Chapter 11

Mal made it to Deacon by eight, skinning into the meeting of his security team just on time. To his surprise, Alex and Lucas were sitting with the rest of the guys.

Alex lifted an eyebrow as Mal put his coffee—Ned, thank goodness, had brought coffee when he'd picked Mal up and had, even better, brought a whole thermos full—down on the conference room table.

Mal ignored Alex. He wasn't going to explain why he was the last one to arrive at his own meeting.

Because that would only lead to inconvenient questions about the reasons. And he was in no way ready to talk to Alex and Lucas about Raina.

Too soon.

Not when he could still feel her hands around him, feel her nails digging into his shoulders and the strength of her body, sleek with dancer's muscle, moving with his.

Good God.

He'd never found it so hard to drag himself out of a woman's bed before.

When he'd walked into the kitchen to see her standing there wearing nothing but a short silky robe as red as her hair, it had taken an inhuman amount of effort not to grab her and haul her straight back to the bedroom. Or even just down onto the nearest flat surface.

Eyes on the prize.

He had a job to do.

Thinking about Raina wouldn't help. Of course, there wasn't a chance in hell that he'd be able to stop thinking about her, so what he had to do was shunt those thoughts off to one side for now. Think about Deacon and the Saints. Get the job done.

Situation normal.

He hoped.

He cleared his throat and turned on the tablet he'd brought into the room with his coffee.

"Okay, guys," he said as the buzz of conversation died and his team focused on him. "Good job yesterday. So let's go through it and figure out what we can do better next time. Chen, why don't you start?" He nodded at the wiry dark-haired man sitting next to Alex. He'd seconded Chen Sung from MC Shield to run the crew here at Deacon for a few months. They'd met in the army. Good man in a fight. And a brilliant mind for spotting trouble before it started.

Which reminded him, he needed to get Chen's report on Raina's truck. He'd asked him to go over the tapes from the parking garage last night. See if Chen could spot the knife-happy perp anywhere.

But business first. Get through the meeting; then there would be time for tapes and tires before he had to leave for Baltimore.

Chen started talking and Mal made himself pay attention. He nodded when Chen suggested a change in the security patrol patterns and times to better match the key movements in the crowd at change of innings and the end of the game. Then Chen passed the ball to Lee Reynolds, who went over the couple of problems they'd had with gates and security scanners.

Mal signed off on the expenditure Lee asked for to fix those problems—God, he was going to be happy when they had time and cash flow to rip all the bloody gates and scanners out and put in state-of-the-art systems, but that wasn't this season—and made a note in his tablet to double check the pricing on the scanners via his company contacts. He might be able to get a better deal.

The rest of the meeting went smoothly. No one had any major issues to report. They'd thrown out one guy who'd managed to get drunk by the end of the third inning and a few others who were pushing the line later in the game. There'd been the usual crop of contraband in people's bags coming into the game. Booze mostly, which was confiscated. A few knives. Those guys didn't get into the game. Or so he'd thought. But then there were Raina's tires. Of course, you didn't have to get into the game to get into the parking garage. That would explain how the security team hadn't found a knife on whoever had done it. But hopefully he'd find out exactly how the guy had gotten in when he talked to Chen.

Hopefully the zero-tolerance message would get through to the fans pretty quickly. Tom Jameson had had good security screening but Mal had upped the number of people searching bags and the stations to do it, which meant they could search more thoroughly.

There would always be macho assholes who thought they needed a weapon at a baseball game but they weren't getting into his damned park.

He dismissed the team, thanking them again for a good job. For a team so newly pulled together they'd done well, even the couple of guys who were relative newbies hired to beef up the numbers. He asked Chen to meet him in his office in fifteen minutes.

Then he turned to Alex and Lucas. "Not bad for a first run."

Alex nodded. "They did well."

"Running late this morning?" Lucas asked, his blue eyes amused. "Too much champagne at the party?"

"Something like that," Mal said. His whereabouts last night weren't up for discussion. "Now. There's one more thing that happened yesterday. I asked Chen to look into it before we discussed it with the rest of the security team and then everyone else."

Lucas's eyes narrowed. "What happened?"

"Someone slashed Raina Easton's tires in the underground lot," Mal said.

"Excuse me?" Alex said. His voice had gone cool. Pissed. Good. Mal was pissed, too. "How the fuck did that happen?"

"That's what Chen's looking into. Her truck is bright pink, so it might just have been the most obvious target."

"Might?" Alex said.

"She's had a few incidents at her club. Vandalism, mostly."

"You think someone has a problem with her?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I've spoken to her club manager and the guy who does security there. Given them some suggestions."

