“The things we do for our country, man.”

Finn chuckled at Aiden’s comment as he got out of his car in the parking lot of The Silver Palace two days later. His brother, Baby, exited from the passenger side.

Henry Nicholson had contacted them yesterday and informed them that some of the criminals they were after had been here at this strip club earlier in the week. Aiden was still setting up his undercover persona and hopefully his appearance here would help solidify that. Finn, with Baby as a wingman, was here just to find out any information he could.

Not that Finn expected very much. He may be single, but he was past the age where places like these interested him. Of course, maybe it would help get Charlie off his mind. Maybe hanging around at a strip club with a bunch of mostly naked women would help him forget about her face.

And about the fact that it was her body he’d choose to see naked. He’d pick her over a hundred naked strangers. So maybe he wasn’t thrilled to be here, but he had a job to do and he was going to do it.

Baby, on the other hand, was in his element. Finn could hardly keep from rolling his eyes at his brother’s barely harnessed excitement at visiting a club he’d never been to. They’d driven separately from Aiden since they wouldn’t have the same agenda once they got inside. Aiden would need to do whatever was best to get him further inside Stellman’s circle. Finn would be gathering intel, while Baby did what he was best known for: being his charming twenty-five-year-old self.

“You up for this?” Aiden asked, one eyebrow raised.

Finn wasn’t sure if he meant the club, undercover work, or both.

“Yeah, I’m good.” And he was. So what if he hadn’t been able to get Charlie’s face out of his mind since seeing her two days ago. After refusing to tell him what was going on at her car, she had come into the library a few minutes later and had a perfectly successful session with Ethan. Maybe she hadn’t looked Finn in the eye. Maybe he’d spent the entire session in the hall studying her, but instead of making sure she was doing her job with his son, he’d been trying to figure out what could be going on with her whenever she wasn’t around.

He’d even run a brief background check on her. She still leased the condo on the far east side of town, the same she’d lived in not long after they had graduated high school and she’d gone to college. Finn had joined the Army, and Charlie had gone to the Reddington City campus of Wyoming State.

Hell, they’d picked that place out together when they’d been twenty. Her parents had provided the money for it, but Finn had wanted to make sure Charlie had a nice place since he was gone so much. He’d wanted her to have a safe place until he had enough money saved up to ask her to marry him. Then she would go with him wherever the Army sent them. That, of course, had never happened. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the fact that she was still living there now, the place they’d always planned to live together.

But it didn’t matter, because now, just like then, she didn’t want Finn involved in her life.

And yet he’d still watched her through the whole tutoring session, trying to figure out what was eating at her. Letting her go afterward, with those goddamn rings under her eyes even more pronounced and her body tensed as if ready for some blow, had been the hardest thing Finn had done since the last time he’d had to let her go looking that way—to walk down the aisle.

The door to the club opened and blaring music poured out. Finn shook off his thoughts as Baby slapped him on his shoulder.

Finn forced a grin onto his face. Some things you could change, others you couldn’t. There was no use dwelling on the latter. He was going to have to learn to live with whatever he couldn’t rise above.

But tonight was not about Charlotte. It was about stopping some very bad men from bringing their very bad drugs into the country.

While watching mostly-naked women dance.

Aiden was right, not a bad job to have. Ethan was at his grandma’s house all weekend, so Finn could devote his time and energy to the situation here.

He smiled at Aiden and Baby, holding out his fist. “For God and country.”

Aiden tapped Finn’s knuckles with his own, as did Baby.

His brother winked. “And lots of boobies.”

“Remind me to never take you anywhere where I’m the one trying to be undercover.” The second waitress in thirty minutes had come over to deliver his brother a beer.

One he hadn’t ordered.

The first had sat on Baby’s lap to talk and this last one had obviously thought Baby was dying because she’d immediately started delivering five minutes of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

One side of Baby’s mouth turned up in a grin. “They’re just friends. Sweet girls I knew in high school. I never come here, so I didn’t know this was where they worked. And besides, it’s not like any of your Linear guys are going to come be wingman for you.”

Baby definitely had a point. Zac had no interest in a strip club; he was too busy falling all over himself for Annie, the sweet doctor who had moved back into town recently. Dorian’s PTSD wouldn’t allow him much time in a loud and crowded place like this. Gavin would do it. Hell, the thought of his straitlaced friend at a strip club brought a smile to Finn’s face. But Baby was the best choice. He had a way of getting people to open up to him without them even realizing they were doing it.

