he told her.

Her head twitched in shock.

Yeah. He hated stupid b.i.t.c.hes.

"But you took me to dinner," she whispered. "And then we-"

"f.u.c.ked. You weren't very good so I didn't come back for more. Lesson. Usually, a man takes a woman out, f.u.c.ks her, wants more, he does something about that and doesn't let three weeks elapse between the first f.u.c.k and the next."

"But, you've been flirting with me for-"

He knew what he'd been doing.

He'd needed something from her.

He got it.

He knew she felt his change when she snapped her mouth shut.

"Out," he whispered.

She swallowed visibly but that was the extent of her further wasting his time. She hustled her admittedly sweet a.s.s to get her s.h.i.+t and then she got out.

He pulled out his phone, started a string to the managers of the club and tapped in the text.

Find a new Ross.

He hit send and went home.

An hour later, Nick sat on his sofa, foot up, sole of his shoe pressed to the edge of the coffee table, the fingers of one hand wrapped around a gla.s.s of Dewar's and ice, his other hand lifted, his eyes to Olivia Shade's phone number written on his palm.

Christ, she was a cool customer.

After walking to him in that f.u.c.king skirt with that f.u.c.king look on her face that made him absolutely sure he could f.u.c.king smell the wet drenching her p.u.s.s.y...

Then taking his c.o.c.k like she did, her eyes locked to his, her hips working his d.i.c.k...

And finally coming with the demure noises a princess would make while her p.u.s.s.y told a different story and milked him hard.

After all that, walking like she was drifting through her living room in order to grab her panties, put them on, nab her purse and do nothing but nod before she was going to walk away from him.

He had not expected first contact to go that spectacularly well.

He expected eye contact. Maybe a few words exchanged. Enough she'd get he was into her kink so he could lay the groundwork when he ran into her elsewhere.

He didn't expect to f.u.c.k her against the wall.

And certainly he didn't expect that f.u.c.k to be that outstanding.

He also didn't expect to feel whatever the f.u.c.k it was he felt coming off her after her o.r.g.a.s.m milked his right out of him.

He had no idea what it was but whatever it was, he stayed buried inside her a lot longer than he'd intended.

And it made him uneasy.

She'd given nothing away after that and it was almost like he'd imagined it.

He stopped looking at her number, leaned forward, tagged his phone off the coffee table and sat back. He used his thumb to program her in.

And there she was. A bold Olivia Shade at the top of her contact.

Her there with him everywhere he went.

A Shade in his life.

He looked across the room to the chest against the wall where the framed picture of Hettie was. A picture that hadn't moved for four years, except for when he moved house and when his cleaning service dusted it.

f.u.c.k.

He put that thought aside, tossed the phone back to the table, nabbed his drink, threw it back, heaved himself out of the couch and went to bed.

Like he had a sixth sense (and in his business, he had to), Turner called him the next morning five minutes after Nick's workout.

"You make contact yet?"

Nick looked from his orange juice out the sunny window.

Cold. Warm. February. July. In Denver, the day dawned, odds were it'd be sunny.

"You wanna tell me why you're asking?" he requested.

"One of her boys got dead last night."

Nick's back straightened but his eyes dropped to the stainless steel countertop.

"What?"

"Eli Cook, street name Green. Not sure why. Cops say the crime scene, that bein' his apartment, looked like he was packin' to leave town. Not sure why about that either. Don't got a lot of insight into the Shade family dealings anymore, but no word on the street sayin' there was an issue. He had a gunshot wound to his thigh that was not mortal, but was fresh, though not as fresh as the ones that were mortal and no one knows jack about that either."

Even though Nick knew all about Green, including who shot him considering he had surveillance all over the Shade warehouse, he had nothing to say so he didn't say anything.

"This is not good, Nick," Turner went on. "The House of Shade has been a house of cards for years now. A cold wind blows, it'll blow away and everything stacked inside will go with it. And I gotta tell you, with them taking desperate measures years ago to diversify dealings, that going so far south it dropped off the face of the earth, and them constantly scrambling with not much coming of it, now Eli Cook biting it for no apparent reason, I feel a seriously f.u.c.kin' bitter wind kickin' up."

"f.u.c.ked her last night," Nick shared.

There was a pause, then, "Say again?"

