Page 6 of Stolen Temptation

Squealing, she presses a sloppy kiss to my cheek before grabbing another woman’s hand and tripping toward the bar.

Darren cocks his head. “Not sure that’s the right color red for you. I think you need a more blue-toned shade, and that one’s a little too orange for your complexion.”

“Fuck off and focus.” Swiping a napkin off a table, I rub the bright lipstick off my skin. Darren and Finn love to give me shit for being too approachable, but not all of us can repel people with the force of our grumpiness or inner-crazy alone. “Is he taking the bait?”

From our table, we both surreptitiously watch one of our employees scowl and shake his head at the man dressed in a fitted gray button-down who’s leaning close to his ear. “Not sure yet, but it doesn’t seem like it.”

Sure enough, the employee recoils at whatever the other man says before pointing toward the exit. The man raises hispalms and retreats, slipping into the crowd while the employee whips out his phone and stabs at the screen. He returns to the bar, visibly agitated while he mops up a spill with a towel.

Fuck.

Less than a minute later, my phone vibrates with a text from Finn.

No dice. He reported the incident to his manager.

A second text from a different number follows.

Guy wanted nothing to do with me. Pretty sure he was this close to punching me in the face.

My shoulders droop. “Guess he’s in the clear too. We can probably pack it up for the night.”

Grimacing, Darren flicks his lighter off and on. The action draws my attention to the faded scars on his fingers, remnants from one of his early explosive experiments gone wrong. The guy’s lucky to alive, although some days, I’m not sure he agrees. “Not looking forward to reporting another fail to Shane.”

I share his pain. Ever since this mole shit unfolded, Shane Gallagher, head of the Irish Kings, has been in a piss-poor mood. And our inability to catch traitors with our loyalty-testing stings hasn’t helped matters.

In the past, I usually went to Madden or one of the Kings’ other two successful nightclubs to pick up women for the night, not to spy on employees. Playing James Bond isn’t my typical role in the organization, but when Shane Gallagher tells you to do something, you don’t question him. Not if you possess more than a few working brain cells and want to keep them safe on the inside of your skull where they belong.

We head upstairs to review the video feeds on the off chance we missed something. As I suspected, there’s nothing to see.

By the time we leave Madden and enter the hallway outside Shane’s private study, Darren is noticeably on edge.

No surprise there. This mole shit we’re dealing with has everyone stressed out, and for good reason.

This is the single greatest threat our organization has seen in over a decade. We’re not handling the news well.

These days, we face two huge problems.

Now that their heir and freshly minted don, Leonardo, is out of jail on a technicality, the De Luca family has returned from the grave with a new lease on life. That human-trafficking son of a bastard didn’t waste any time either.

Leo declared war on us the second he gained his freedom.

For him, it’s about revenge. Our families share a long and ugly history, and he wants to settle scores. For the people that follow him, it’s about toppling the current balance of power in the criminal underworld.

No single crime family is strong enough to take down the Kings, but if a bunch of them join forces, we’ve suddenly got an issue the size of Manhattan on our hands.

Skirmishes, shoot-outs, and ambushes against our operations have cropped up all over the place. Routine drops and pickups have transformed into harrowing near-misses, ending in lost merchandise and our foot soldiers hobbling home broken and wounded.

Despite my best efforts as the Kings’ tech spymaster, fighting off the De Lucas and their allies is starting to feel like whack-a-mole.

No matter how often I’m reassured that it’s not my fault, guilt and grief still rake me over hot coals every time one of our own falls.

We’ve lost three men in the past week alone. At this rate, we’ll soon be single-handedly bankrolling the funeral industry.

We look sloppy, and even some of our long-time clients are starting to search elsewhere for their needs.

“We doing this, or are we just gonna hang out in the hallway all night?”

Darren’s question drags me back to the present. I wonder how long I’ve been standing with my hand coiled around the door handle.