If I listen carefully, I can hear the distant sound of vehicles on the road outside. The sounds of the real world anchor me.
I sigh and go back to the door. Open it and pull the trolley in front of the door to keep it from closing again. I’m not going to risk letting that door shut on me, even if it can’t lock.
As soon as I’m finished unloading the empties, I rush out with the trolley and push the door shut. The tension drains out of me as I lock the door.
And here I’d thought I’d finally started to live in the now, that my past was starting to feel like another life. I’d thought I was safe, but no. The Colony still haunts me.
Will it ever stop?
Approaching the door to the strip club, I already feel a lot safer. Who’d have thought this place would ever make me feel safe?
I go back inside and let the door close.
When I reach the counter, Monica still hasn’t returned. I wonder if she’s having too much fun with the bikers. My face burns with the thought.
Returning to serving up drinks, the boredom of the night sets in, but it’s better than being out in that shed.
I’m setting down drinks for a group of men when I freeze, eyes on the customer sitting at a table across the room. His eyes are on the stage, riveted to the girls dancing there, and shadows obscure his face, but not enough that I don’t recognize him.
My heart gives a frantic leap. I’d know those red curls anywhere.
Deacon Jacob!
Panic wells up, huge, stealing my breath away.
What on earth is he doing here?
He must know I’m here. There are hundreds of strip clubs in Las Vegas. What are the chances that a deacon from a church colony in New Mexico would end up in the same place as me at one in the morning unless he knew where to find me?
My breathing fills my ears. I hurriedly pass out the rest of the drinks and rush to the bar, hoping that with the low lighting and the crowd, he doesn’t notice me.
If Deacon Jacob sees me in here, I know what he’ll do. A few other girls have tried to escape the Colony before, and we’ve all heard stories about what was done to them.
Jacob might try to politely talk me into returning to the fold, if he thinks he can get me to go by guilting me into it. And when he can’t, he’ll resort to less Godly ways of bringing me back, justifying his actions by reminding me that I am too important to lose.
And when I’m back in the Colony, if all I receive is a month of isolation, I’ll be lucky. Being a pastor’s daughter has kept me safe from most of the harsher, more painful punishments, but then I’ve never tried to escape before, either.
I shiver. I need to get out of here, and out of Vegas now. How, with no money?
My gaze veers to the tip jar sitting behind the bar. There has to be a few hundred dollars in there.
Monica still hasn’t returned. Sylvia disappears around the left side of the bar, serving customers there. Every eye is on the girls. No one is paying any attention to me. My eyes go back to the jar.
Horror turns my blood cold. Lord help me, am I actually thinking about stealing? Monica has been nothing but a sweetheart. And Dee. After everything she’s given me…
There has to be another way.
I throw a look over my shoulder. Deacon Jacob stands up and heads toward the bar. I’m out of time.
Taking a deep breath, I rush behind the bar. I snatch the tip jar, grab the key card for the back door, and make a run for it.
Someone shouts—one of the customers, I think—but I ignore him, pushing myself to keep going until I reach the security door. I swipe the card and bolt down the hall. I slam into the door to the alley and push it open.
Two steps into the alley, I collide with a hard male frame.
A pair of tattooed hands grab my shoulders as if to steady me, and a devilish smile fills my vision.
“Whoa, where do you think you’re going, beautiful?”
I jerk back, horrified.
His eyes go straight to the tip jar and key card clutched to my chest. That smile grows bigger. His eyes alight with triumph.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?” he says. “It looks like we have ourselves a little thief.”
2
Stealing From the Devil
When he first grabbed my shoulders, a million things occurred to me all at once.
The man is beautiful. Strong features that look like they were carved by angels. Eyes that gleam like chips of ice. Slicked back, blond hair.
He’s a hulk of a man, towering over me by more than a foot. The neatly cropped beard should kill the look, but he pulls it off.
I’ve never liked beards; they give a man too much to hide behind, but he makes it look rough and dangerous.
He’s so gorgeous it feels like it’s a sin just to look at him. His hands send a bolt of electricity from my shoulders all the way to my toes. I can’t take my eyes off him.
A year in the isolation chamber wouldn’t be enough to absolve me.
“Where do you think you’re going, beautiful?”
With his deep sensual voice, his smooth words wrapped around me like a blanket, tempting me to lose myself in his forbidden heated touch. I staggered back, ripping my gaze from his face. His hands tightened on my shoulders, and then the rest of what I saw filtered through my brain.
He’s dressed in the strangest clothes I’ve ever seen. All leather and tight-fitting, and he’s wearing some kind of unusual leather vest with grey rectangular patches sewn onto each breast. The vest is open at the front, leaving bare a muscled, powerful chest. One of the patches has SGT. At Arms sewn on it. Whatever that means, it sounds dangerous.
His massive arms, layered in ropes of muscle, are covered in tattoos, like Dee’s, but more of them. I also smell smoke, a deliciously woodsy scent.
All of this hits me in the space of a single second after he says his first words to me. Then I tear my eyes away from him at last, throwing my gaze to his huge boots.
He speaks again, and one word he says now registers, dwarfing all else.
Thief.
Oh no…
The tip jar is still clutched to my chest, the money in it, and the label, “Tips,” plain as day. I’m also holding the key card to the door. I’ve stolen from the people I work for, only to run right smack into a customer.
No, by the sounds of it, he’s a member of the staff.
It looks like we have ourselves a thief. That’s what he’d said.
The predatory triumph in his voice makes my stomach knot with fear, and I sneak a look at him through my lashes.
He eyes the jar, and then me, with contempt, his words rife with accusation that suggests he’s taken what I’ve done as a personal attack.
Panic races up my spine. Deacon Jacob is probably still in there looking for me. With the cruel way this guy’s mouth twists, I’m not sure if Jacob finding me would be better or worse.
Years of ingrained subordination are trying to kick in full force. I can feel my body trying to make itself small, part of me screaming to keep my eyes down and think of him only as “sir.”
No. I will not be that girl again. I will not be weak. Not now. Not here. Not again, and definitely not with him.
I force myself to look right into his eyes and twist violently in his grasp. “Let me go!” I snap.
I should be screaming, getting someone’s attention, but I can’t afford to attract questions from the authorities.