“Your fiancé is this way, Ms. Marrón.”

That word, fiancé, makes me startle for a second. I don’t have one, of course. Not really. But this prison guard doesn’t know that. In order to meet one-on-one with the inmate I need to speak to, I needed a viable disguise. Posing as his fiancée was the easiest and most convincing, option. That’s why Dad sent me. None of his other “business associates”—big, burly men who are more accustomed to beating the answer they want out of someone rather than negotiating—fit the bill.

So I paste a broad smile on my face. “Thank you. How much time will we have in visitation?”

“Half an hour,” the guard says with a glance over his shoulder at me, sizing me up. His eyes linger on my chest, which makes me feel suddenly self-conscious, but I don’t cross my arms or back down.

Half an hour. Half an hour to get the information I need from this criminal.

I square my shoulders. You can do this, Ashley.

“Private visitation is unusual,” the guard comments as we continue to stroll down the corridor. “You two must have friends in high places.”

You could say that. In truth, my father arranged this meeting. Pulled some strings with his friends in the prison sector. Normally even a fiancée’s visit to the prison would be heavily monitored. But we’ll be left alone. Just Damon Tell and me.

Damon Tell, the bastard who screwed my father over, and killed an innocent man in the process.

I tighten my fists even as I smile politely and nod at the guard. “We’re very lucky,” I tell him as he leads me through the hallways of Upton State Penitentiary. “Warden Andrews is a family friend. He understands why I’d like some privacy when I speak to Damon.”

“I’ll bet he does,” the guard replies with a leer that turns my stomach.

Upton State Penitentiary is home to the most notorious and ruthless criminals in the tri-state area. Full of mobsters and murderers alike.

Lucky me, my so-called fiancé is both.

I spread my arms as the guard goes through the pat-down routine.

It’s not my first visit to Upton. The last time I was here, when I was only five years old, I held hands with my mother as she got this same pat-down on the way to visit my father. Now I’m twenty-three, Mom’s seven years in her grave, and Dad? Well, he’s still up to the same business that landed him in here way back then. Mostly racketeering, fixing races at the local tracks. Some petty theft. The occasional bank heist when money gets really tight at home. It’s not honest work, no, but it’s the family business. Has been for generations. And Dad is an honorable thief, at least. He gives back—hires his thugs from our local community shelters, tries to give back where we can.

My father is a mob boss, you see—a criminal and a thief—but he’s an honorable one.

Not like the man I’m here to see.

“She’s clear,” the guard announces, and another guard buzzes open a clear glass door, then waves me through. I step into the room. It’s mirrored on one side, and that makes me hesitate, checking over my shoulder at the guard. “Don’t worry,” he replies, sensing my question as I face the darkened glass panel. “There’s nobody behind the mirror. Not today. You’ve got the place to yourself. Like I said, half an hour.”

I nod briskly.

“Have fun,” he adds with a smirk as he waves me inside. I can feel his gaze lingering on me, even with my back turned.

I dressed as demurely as I could for this, in a long pencil skirt and a blouse that hints at my assets, but doesn’t actually reveal anything. But that doesn’t stop the guard from staring. I shoot him as haughty a glare as I can muster, then enter the room to greet my target.

Damon Tell.

He worked a few jobs with Dad over the last year. Enough to earn my father’s trust. Then, a few months ago, Dad set up a big job. We’d taken heavy losses in the winter season—times were hard, nobody was gambling much, and a few of our usual fixed races decided to go straight. We were struggling to make ends meet, to keep employing all the men on our payroll, and to make enough to keep the bigger mafia bosses out of my father’s territory.

So Dad decided to rob a bank.

He took his time planning it. Found a local bank without a lot of the high-end security you need to deal with at some of the bigger corporate chains. Got to know the owner, his routine, and found a pretty easy in. Every Saturday, the owner went in an hour before opening to personally inspect his safes. That was our opening. Sneak a man in, hold him up while the bank is empty, clean out the vaults, and get out without any collateral damage. No need to put innocent bystanders in harm’s way unnecessarily.

See what I mean? A criminal, but an honorable one.

