Looking back, I should have known that leaving such a strong-willed woman alone in my house with nothing to do was probably not the brightest plan. But then again, things were so topsy-turvy with the club that I simply assumed Josie would understand that.
However, once I saw her strut right past Porter in all her bruised and battered glory, I stood to my feet in relative shock.
Not to mention, I was pissed.
Did she not get it? What the fuck was she doing? She had left the safety of my house, the safety of my rules, and the safety of the ocean to do what? Put herself at risk simply to prove a point?
“I hear you guys are talking about me,” she said as she walked over to the fridge. “Care to fill me in on the deets?”
I gripped my hands into fists. “What are you doing here, Josie?”
She ripped open the fridge. “Don’t mind me, just getting a beer.”
Astrid snickered. “You don’t drink beer.”
Josie glared at her from over her shoulder. “I do now.”
I marched over to the fridge and closed it. “No, you don’t. You need water, because water is what helps you heal. Along with some rest.”
She looked up at me as the door slammed closed. “And I’m supposed to rest in a strange house with no one in it? You really underestimate what makes people comfortable, Ashy.”
“Arch-er.”
She waved her hand in the air. “Whatever.”
I thought my head was going to pop off. “What are you even doing here, anyway? Even if you wanted to go out, why the hell would your first place be the clubhouse? You said it yourself, you didn’t like being here.”
She leaned against the counter. “That’s before I knew I was being talked about. So, which of you goons is going to let me in on the story?”
The guys all chuckled behind me, but I didn’t think things were funny. Anyone could have looked at her fucking face and knew that we were dealing with some pretty serious things. And while her sassiness would have been attractive at any other point in time in my life, that was beside the point.
She was injured, and she needed to be resting.
“We were talking about you going undercover at the club,” Porter said.
I whipped around on him. “”Are you fucking kidding me?”
Astrid blinked. “Wait, what?”
Then, Josie spoke. “Done.”
I whipped back around and gawked. “You don’t even know what you’re going undercover to do! And you can’t go undercover like you are, they won’t let you strip.”
Josie bucked up. “Are you saying I’m ugly?”
I scoffed. “I’m saying you’re covered head to toe with bruises. You don’t have the strength or the sanity right now to go undercover and spy on the guys that kicked the shit out of you.”
“Hey!” Astrid exclaimed.
Josie turned her glare onto me. “You don’t get to dictate who I am, what I can do, and what I’m capable of in this kind of condition. What’s the job?”
“It isn’t a job,” I groaned, “it’s an undercover operation to try and get information about the guys who did this to you from the inside. But if you go in there, you’re going to be a massive target. You’ll be at risk, and we haven’t even figured out how we’re going to keep eyes on you if that does happen. But it won’t happen. Not if I have anything to do with it.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Oh, really? And why’s that?”
I gnashed my teeth together. “Because you look like you’re two steps away from being pushed into a commercial meat grinder.”
“Enough!” Brooks exclaimed.
The entire room fell silent as Josie walked away from me, flipping her hair as if she were some sort of diva. I had to draw in a deep breath in order to keep my anger and my worries at bay. I knew the guys would all be on her side out of pure necessity, and I needed to try and convince them that we couldn’t just send a woman in her condition back into the environment that hurt her in the first place.
“Well?” Josie asked as she got into the middle of the living room. “Is someone going to come sit with me and help me figure out how this is going to work?”
I shook my head slowly. “This is a big mistake, Josie.”
She snickered. “I’m a tough girl.”
I slowly turned around. “Tough enough to take another beating like the one you’ve already taken?”
I saw her wince and knew I had struck a cord. So, I kept going. “Because that’s what will happen if they find you out. And they won’t just beat you. There’s a chance they’ll kill you to send us a message. Going in there and doing what you’re about to do will put your life in danger. Can you really look Astrid in the face and say ‘yes’ to going undercover? Because if you can, then I’ll back off.”
I knew that I couldn’t really tell her what to do, but I didn’t want her getting hurt. I didn’t want her getting into the thick of all this and then suddenly realizing she made a mistake. This was something we had to do because it was the life we signed up for.
She hadn’t done that, though.
“He’s got a point,” Astrid said.
Josie sighed. “Look, I know he’s got a point. But I want to take those assholes down just as much as you do. I never back down from a fight. And you’re right, I’ve never been hurt like this by anyone, much less a group of men. That’s all the more reason why I need to help, though. I’ve got friends who strip with me in that club. Who’s to say they aren’t their next target when things get out of hand again? I’m not letting that happen. I was the first, and I’m going to make sure I’m the last.”
