Page 2 of The Reluctant Siren (Texas Sirens: Legacy #2)

Jensen Wiley stared out over the dungeon floor and wondered what Harlow was doing tonight.

Was she sitting at home watching TV and eating her favorite takeout? Or was she at another club much like this one?

He wouldn’t know until he got the report in the morning, and that bugged him.

It was odd to be back in Texas. He spent the last several years of his life undercover, finding the man who killed his brother. Taking down the entire organization only to find out the last man he needed to get revenge on was building a network in Dallas. Where Harlow lived.

He was so fucking close to her and he couldn’t reach out and touch her, couldn’t call her and hear that voice that always got his motor going.

Couldn’t beg her damn forgiveness. See if there was any way she would take him back.

“Hey, Master J.”

Lila winked his way as she walked toward the bar.

He gave her a nod. The pretty sub who worked the bar—and did some other things for the organization—had made it clear to him that she wouldn’t mind having him for more than a temporary play partner. They’d run a few teaching scenes in the months he’d been here, but he always explained he didn’t sleep with his coworkers.

He didn’t sleep with anyone. It was one sin he would not have on his soul when he finally made his way back to her.

He took a long breath as the music thumped through the club and the lights fluctuated along to the sexy beat.

He would get her back. He would do this one last thing for his brother and then he would show up on her doorstep when it was safe and he would do whatever it took to get her back.

Because she was the one.

The trouble was he’d found the “one”

in the most dangerous place he could have imagined. The woman had two fathers and still ended up walking into a sex club looking for a missing person.

One day he would have such a talk with Ben and Chase Dawson.

Quietly. Where she couldn’t hear because his baby could be fierce.

“You know she likes you, right, J?”

The manager of Decadence was a forty something who looked like a suburban dad when he wasn’t in leathers. Then he looked like a suburban dad in leathers. Like every kid’s absolute worst nightmare of how they would find their dad someday. Phil Jackson seemed like a nice guy. He was excellent at his job. The only trouble was his job was moving drugs and money for some of the world’s most dangerous people.

“I’m afraid she’s not my type,”

Jensen replied.

Phil watched Lila’s hips sway as she carried her tray of drinks away.

“She’s everyone’s type.”

She wasn’t a gorgeous woman with a sunny smile and a sarcastic wit that could flay a man alive. He would bet Lila had never watched a man’s back while he snuck into a drug dealer’s office to gather evidence on him.

He had a very specific type.

“I also think it’s a bad idea to fuck around with employees I’m supposed to manage,”

he pointed out.

Phil sighed and ran a hand over his balding head.

“You’re probably right about that. It causes a lot of drama, and we don’t need that now. How is it going?”

He managed to get hired on as the dungeon monitor for this underground BDSM club because of his close ties to other groups Phil worked for. When his old job had been decimated by…well, by him, but he’d done a damn good job covering his tracks…all the higher-ups getting murdered or going to jail, he offered his services here. He had an excellently faked criminal record going back to time spent in juvie. No one knew him as Jensen Wiley. They knew a criminal named Jay Wilson from Los Angeles, California.

The trouble was the bad guys figured out he had a weak spot, so he’d been forced to prove she wasn’t.

“Quiet night,”

he reported back.

“I haven’t even had to kick anyone out for going too hard.”

What you have to remember is that the submissive is actually in control. She only gives the Dom what she’s comfortable with. It’s the Dom’s job to figure out if that’s all she needs or if they should push some limits. Consensually, of course.

Just the thought of her with her husky voice and absolutely no hangups when it came to sex could get him hard. He’d learned so much from her. So much about the lifestyle. So much about life and what he wanted from it.

He needed to remember why he was here. To avenge Tommy. To protect Harlow.

His revenge seemed so much less important than protecting Harlow.

Once Cliff Hamilton was dead, there would be no one left who could come after her. No one left to care that he loved her more than his own damn life.

Loved her so much he’d been willing to give her up to save her.

“Good, because you need to know something.”