Dad’s only mistake in planning was asking Damon Tell to be his right hand man for the job. The plan was simple: Damon would go in and do the talking with the owner. Hold the gun up to his head, have him fill our bags with cash, then meet my father out front in the getaway car. Dad says he didn’t even plan on having Damon carry the gun loaded. That way, no accidents could happen.

My father’s cardinal rule no killing. We steal, we lie, we cheat, but we never murder.

Until that day. Until the morning of the heist, when everything went wrong.

According to Dad, he parked outside the bank as planned. Damon put on his mask and went into the bank to find the owner, Eric Brown. But unlike every other Saturday morning when we’d cased the place, Eric wasn’t alone.

This time, his wife and 6-year-old daughter were with him.

Dad doesn’t know exactly what happened. All he knows is that, from outside in the getaway car, he heard gunshots. He grabbed his own gun and ran inside, expecting trouble.

Inside the bank, he found Eric Brown, his wife, and his daughter, all dead. The vault had been cleared out, every last penny stolen. And Damon?

He was nowhere to be found.

Then, two weeks later, after Dad tipped off the police and started a manhunt, Damon was finally caught at the state border, trying to flee north to Canada. He was arrested, tried, easily convicted—since he confessed to everything—and thrown in here.

Now I’m here to find out the real story. To find out what happened inside that bank—why he killed that innocent family. And where he hid the money afterward. Because the police didn’t find it anywhere on him, not in the car he was driving, not in any of the motels they traced him to along his attempted escape route. Wherever he hid it, he hid it well.

My family needs that money, now more than ever. And I’m going to get it from this criminal if I have to wring it from him with my own bare hands.

But as I step into that visitation room to confront the man I’ve spent weeks dreaming about strangling, my steps falter.

Damon looks the part of mafia hit man, all right. He’s huge, at least 6’5”, with a snake tattoo curling down one arm, taking up almost the full sleeve, which I can see because he’s dressed in nothing more than a prison-issue undershirt and a loose-hanging pair of orange pants. Beneath the shirt, I catch a glimpse of his bulging muscles, a perfectly sculpted set of pecs, and biceps and shoulders to match. He wears his hair long, pulled back into a tight braided knot, and his eyes, when they meet mine, are hard and dark.

What I didn’t expect was the sudden curl of desire in the pit of my stomach. A desire that I stamp out quickly, try to ignore.

In another world, he’d be my type. Exactly my type, smoldering dark gaze and all. But when I remind myself who this man is—and what he’s done—any desire I might have felt curdles into rage.

“Damon,” I say, for the benefit of the guard still standing in the doorway behind us.

“My darling,” he replies, his smile narrow and sharp. He knows, of course, that I must be here on my father’s behalf. On behalf of the infamous Mauricio Marrón, the only man who could pull enough strings to arrange for private visitations in a max security prison. Damon might be many things, but he’s not a stupid man. He must know my father is behind this visit.

“I’m closing the door,” the guard behind me says. “Thirty minutes, that’s what you’ve bought.” He pauses, and I can practically feel that leer of his on my back once more. “Don’t care how hot your girl is, Tell, no making a mess in here. This ain’t the conjugal bin.”

“Noted,” Damon replies drily. His eyes never stray from mine.

I wait for the sound of the latch to click behind me before I begin. “Where is it?” I say, the moment the door shuts.

Damon pushes out of his chair and rises to his full height. He stands at least a full head taller than me, towering over, as his smirk widens. “Now, now. Is that any way to greet the love of your life?”

I ball my fists to stop them from shaking. Only now, only when I’m alone in this room, do I realize what a dangerous idea this was. Granted, it was my suggestion—when Dad told me about the heist, and especially about what happened to Eric and his family, I was furious. I wanted revenge. I told Dad I’d help him any way I could. When he admitted that there was something I could do—that he needed a woman to pose as Tell’s fiancée to get in here—I volunteered in a heartbeat.

Now that I’m here, though, I’m starting to think about all the ways this could go wrong. Damon is bigger than me, stronger. If he attacked, could I shout for the guards in time?

Would the guards even come, after the privacy my father requested?

No time to worry about that now. Face him first, then deal with the fallout later.

“I asked you a very simple question, Mr. Tell. Where is the money you stole?”

“Mr. Tell?” Damon clicks his tongue, head shaking ever so slightly. “So formal. Tell me, little fiancée, how much did Marrón pay you to come in here?”

