“Get on,” I said, pressing my spare helmet into her hands before straddling the bike. I kicked the engine to life, feeling the rumble of it erupt between my thighs as the sole survivor of the strip club massacre gingerly mounted the seat behind me.

Under different circumstances, I would’ve left her there for the police to take care of. But the circumstances weren’t different. The circumstances were these:

1. Tony Santorini, a beloved and infamous member of the local mob, was dead.

2. Whoever had killed him had meant for there to be no survivors.

3. The moment they figured out this girl was alive, she was as good as dead.

Hell, I was selling myself a bit short here. I’d survived too, by virtue of sheer, dumb luck. If word got out about that, my head was on the chopping block too.

“You ready?” I asked her, glancing back over my shoulder. No cops yet. That was good.

“I… I don’t know. I think so,” she shouted over the roar. I could just barely hear her. Barely feel her, even. She was perched so damn delicately behind me.

“You should hold onto me,” I warned before revving the engine and pulling out onto the street. It didn’t take long for her to heed that warning, her arms jerking around me, slender fingers clenching my shirt as I weaved my way through traffic. If we were in any other situation, this would almost be nice, someone holding on to me as we rode past the neon wasteland of the Vegas Strip.

But this wasn’t that kind of ride. This girl had been through hell. She’d watched her friends and coworkers get shot. Murdered. Not to mention I’d just lost the one reason I’d even come to Vegas in the first place.

We needed somewhere I could collect my head and hopefully get her to open up about what the hell happened in there.

“How about some coffee?” I asked, spotting the glowing signage of a twenty-four-hour hole-in-the-wall just ahead. “Might do us both some good.”

“Coffee?” she inquired, like the very thought of it was foreign to her. Shit. I hoped she wasn’t going into shock.

We pulled up into the diner’s parking lot, but before I could even cut the engine she was already clambering onto the asphalt, yanking at her helmet like it was trying to suffocate her.

“Hold still,” I said as I swung my leg over the bike and gently grabbed hold of the straps beneath her chin. With a click, they came undone. “There.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, pulling the helmet from her head and handing it back to me. Her gaze never once met mine.

Without even waiting for me, she turned and started for the diner, her arms folded—a shield to guard her from the rest of the world, I figured. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what this girl was going through right now, all those images etched into her brain for the rest of her life. I’d only seen the aftermath, and I still couldn’t get the thought of Tony Santorini’s expression out of my head. Everything in that club had smelled like gun smoke and new pennies in the end. Even now I could still catch the faintest hints of it in the air.

I jogged ahead of her just before she reached the door, pulling it open for her. She looked like she would crumble at the slightest touch, and I was the kind of guy who’d always been taught to hold a door for a lady—post-massacre or no.

She didn’t so much as utter a word or even look up at me. Not that I ought to have expected it of her.

“Welcome to Edna’s!” came the far-too-chipper voice of the young lady behind the counter. It must have been pushing one o'clock at the least, and there was no reason to be that happy so late at night. “Just go ahead and have a seat, and I’ll be over with a menu and some coffee!”

I offered the diner pixie a smile and a nod before escorting—shit, I didn’t even know her name—into a booth near the back of the restaurant. It was a private spot, but more importantly, it gave me a perfect view of the front door just in case someone started heading our way.

I had no idea who the bastards who shot up Earthly Delights were, but given the kind of firepower they’d had, I didn’t want to chance that we might have been followed. This girl was the only witness to what had happened, and if anyone could royally fuck them over, it would be her. She might as well have had a target painted on her back.

“What’s your name?” I asked as she pushed herself as far into the corner of the booth as she could, obviously making herself small—unnoticeable. I wanted to reach out and touch her—comfort her—but this girl looked like she might snap if I even brushed fingers with her. She was like a cornered animal, scared, but on edge. The most dangerous kind.

“I’m Crush,” I said.

Her gaze flicked up to meet mine, eyes narrowing until I could barely see them through her thick eyelashes. “Who the fuck names their kid Crush?” she asked.