They could’ve used his skills on their Special Forces team, but Baby had never been interested in joining. He’d never wanted to leave Oak Creek. He was happy as a mechanic.

Hell, the way the women fawned all over him, who could blame him?

They had a table near the back, far from Aiden, which enabled them to see anybody who might be going in and out of the back rooms. Back rooms that Baby had already been invited to by two different dancers. One had been kind enough to add that Finn could come along too.

Besides a nuclear holocaust, there was very little Finn could think of that he wanted less than to go back into one of these rooms. Especially with his brother.

“I’ll probably get Jasmine”—Baby pointed to the petite Asian woman who’d kissed him earlier and was currently giving a lap dance at a table closer to the stage—“and go in the back. She and I have known each other for a long time, and she likes to talk. I’ll see what information I can get out of her.”

“You’ve got to be subtle. It can’t get back to these guys that people have been asking about them. That will scare them off.”

Baby just rolled those green eyes so much like Finn’s own. “I may not be a super soldier, but I’m not an idiot. And seriously, Jasmine likes to talk a lot. She’s a good place to start.”

“Mom would be so proud of your willingness to take one for the team.”

His brother smirked. “Should I take some pictures so she can post her proud moments on Facebook? I understand motor-boating is what all the cool moms boast about.”

Finn laughed. “You’re such an ass.”

He turned back toward the stage but didn’t give much attention to the young woman holding her body at an extreme angle against the pole. Instead he tried to scan the crowd, looking for groups who might be doing any sort of business. Without being near them, it was difficult to decipher what the pockets of men, and a few women, were discussing.

He shifted in his chair to see the bar, which was just as packed as the rest of the club. Over the heads of men sitting there, he could clearly see one tall brunette bartender.

“Oh shit, is that Jordan Reiss?”

Baby’s head turned to look. “Damn. Sure is. I heard she asked all around Oak Creek trying to get a job and no one would hire her. I mean, not that I blame them after what her dad did, and she is a convicted felon. But still . . .”

“I guess she got a job here.”

Finn was turning away—Jordan’s employment here may be interesting, but it wasn’t going to help with their undercover situation—when a man got up from the bar, giving Finn an unfettered view of the other bartender.

“Oh my freaking sweet baby Jesus God.” Baby said it, but Finn was thinking it.

Charlie.

Finn stared. He couldn’t have torn his eyes away if the building was burning down around him.

She was wearing the same revealing mesh tank top as the other bartenders, which, granted, was more than a lot of the women were wearing. Unlike Jordan, Charlie didn’t seem uncomfortable in the outfit. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that was because she had worked here long enough for it not to faze her.

“Hey, bro.” Baby smacked him on the shoulder. “Are you about to pull out some weapon and go all Rambo on everybody in here? Or are we about to get in some huge rumble because of the guys looking at Charlie? Because if so, I think I’d like to call in some backup.”

Baby’s words were light, but there was an uncharacteristic thread of seriousness in them. Finn realized he was standing. He forced himself to sit back down.

“No, I’m not going to kill anybody.”

“But kicking somebody’s ass might be an option? Don’t forget how that Navy SEAL went to jail for getting into a fight with a regular guy.”

“That was a movie, dumbass. And Nicolas Cage’s character was a Ranger, not a SEAL.” Finn appreciated his brother’s attempt to diffuse the situation. And Baby was right, ten years ago Finn would’ve fought every man who so much as glanced at Charlie in that outfit.

And yes, part of him still wanted to walk over there and peel off his shirt and cover her with it. But again, it wasn’t like she was sobbing or scared. She was just making money like every other woman in here.

That was what bothered him.

If Charlie wanted to take all her clothes off, that was completely up to her. Finn wasn’t so narrow-minded that if a woman wanted to do that, dance, whatever she was comfortable with, he would judge her for it. Charlie was a beautiful woman with curves that literally took his breath away, for damn sure, so if she wanted to use them, more power to her.

But even though she wasn’t uncomfortable in her job and tending bar, it obviously didn’t bring her the sort of fulfillment her tutoring work did.

So, she was here because she needed the money.

Why the hell did the crown princess of Oak Creek need money? And if she needed it, why didn’t she work full-time for the Teton County Educational Department?

To hell with whether she wanted to share what was going on. He’d wanted to be invited in, not to break down her walls. But he was not leaving without some answers to some very specific questions.

Tonight, he wasn’t waiting for an invitation. Tonight, he was a fucking wrecking ball.