I clench my jaw and raise my chin. “We can make life in here more comfortable for you, you know. Or, if you’d prefer, we can do things the hard way. You see this room?” I gesture around me. “This wasn’t difficult to secure. We can arrange one just like it for you, down in solitary. Want to spend the next, say, six months there?”

“You’re a sexy little thing, I’ll grant you that.” Damon’s gaze rakes over my body, slow and lingering in a way that makes my stomach tighten and my chest feel two sizes too tight. “And you’ve got fight. I like that in a woman.” He takes a step closer. I force myself to hold my ground, to resist the urge to back away. Men like Damon can only understand one thing—strength. And that’s what I’ve always had. I narrow my gaze at him. “But you’re taking the wrong tactic with me. I don’t know who you are, or what you think you know, but barging in here and making threats isn’t going to intimidate me.”

“Who’s making threats? I simply told you how we could help you, Mr. Tell, as well as how we can hurt you. Now, I’ll ask one last time, nicely. Where did you hide the money you stole from the bank during that heist?”

He steps closer again. We’re just a foot apart now, close enough that I catch the scent of his body—soap and sweat and something underneath, something hot and adrenaline-filled that makes my palms tingle in a way I don’t want to acknowledge. His dark eyes haven’t left mine the whole time I’ve been in this room. Now, they narrow, searching. Finally, he huffs out a single laugh, shakes his head, and raises a brow. “Mauricio is going to have to do a lot better than sending in some random chick if he plans on bullying me into talking.”

“Random?” I laugh once, sharp. “More like his heir. And the next time you address me, Mr. Tell, it will be by my proper name. That’s Ms. Marrón to you.”

“Ms. Marrón.” His voice softens as he says it, eyes widening a little in recognition. I can see him piecing it together now. Recognizing my father’s features in mine—the wide brown eyes and black curls we share, as well as my small nose, sharp chin. “My apologies. I didn’t realize I was in the presence of the heir to Mauricio’s fortunes. Tell me, are you as cutthroat as your father?”

“Twice as bad,” I reply without missing a beat. My father is cutthroat, after all, a shark in business. The worst rumors about him, well, he uses those to his advantage to get ahead. He’s not nearly so great a monster as the world makes him out to be. But sometimes it’s useful to let people believe you’re worse than you are.

Like now.

“You’re going to tell me exactly where you put that money, Mr. Tell, one way or another.”

“Please, call me Damon.” He extends a hand. When I narrow my eyes and pointedly ignore it, he shrugs, then runs it through his hair instead. The motion makes the hem of his shirt rise just far enough to give me a glimpse of his washboard abs. “And why don’t we have a seat? Discuss this on more cordial terms.”

Fuck. My thighs clench. A tiny part of my traitorous brain can’t help but think about what those abs would feel like if I ran my hands over them. Or if I tugged off his shirt, ripped it off him right now and pushed him back into that chair so I could touch his chest, bury my hands in his long hair, what would he say then…?

I dig my nails into my palms. Focus. “Damon. Are you agreeing to do this the easy way, then?”

“Anything for my dear fiancée,” he responds with a smirk. “And by the way, now that I know you’re as bad a girl as I am a man, I have to say, I could’ve done worse for myself.” He closes the rest of the gap between us, until his chest is inches from my face. I hate the move, since I have to crane my head back to glare up at him now, but I hold my ground, refusing to budge. “Now, little Ashley, is checking me out part of the interrogation technique, or just a benefit for you personally while you’re in here?”

I bite the inside of my cheek, hoping not to give anything away. “How do you know my name?”

“Everyone who works for Mauricio knows about Ashley. The light of his life, the reason he does all this, blah, blah, blah.” Damon tsks and reaches up to brush a strand of hair from my shoulder, slowly. The move is at once so forward and so familiar that it catches my breath in my throat, and I simply stare at him. Belatedly, I realize I should slap his hand away, but he’s already dropped it and cocked his head to study me once more. “I see now why your father is so proud and protective of you, Ashley. You’re quite a woman.”