“It’s a nickname,” I said, raising my hands defensively. “It’s what all of my friends call me.”

“Your biker friends?” she asked, looking pointedly at my jacket. I couldn’t help but adjust it at the suspicion in her tone.

“Yeah, them,” I replied, her accusation bringing up a whole slew of other problems I was going to have to deal with soon. The Hounds wouldn’t be happy hearing about what had happened to Santorini, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to break the news to them.

But that was my job now. Herding cats. And, I realized with an irrepressible grimace, I’d just added a stray to my litter.

“So then what’s your real name?” she asked, tightening her arms over her chest. She didn’t trust me, and I didn’t blame her.

I offered an easy smile and leaned back against my side of the booth. “That’s a secret. One I only tell to my friends.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess, your mom named you something embarrassing, something your biker friends wouldn’t take too kindly to—like Trevor or Chad.”

“Nope and nope,” I said, shaking my head at her. “Like I said, it’s a secret. I’m gonna need something to call you, though...”

The diner pixie from the front counter suddenly appeared at our side, making me nearly jump out of my skin as she set down two steaming cups of coffee.

“Hi!” she squealed. “My name’s Shawna! Would you two like some menus, or do you already know what you want to eat?”

I tried my best to collect myself, but the damage had already been done. I could see the first sign of a smirk on the girl’s face as I turned to our waitress.

“I think we’re good for right now,” I told her. “Coffee’s just fine.” I cleared my throat as she walked away, adjusting my leather jacket once more.

“Chrissy,” she said, pulling her mug toward her by the handle, then wrapping both her hands around it. “You can call me Chrissy. I guess I should thank you for getting me out of there.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” I said, waving my hand. “I’m just glad somebody made it out of there.”

Chrissy went silent again for a moment, staring down into the inky depths of her mug. She looked like hell, and it was only then that I realized that she was still wearing that skimpy outfit that she and the other waitresses had been wearing at the club. Shit, I thought, face burning. I look like I just picked a girl up off the corner.

I pulled off my jacket and slid it across the table to her. She put it on, but the whole time, her eyes were fixed on my tattoos—the ones that curled around my biceps in Technicolor shades.

“I know it’s not really a good time to talk about what happened,” I began, hoping the colorful distraction would make things easier on her. “But did you see who did it? How many of them there were?”

I could already see tears welling in her eyes as I spoke, but I knew that if I didn’t ask now—strike while the iron was hot—then the information might get muddled, might change with the passage of time and the addition of new thoughts. That was how brains worked under trauma, something I’d learned back when I’d thought I was gonna be a cop. That was what my old man wanted. What I’d spent three months in the academy for.

They teach you there that eyewitness testimony really isn’t all that reliable. For the most part, the human brain is going to do anything it can to shield you from the worst of reality. It’s like how you can always see your nose, but your brain omits the data so you’re not staring at it all the time. You might swear up and down that you were mugged by three guys wearing ski masks and hoodies, while surveillance footage shows there was only one guy wearing a red balaclava. Selective editing, to save your sanity or your ego. Replacing actual memories with stuff you’ve seen on TV because it’s easier to deal with fiction than the cold, hard truth.

Chrissy shifted uncomfortably in her seat. It made the booth cushions squeak. “That kind of seems like the kind of thing I ought to tell the cops,” she said at length. “You know, the ones who were on their way when you told me we had to leave.”

“I did say that, yeah,” I admitted. “But if we’d waited for the cops, they’d have you up on the news before you could even blink. And if those guys knew you saw their faces, then they’d be gunning for you… and my gut’s telling me this wasn’t just some random shooting. Earthly Delights was targeted.”

She shook her head. “No. It definitely wasn’t random.” Her voice wavered less now. “They came to the club for someone specific. This was a hit. The rest of the body count was just… collateral damage. A distraction to cover it all up. They wanted it to look like a spree.”