"Anyone looked at the reaction to the Angels yet?" Lucas said.

Mal shook his head. "Haven't had a chance. Have you?"

"No. Alex?"

Alex scowled. "I asked the media team to do a sweep of articles and social media and have the report for us when we get to Baltimore. But I haven't looked myself. Do you think this is because of the Angels?"

"From what I can gather, the incidents at the club started before this. But if there's someone who has a problem with her, it could spill over onto the Angels."

"Not too mention the Angels are likely to attract some nuts anyway," Lucas said.

Alex nodded. "We knew that would happen. So Mal will make sure the security around them is increased. We'll deal with Raina first."

"Deal with her?" Mal said, trying to keep the edge out of his tone.

"Make sure she's okay," Alex said. "Maybe get her a driver for game days as a start. She really has a pink truck?"

"Yeah," Mal said. "Big old Ford. Great truck, actually. If you like pink."

"Well, she is a girl," Lucas said. "I hear some of them like pink."

"Maybe you can buy Sara a pink helo," Mal said.

"Not sure Sara's the pink type," Lucas said. "She likes blue."

"I think we've strayed from the subject, "Alex said. "Mal, talk to Raina about a driver."

He grimaced. "She's not going to like it."

That earned him a look from Alex. "Oh?"

"I already talked to her last night. She wasn't that keen to have me interfering."

"She works for us. So we have a right to interfere when it comes to anything to do with the Saints."

"Well, I'm happy for you to try explaining that to her," Mal said. "She's got a mind of her own."

"You seem to know a lot about her," Lucas said. "Where were you last night, exactly?"

"No comment," Mal said. "Now I suggest we go see what Chen has to say so none of us miss our damn plane."

Chen's report didn't do anything to improve any of their moods. The security tape showed a guy in dark pants and dark hoodie for a few minutes during the seventh inning, but there wasn't a feed that had directly covered Raina's truck. Because someone had tilted the camera that should have been pointed at the spot where she was parked.

Fuck.

Messing with the camera suggested that this wasn't a random incident. Not just teenagers daring each other or some guy who'd drunk too much Bud and taken exception to a pink Ford. Someone had gone after Raina's truck specifically. Their hooded friend, perhaps. Mal scowled at the screen. Chen had already written the work order to rectify the camera gap. But that didn't help them identify the guy. Or figure out how he'd gotten in.

"The place is a rabbit warren, Mal," Chen said. "You know that. We'll increase the parking garage staff and make sure we're covering all the entrances and exits but this guy knew how to mess with a camera, so he's not an idiot."

"Fix the problem," Alex said. "I don't want anyone getting in or out of the underground lot that we don't know about. And tell Raina she's won herself a brand-new escort to games. I don't care if she doesn't like it. Tell her to come yell at me if she has to."

"I will," Mal said.

"Chen, you'll put all this in a report for the police?" Lucas asked.

Chen nodded. "Already done."

"And we fixed her tires, I assume?" Alex said.

Mal nodded. "Taken care of. Tuck did them. He checked the truck over but I haven't had a chance to talk to him this morning to see if he found anything. I'll call him next."

"Okay." Alex still didn't look happy but he'd obviously decided that everything that could have been done since last night had been done. "Then let's get on with the rest of the day."

Raina contemplated going back to bed when Mal left but she was still buzzing from sex and the hastily gulped cup of coffee she'd shared with him before he'd gone.

So she played with Wash, tossing his favorite catnip toy for him to chase around and occasionally return to her for fifteen minutes or so. Then she brushed him when he finally flopped down on the sofa next to her.

Grooming Wash always led to her being covered in cat fur, so next stop was the bathroom.

Her bathroom where Mal had recently been naked.

Nope. Don't think about the naked man.

He wasn't going to be naked again anywhere near her for days so thinking about it was just self-inflicted mental cruelty.

She sighed and made sure the shower was a few degrees cooler than she usually liked.

After she'd showered, and pulled on yoga pants and a sweatshirt, she made herself breakfast, poured more coffee, and settled down at her computer to check her email.

When she opened the mail program, a cascade of messages started downloading. social media notifications. Facebook mentions. Emails from the email loop the girls at the club used and another burlesque loop she belonged to. All of them seemed to have Fallen Angels somewhere in the subject or the message.

Yikes.

Had the press savaged the girls or something?

She flicked her browser open and did a quick Google search.

There were many, many, many hits. The top ones all coming from news or baseball or sports sites. She was fairly sure there was going to be a lot of flak on the baseball sites so she ignored those and clicked on the top newspaper result. Which was the Staten Island paper. Wow. Had everyone on Staten Island clicked on the story?