“Sounds pretty convincing to me,” Porter said with a shrug. “Brooks?”
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ll have to read her in on everything. And we might as well read Astrid in, too, so she’s got someone to talk with that isn’t another man.”
Josie nodded. “I agree, so it’s settled.”
“Archer?” Porter asked.
She held out her hand. “I don’t need his permission.”
Porter quipped back. “He opened his home to you and assumed responsibility for you and your recovery. Yes, you need his permission. And if you don’t like it, you know where the door is.”
That shut her up, but I knew it wouldn’t work for long. “Fine. If everyone else in on board, then I won’t stop you guys.”
She nodded her head. “There. It’s settled. Now, let’s sit down and figure out how the hell we’re going to make this work.”
We all sat down in the living room, except for me. I stood over by the windows to make sure no one rolled up on us at the last minute. The guys filled in Josie and Astrid on things they didn’t know about, and after a brief pause Brooks made sure the girls wanted to get entangled like this. I watched Porter’s shoulders flex and I knew he wasn’t okay with this. After all, it was our job to protect these girls, not throw them into the line of fire.
But seeing the need for justice in Josie’s eyes was something we couldn’t deny her.
So, I sucked it up.
“All right,” Astrid said with a sigh, “that was… a lot.”
Brooks nodded slowly. “Yeah, it is.”
She pointed at him. “You, Porter, and I will talk later. But for now, we need to figure out how the hell Josie’s going to go undercover. I mean, wouldn’t the guys recognize her right away?”
I shook my head. “No, they won’t.”
Everyone looked back at me and Josie nodded. “He’s right. I took my beating well before they started to get to know the staff at the club. They have no idea who works for them and who is simply in their way. They wouldn’t know me from the next dancer, as far as I’m concerned.”
Porter sighed. “That seems like a bit of a stretch. I’d remember any woman I laid my hands on like that.”
Tanner scoffed. “Well, that’s because you’re a decent human being. They aren’t.”
Finn nodded. “I’m with Josie. I think that if we can find some of that tattoo-covering make-up shit to make her bruises disappear and put her in there as waitstaff or possibly a second-tier dancer, we could make this work.”
Josie shook her head. “Nu-uh. I didn’t work this hard to be waitstaff or second-tier anything. I can go back and do my regular—”
“Josie,” I said hotly.
Her eyes whipped over to me. “What do you want?”
I pointed to the guys. “You either listen to them and the plan they have for you, or you’re out. You don’t get to have everything you want, when you want it, simply because you don’t want to admit that you’re a victim of domestic violence. If this is your way to process what’s happened, we’re all behind you. But we’re behind you if you’re working our plan. Not your own. Got it?”
Brooks let out a low whistle as I stared her down. As God as my witness, she wasn’t going to take the reins of this and act like she hadn’t just been in the hospital because of what they did to her. She slowly rose to her feet and walked over to me, her eyes growing fiery with every step she took.
And when she stopped in front of me, I raised my head high. “Nothing you can say will change my—”
But instead of interrupting me by firing back, she stood to her tiptoes and kissed my cheek. An action which caused my eyes to flutter closed for a split second.
“Thank you for looking out for me,” she said as she took a step back.
I nodded and opened my eyes. “You’re welcome.”
Josie cleared her throat and turned around. “I’ll have more access to back rooms if I’m a second-tier dancer. But that means doctoring up my employee file to make the demotion look legit. Then, I can tell the girls how I got demoted instead of telling them what’s going on.”
Cole stood to his feet. “Are the files electronic?”
She nodded. “They are.”
Tanner stood beside Cole. “We got this, then. Give us an hour and we’ll have it nice and doctored up. What usually gets a strip—I mean, dancer, demoted like that?”
Josie grinned. “A bit of touching around on clients when we’re not supposed to usually does the trick.”
Brooks shook his head. “That might not work in this particular situation. What else?”
Josie shrugged. “Cursing out the bosses would do it. Put in there that I cussed out the prior owners and they fired me, but I’m willing to come back at half the cost and a knock-down to second tier. That’ll make me seem vulnerable already to them, and it might give me more access that way.”
Cole and Tanner nodded in unison before speaking. “Done.”
“I just have one thing to ask,” I said.
The room groaned as Josie turned to face me. “What is it?”
“I want to teach you how to protect yourself. You know, shooting a firearm, if you don’t already know. Some self-defense moves. Shit like that. It’s the only way I’m going to truly be okay with this.”
And without hesitation, Josie took my hand. “No time like the present. Guys, we’ll be outside if anyone needs us!”