"Set it up I was with her last night at the club for the initial meet. Apparently, she liked the scene that was playin' out and wasn't feeling the idea of delayed gratification. She made it clear she was good to go; I took her up on the invitation. We f.u.c.ked. She gave me her number after so we're gonna do it again. But before that, it was reported to me she called in at just after six to book her viewing. She was there by ten thirty. She left at just after eleven thirty. Tail on her said her driver took her right home and that's where she stayed. When was her boy done?"

"Jesus, Nick. I'm not callin' you to be Olivia Shade's alibi, for f.u.c.k's sake. Christ. I can't believe what you're tellin' me. The b.i.t.c.h is made of stone. First contact and you f.u.c.ked her? How could you even drive your c.o.c.k in there without it breaking clean off?"

Olivia Shade was not made of stone.

She was warm and soft, smelled good, and her sheet of straight black hair felt like silk.

And if he was another man he knew her green eyes had the capacity to brand owners.h.i.+p. He knew it because, as they held his while he thrust into her, he had to fight giving over to it.

And last but very much not least, she had a phenomenally tight, hot, wet c.u.n.t.

"Trust me," he muttered. "She's not made of stone."

"Nick, nature is gonna take its course with Vincent Shade. With all of them. You do not have to use his daughter to get to him."

He shouldn't have told Turner his plan.

But he needed this to succeed and he was going to use everything he had to do that, family, friends, skills...and markers.

And Turner owed him a f.u.c.kuva lot of markers.

So he'd told Turner his plan.

"Your concern is heartwarming," he joked, lifting his gla.s.s of juice and finis.h.i.+ng it, hoping Turner would take his hint and shut up about it.

He didn't take the hint.

"You know this family. You know those two women. You've done such extensive research on them, you might know them better than they know themselves. So you know the Shade sisters have two uses for men. They can take orders and/or give o.r.g.a.s.ms. f.u.c.k, Georgia Shade uses her c.u.n.t as a recruiting tool and to make sure their soldiers toe the line. At least Olivia doesn't f.u.c.k where she works but you found out yourself the last three c.o.c.ks she took didn't know her name and she didn't ask theirs."

She hadn't asked his last night either.

In fact, she hadn't said a f.u.c.king thing.

But she knew who he was like he knew the same of her. No one in their world didn't, either way.

"Least last night proves one thing," Nick said. "Not thinkin' she'd even sit in the same room with me much less ride my d.i.c.k if she knew what went down with Hettie. That close of an encounter, I'd be in a firefight by the time I hit the alley, even if she's hidin' her kink from Daddy and they got about ten soldiers left in their crew."

"We already know that, Nick. Vincent rules that warehouse with an iron fist, but he tried to form a stable of girls six years ago and Georgia lost her mind. With two women set to inherit that dried-up dynasty, wh.o.r.es are not on their agenda. With them not even allowing wh.o.r.es, neither of the sisters knew he was involved in human trafficking. Think that's the only thing that would have the Shade sisters breaking ties with their old man."

That also made him uneasy. The fact that Olivia was his entry to tearing down Vincent Shade's world. To gaining access to Gill Harkin and blowing a hole in his head just like that man had done to Hettie. To dismantling everything Shade.

Which meant both sisters would lose everything when neither of them had been involved with what had happened to Hettie.

But they lived that life. They stood by their father's side. They did their jobs.

Sometimes you got away with dealing day to day with the devil.

Sometimes you got burned.

"Nick," Turner called when Nick said nothing.

"Nature takes its course, I'll walk away. But the time is ripe, Eric. So I'll work my plan until that happens or until I get what I need. It's in motion now. There's no other option."

"Please be safe," Turner replied. "At least Georgia Shade has blood pumping in her veins. She likes a good f.u.c.k a lot more often than her sister. She likes a good time too. She's got a life and she lives it. But outside of what Vincent tried to do to resurrect their operations six years ago, it's widely considered Olivia Shade is the quiet brains behind their ventures and if it wasn't for her, that family would have disappeared from the scene years ago."

"I did gather this intel before I started this gig," Nick pointed out.

He listened to Turner sigh.

"We done?" Nick asked.

"You get anything useful about that dead soldier, would make some folks happy in the DPD they got an even anorexic lead."