Phil moved in, putting a hand on the wall behind Jensen. The leathers were all for show. He’d never seen Phil once play with any of the subs who came through the club even if he would give them all once overs. Decadence was a front for Hamilton’s criminal operation, but it was a working club. Mostly tourists, from what he could tell. Which is why he had to break things up. Phil also didn’t have the super-sane rules good clubs had.

Two drinks max when you’re playing. Usually one before and one after. Or if you’re my friend Seth, it’s one before and then a shit ton after, but he’s not playing at that point. After hours, The Hideout pretty much becomes a bar and we all sit around gossiping and Seth plays some songs and one of the twins tells some insane story no one quite believes. It’s my favorite place.

He had never gotten to see her home club, hadn’t gotten to meet her friends and sit in that bar with her cuddled up on his lap. Their entire time together had been adrenaline and anxiety, and yet he’d known he could find peace with that woman.

Would find peace with her one day soon.

“What’s up?”

Jensen asked, certain he sounded like he didn’t care. He’d perfected the look, the tone, the dead-eyed stare that let people know he had no soul.

He feared he might have given up his soul in revenge for his brother, but he knew it wasn’t gone. His soul was simply walking around with a woman named Harlow.

“Hamilton is coming through town next week,”

Phil said, leaning against the wall.

“I want you to check in with the guys in the office. Make sure everything is tight, you know. They’re smart kids who run that part of the business, but they don’t know how the world works. At least not ours. Sometimes I’m sure those fucking kids are going to get us all killed.”

The kids who wrote the code that looked to the world like a gig app. The kind where someone else picked up your orders for a fee. And it ran that way, for the most part. But if you knew the code, it was an excellent way to order drugs and get them dropped off right at your doorstep. To the cops it would look like late-night tacos or someone picking up your kid’s meds from the pharmacy for you. It was the perfect cover.

Hamilton found the coders on the Dark Web, outsiders looking for a place to fit in. They probably hadn’t intended to become criminals, but soon they were in far too deep to ever get out again.

Most of the employees had no idea what was going on. Like his brother hadn’t. His little brother had thought he was making some extra money so he could try to pay off the student loans that seemed to never fucking get smaller no matter how much he paid. He’d been desperate, and criminals took advantage of it.

And then one day they gave him a “special” delivery.

Jensen brought his attention back front and center. He had to focus on the now and not the ghosts that haunted him. Even though he was doing it all for them. The two people in the whole world he ever loved.

Well, three. Three. There was one more, and he counted on that man for everything right now. His other brother. The one he hadn’t shared a mother with. The one who had been there for everything, and now he trusted him with his greatest love.

“Yeah, I’ll make sure security is tight down here,”

he promised.

Phil sighed, an audible sound even over the pulsating music.

“I need you to take care of upstairs, too. I know it’s a lot to ask but I’m in a bind, and I don’t trust anyone else.”

Jensen managed to not drop his jaw. He was moving upstairs? He thought he would have to wait months, maybe years for this kind of chance.

“What happened to Austin?”

Phil grimaced.

“He has been…reassigned.”

It was everything he’d been waiting for, and he didn’t even feel bad since he’d caught Austin about to rape a passed-out club girl a couple of weeks ago. He’d stopped it, but Austin had it in for him ever since. Austin was pretty much one of the top dogs here. There wasn’t anywhere else to go unless he was joining Hamilton himself.

So Austin had been reassigned to a shallow grave somewhere.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

“Let’s just say we might have found out Austin was taking more than his fair share,”

Phil admitted.

“It couldn’t happen at a worse time. The cops are all over us since they identified the Jalisco cartel we were working with here in Dallas. Lucky for us that ditzy broad who caught them doesn’t know we’re the real force behind the operation, and anyone who could have talked died in the war her dad set off.”

He’d been surprised at how easily the cartel had gone down. He wasn’t a fool. Someone had gotten them to turn on each other. A pro.

“I heard her dad used to work for an intelligence agency.”