The link brought up the front page of the paper, which was half filled with a full color shot of Marly in all her blond Valkyrie glory, white wings gleaming behind her and a shit-eating grin pasted across her face.

SAINTS SEEK DIVINE INTERVENTION, the headline screamed, and Raina rolled her eyes. Still, she'd expected the Angels' name to give the headline writers of the world an excuse to roll out their punning mojo. It wasn't the worst it could have been. She scanned the story. It was a mix of praise for the girls and the journalist speculating why the heck the new owners of the Saints thought they needed cheerleaders. On the whole it seemed to be slightly in favor of the idea. So that was good. The article had about four hundred comments.

She never read the comments. Nothing good came of newspaper article comments. She'd learned that on Broadway. You couldn't please everyone and there was little point trying. She closed the tab resolutely.

Back to the search results. She waded through a few more news links, which all seemed to be the same sort of story. Hot girls. Good dancers. Why did we need cheerleaders in baseball but well done Alex Winters for finding a way to generate some interest in the team.

Not as bad as expected. She sipped coffee, finished her toast and apricot jam, and stared at the list of sporting site links in the search results. Should she or shouldn't she?

While she was trying to decide, her phone started to ring.

Brady. She pressed the speakerphone button.

"Hey, you," she said.

"Oh good, you're up," Brady said cheerfully. "I thought you might still be in bed. Wait, why aren't you still in bed? Didn't you take that lovely man home with you last night?"

"We had a nightcap," she said.

"Is that what you're calling it these days? Seriously, Rai, if you didn't do that man there is something very, very wrong with you."

"No comment," she said.

"No comment means guilty as charged," Brady crowed. "Well done. Luis and I are very proud. It's been too long."

"Did you call just to dissect what goes on in my bedroom or was there another reason?" she asked hastily before he could go into chapter and verse on exactly how long it had been. Because the answer was a little sad. It was over a year since Patrick had done his vanishing act. A year was too long. Her body, which was aching in a pleasant way in some of those unused places, agreed with her. It was keen to get back into fighting shape in that department. She needed daily workouts.

Damn Malachi and his stupid baseball team.

She sighed.

Brady laughed. "Damn, that must have been good sex. Which again forces me to ask why you're not still in bed?"

"Because baseball is stupid," she muttered.

"Ah. Away game, is it?"

"The next three or four games are away," she said. "What kind of stupid sport is that?"

"I take it he's traveling with the team then? My sympathies."

"I'll survive," Raina said.

"Let's hope so. But hey, I have something that will cheer you up."

"What?"

"Are you at your computer?"

"Yes."

"Take a look at the club's Facebook page."

She opened the page. For a moment, she couldn't see what was different; then the number next to the LIKES button registered. "Three thousand likes? We got two thousand likes overnight?" Holy crap. Brady had been good at working social media for them but burlesque was kind of a niche market and they'd thought they'd been doing well to build to a thousand.

"Yup," Brady said. "And that's not the best part. Luis just finished going through the reservation system. All the reserved tables are booked out for two months solid."

"You're kidding." They often sold out the reserved tables on Saturday nights, but most nights only a few of them were booked in advance. Given that there was an extra charge for the prime position of the reserved seats, having them all booked out for months was a nice chunk of extra change. If everyone ended up turning up, of course. The club scene anywhere around New York was pretty fickle.

"Not kidding. I think we're going to be turning people away at the door," Brady said. "I called Paolo. He said he's going to put in a booze order today. And bump up the catering."

"Huh," Raina said. She'd taken the job at the Saints hoping that it might lead to some extra choreography gigs here and there. That and a bit of publicity for the club. Turned out she'd underestimated that part. "But how do they even know about us?"

"You haven't read your email, have you?"

"I read a couple of the news stories but that's it so far."

"You got mentioned as the choreographer in a few of the stories. And some of them talked a little about you. Including the New York Times and USA Today."

"USA Today?" She blinked, wondering if she was still asleep. But apparently not. "That's crazy." She paused. "Have you read any of the stuff on the sports sites? I didn't start those yet."

"Luis is looking now."

"What's he saying."

"Mixed reactions. Some liked it. Some raving about the end of baseball and society as we know it. About what we expected. Lots of pictures of the squad. Even the ones who were complaining seemed to manage to include lots of those."

"No such thing as bad publicity, I guess," she said.

"Nope," Brady agreed. "So you need to get all the girls in here early today so we can run some extra numbers. If we're going to be packing them in then we need some new stuff. More things to throw into the mix."

"I take it you have some ideas?" she said.

"Well, there's a baseball number to start with. What's a good song for a baseball number?"