I gave Chrissy a long, hard look. What kind of waitress knows a damn thing about how hardened criminals operate? Sure, she was employed at one of Santorini’s joints, but I doubted he was in the habit of telling his waitresses how mob hits worked.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because I know who they were there for,” she told me. Confidence turned to a thousand-yard stare. “I watched them kill him… right in front of me.”

She took a moment then, covering her mouth with her hand to stifle a sob. She was so damn small that the force of it shook her shoulders, caved her inward. I reached out, grabbing her free hand, wrenching it away from her mug to hold it between two of mine.

“Hey, Chrissy,” I whispered. “Look at me.” She did, tears leaving mascara streaks down her pretty cheeks. “How do you know it was him they were after?”

She sniffled, swallowing another shuddering breath before she could answer. “They dragged him out of the VIP room. Everyone else they just shot on sight, but him… they put him in front of the one in the group who was calling all the shots, barking orders. He was the one who did it—put the pistol to the guy’s head and pulled the trigger while he was down on his knees.”

“Jesus,” I muttered, realizing a moment too late that I was squeezing her fingers hard enough to make her flinch. I immediately let go, but she dropped her other hand and grabbed for me, trapping my hands in her own vise-like grip. I let her. She deserved some kind of comfort, however small.

Gliding my thumbs along her knuckles, I mused, “Who the fuck would want Santorini dead that badly?”

Chrissy stiffened. She drew back like my palms had scalded her.

“How do you know Tony Santorini?” she choked.

“I met him earlier. I was there to…” I stopped, narrowing my eyes as I took stock of her once again. “Wait, how the hell do you know Tony Santorini?”

“He was a regular,” she shot back quickly, though I couldn’t help but notice how her eyes darted away from mine. “Now tell me how you know him.”

“Club business,” I said, still watching her like a hawk. “He and I were having a chat. I went out for a smoke, and before I got back inside, I heard the shots.”

“This is bad,” she said, raising her hands to cover her face. “This is really bad.”

“A bunch of thugs come in and shoot a mobster in the head? Yeah, I’d call that bad,” I muttered, running a hand through my hair. Now that she’d pulled away, it wasn’t like I had anything better to do with it.

Chrissy bit at her nails. “We need to get out of here,” she said looking down at her still untouched coffee. “We need to get out of here now.”

She stood, scooting off the seat, but I caught her just under her arm and gently pulled her back. She looked stricken, but not in the same way she had in the club. Something else was bothering her now.

“You think we were followed?” I asked, but she just tried to pull her arm from me in response. “Chrissy—what the fuck aren’t you telling me?”

“Let me go,” she said, a little too loudly for my tastes. The last thing I needed was for her to make a scene right now. “I’ve got to tell my dad what happened at the club.”

I was bemused. Chrissy didn’t strike me as the kind of girl who was naive enough to think her daddy could solve her problems. Then again, lots of people reverted to wanting their favored parent nearby when shit hit the fan. Or was there something more to this? Something that connected the dots?

“Why the hell would we go to your dad about this?” I asked her, holding her steady with one hand while with the other, I rooted through my wallet for cash to pay our bill.

Chrissy shook her head at me, but I wasn’t taking no for an answer. Not with our very safety riding on it. “Look,” I said, “if you’re gonna string me along, I’ll drop you off at the nearest precinct and you can tell them what’s going on.”

Her teary eyes widened. “But… you said if we did that, they’d put me on the news. And then…”

I didn’t answer her, letting her draw her own conclusions. Whatever modicum of defiance had stirred up in her withered and died in an instant and she hung her head, slumping into the table.

“He needs to know what happened so he can do something about it,” she mumbled finally. Then, biting her lip, she added, “He needs to know what they did to Uncle Tony.”

Girl could’ve knocked me out with a feather.

“Wait,” I breathed, stomach clenching with dread. “Chrissy—who the hell is your dad?”

She stared at me for almost half a minute, tearing the skin off her lower lip with her teeth. When blood brimmed at the surface, she licked it clean and answered.

“My dad’s Nicky Falcone.”