Phil shrugged.

“His daughter’s safe. Trust me. We aren’t going after that crazy bitch. We’re going to stay as far away from that whole group as we can. I think one of the things Hamilton wants to talk about is moving the operation to a bigger city. Now that we know it works here, we can start the business in Houston. In a couple of years we’ll be the supplier of choice for the entire US.”

It was good to know they had ambitions. He intended to make sure they never reached their goals.

“So I get to meet the big boss?”

Phil put a hand on his shoulder, a paternal gesture.

“I think it’s time. And I’ll get you moved out of here in a couple of weeks. I promise you won’t be pulling double duty for long. We just need to find someone who can run this club and train him. You’ll like it upstairs. I think you’re smart, J. You can go places here. I’m happy you didn’t get caught up in that mess that happened in LA. You never told me how you started working for the cartel. You don’t seem like their type.”

He noticed the couple on the main stage. They were playing out a fantasy scene. At least he hoped so or those ears that guy had were seriously deformed. Nah. He had pretend wings, too. Jensen sighed. He was never going to get used to the freaky stuff, and that seemed to come from people who read a lot.

He wondered if Harlow liked those fairies fucking books.

He remembered her talking about her aunt’s books. Something about cowboys and women who liked more than one of them at a time.

Not that he would ever share, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t wondered if it was a fantasy of hers. Something they could play out in a club like this and then go home and be together and it would all have been nothing more than an adventure they shared because they were in love and trusted one another.

Would she ever be able to trust him again?

He needed to focus. It was being so close to her that had him on edge.

“They needed someone who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty but who also could put people at ease. I can be charming when I want to. They were particularly interested in hiring young women. I made them comfortable.”

And managed to get at least one of them out. He wondered if Harlow knew he hadn’t completely abandoned her. He finished her case when it was too dangerous for her to continue. He made sure the woman she was hired to find came out of the experience with her life.

It had been the only gift he could give her.

“Well, you’re going to have to do that again.”

Phil gestured to the dungeon floor.

“Hamilton wants us to find a couple who can make a run for us. He’s got a package he wants to send to Canada. He wants a couple. Someone we can have some control over.”

The thought turned his stomach. He knew what control meant. It meant they would get leverage over a couple and force them to do their will. They would get evidence of what they did here in the club and blackmail them with it. They would have to be selected carefully. They couldn’t have ties to law enforcement. It was best if they didn’t have many ties at all.

Just a few more days. He wouldn’t actually have to do it. He would kill Hamilton before this went down, and then he would find a way to be with Harlow.

His debt to his brother would be paid, and he could start his life.

If he didn’t wind up dead or in jail.

He nodded Phil’s way.

“Yeah, I can find someone for us. Don’t worry about it. We get new couples in here all the time. I’ll be a mentor and then I’ll be their boss.”

“That’s my boy,”

Phil said and strode away.

It wouldn’t be long and then he could see her again. He could try to put the pieces back together.

She was probably going to punch him. She would definitely punch him if she ever figured out that when he’d come to Dallas, he’d brought along his best friend so someone could watch over her while he worked.

If these people ever found out how he felt about her…

It was fine because according to the reports all she was doing was tracking down wayward husbands so the ex-wives could enforce their child support agreements. And gathering evidence for divorce cases and working with some insurance companies to prove their clients were committing fraud. She was staying away from the dangerous stuff. She was spending time with her friends and family.

She was probably going to be at The Hideout tonight, and Niall would watch over her like he had for a couple of months now. He kind of hoped his friend found someone while he was working his mission there. He knew Niall had taken to the lifestyle quickly. His friend talked about how much more in touch with himself he felt since taking that first class, how he seemed to fit in. It would be so cool if Niall fell for one of Harlow’s friends. It might help his case if they could double date and hang out and…be a family.

A shout from his left caught his attention and he sighed, realizing those stupid frat boys they let in were causing trouble.

He had a job to do.

But once it was over. He was coming for her. This time he wasn’t going to let her go.