"I don't know. Who sings about baseball? ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame' isn't exactly sexy."

"Agreed. I'll have a look. There must be something."

"There's that song from Smash. Didn't the Marilyn musical in that show have a number about baseball?"

"It did," Brady said. "So that's an idea."

"Or Pat Benatar," Raina mused. "‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot.' Only don't go getting ideas about unison baseball bat swinging or anything. That stuff is hard to pull off. Too much practice required." Having been on the wrong end of a fumbled cane or two in various dance routines in her time, she had no trouble picturing disaster scenarios involving baseball bats.

She started scrolling through her email again, looking to see if anything looked like it was about something besides the Angels.

"Not even one?"

"We'll see. Surely someone makes inflatable bats or something. Use one of those."

"No one needs to see a deflated baseball bat mid-routine," Brady countered. "Speaking of equipment, how was?—"

"No comment," Raina said firmly.

Brady laughed and she started to say "Shut up" but the second word never made it out of her mouth as she stared at the email address on her screen. [email protected]. Fuck. Jeremy.

Her heart started pounding.

"Raina? Raina, what's wrong?" Brady's voice sounded like it was coming from a distance.

"I got an email from Jeremy," she managed.

Brady swore. "Don't open it. We'll be right there," he said and left Raina staring at the screen with silence in her ear as he hung up.

It only took fifteen minutes before Brady and Luis arrived. Raina let them in, and Brady headed straight for her computer.

"What did it say?" he demanded.

She shook her head. "I didn't read it."

Brady fixed her with his bright-blue eyes. Which were suddenly a very steely shade of bright blue. "Honestly?"

"Yes. I don't want to know."

"You can't just ignore him," Luis said.

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, someone slashed your tires. And now your crazy ex is back in the picture. You need to tell Mal."

"Oh no. There's no telling Mal."

That earned her identical exasperated looks from both men.

"If you don't tell Mal," Brady said, "I will." Luis backed up this statement with an emphatic nod, as if to say And if he doesn't, I will.

Crap. See, this was why she should have listened to reason when it came to Mal and kept things professional. If he was merely her boss then she wouldn't hesitate to tell him about Jeremy. But now, now that he'd been in her bed, she didn't want to dump the crazy of her past life on him any more than she already had. She wanted uncomplicated. Mal in white-knight mode—and she had no doubt that he would want to charge in and fix things, take control of the situation—would only make things complicated.

"Mal has more important things on his mind than Jeremy. Besides, he's in Baltimore with the team."

"They have these devices that let you communicate with people far away now," Luis said, deadpan. "You may have heard of them? They're called phones."

"Ha ha. Okay, how about this. We read the email. If it's anything alarming—my definition of alarming—I'll call Mal. If it's not, then I'll wait and tell him when he gets back from Baltimore."

They frowned at her.

"Are you two practicing identical expressions now that you're married?" she said, trying to lighten the mood a little. "I didn't say I wouldn't tell Mal. Just that if what's in the email isn't?—"

"The fact that he's emailing at all is alarming," Brady said.

"He wants me to be alarmed," Raina said. "If we react like the sky is falling, if he thinks he's freaked me out, then he wins." She produced a frown of her own. "And he's not going to win."

"So tell Mal. He's got a security company. He must eat jerks like Jeremy for breakfast. Tell him and he'll take care of it. Simple," Brady said.

"I don't need saving," Raina snapped.

"No, but nothing wrong with asking for a little help," Brady said mildly.

She bit back the mixture of fury and panic rising in her throat. Brady and Luis were here to help. They meant well. They weren't trying to take over. But still, she was going to deal with this problem her way. She took a deep breath and went to the computer to open the damned email.

It was short.

Looking good, R. Nice gig you scored.

On the face of it, that was a perfectly polite message. But she knew Jeremy. This was his way of telling her that he had his eye on her again. And the nice gig was the sort of subtle putdown he used to use on her all the time. Implying she couldn't have gotten the job without sleeping with someone. Because he couldn't imagine anyone getting ahead just because they worked hard and earned things. But she knew the truth.

Brady and Luis were leaning over her shoulders, reading along.

"See," she said, sitting straighter. "Nothing terrible. I'll tell Mal when he gets back."

"If Jeremy sends anything else, you'll let us know?"

"Yes. I'm not an idiot." She knew if Jeremy did send anything else and she told them, they'd be beating down Mal's door with the news. And she would be hot on their heels. But she wasn't going to run scared from one email. She would ignore him, as she had ignored his existence for several years, and not let him turn her life into fear again.

She shut down the mail program and put the computer to sleep. "Enough of dickheads past. We have a club to run."