I lick my lips, which have gone dry. Damon’s gaze drops to follow the trace of my tongue, and I find myself wondering what his lips would taste like. How that broad mouth would feel pressed against mine, his stubble grazing my cheek. How would it feel if he crushed his mouth against mine right now, wrapped those big, strong hands around my waist and lifted me against this wall? How would it feel if he pressed his thick cock between my legs, let me feel the bulge through his jeans, slid against me as I was pinned between him and the wall…?

Fuck. I’m getting wet just thinking about it. Not to mention standing so close to him…

I clear my throat, mostly to get the sudden tightness out of it. “You’re wasting time,” I reply, after too long and too noticeable a pause. “You should be drawing me a map to the money’s location.”

“Should I?” He lifts one brow, and that maddening smirk of his is wider than ever. I want to wipe it off his face. “Tell me again why I would do that, when it’s the only bargaining chip I have left. Well, besides your obvious desire for me.”

God, that fucking smirk. It would look sexy as hell if I were gazing down at it while he bent me backwards across this table, and slid down my body to peel off this tight-as-hell skirt…

Get it together, Ashley.

I force myself to laugh, derisive. “My desire for you?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m flattered,” Damon says. “It’s not just any day you find a woman of your caliber lusting after a man like me.”

That does it. I sputter and shove him with both hands, full in the chest.

He doesn’t move an inch. Just laughs.

“In your dreams, Damon Tell.”

“You definitely will be tonight.” He lifts one brow. “I can see it already. You spread-eagled across my bed while I tear those confining clothes off your willing body…”

I storm past him toward the door. He stops me, catching my wrist in one hand, so huge it wraps all the way around and pins me in place. An instinctive shout dies on my lips, if only because I don’t want to tip off the guards. I haven’t been able to get what Dad needed from Damon, so I need to keep the guards believing this lie for as long as possible. They can’t know I’m not actually Damon’s fiancée. Which means I can’t shout for them to rescue me from him. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.

“Let go of my hand,” I say, my voice low and even and furious.

To his credit, he drops his grip immediately and steps back, but he continues watching me with that infuriatingly amused expression. “Walking out before our conjugal visit even finishes, my darling?”

“This was never a conjugal visit, you bastard.”

“Then tell me why you’re so hot and bothered right now.”

“The only thing bothering me is that you’re refusing to tell me what I need to know.”

His eyebrow rises. “I see. That’s the only thing.” His gaze drops along my body, and this time, it lingers on my skirt, my hips. “Prove it.”

“What?” I sputter.

“Prove you aren’t hot for me, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

I hesitate, sensing a trap. Then I shift my weight, cross my arms and plant my feet. “Fine. Prove it how?”

His grin widens. Whatever gamble he’s making, he sure is confident in himself. “Show me your panties.”

My jaw drops. “What?”

“Show me your panties. Prove you aren’t turned on right now. Then I’ll tell you where the money is.”

I scoff again, mostly to buy time. Because fuck, I can already feel that I’m wet. And this conversation, him acting so goddamn demanding and stern, isn’t helping. My animal brain is into that, as much as my logical life brain despises it. “I am not showing you my panties.”

“Fine.” He shrugs one shoulder, unconcerned, and crosses the room to drop back into his chair. “Then I guess you don’t really want that money after all.”

The money he stole from my father—from my family. The money we need to keep our business afloat right now. The money he stole from an innocent man—who yes, we were planning to rob. But not kill.

The money I need to find in order to prove to my father that I can handle my own in this world. The money I need to bring to my father to prove that I’m the right heir for this business, even though things can get dangerous at times. He doubts me sometimes, says this kind of work isn’t for women. I need to prove him wrong.

I hold Damon’s gaze for a long, silent moment. Then I shift my weight. “If I show you my panties, then you tell me. That’s the deal.”

He clicks his tongue. “No deal if they’re wet, dirty girl. You swore you weren’t into me, remember?”

“I’m not doing this.”

“What are you, scared?” He shakes his head again. “Daddy’s little girl is in over her head, clearly.”

Maybe they aren’t wet yet. Maybe I’m just feeling it internally. Maybe I can bluff my way through this. “Turn around,” I snap.

His eyebrows shoot up his forehead. He clearly didn’t expect me to take him up on this dare. But with a shrug and that damn grin, he does, he turns his back to me and faces the opposite wall. “I’d say no cheating,” he adds, “but I can’t see how you could cheat, unless you carry a clean pair of panties in that bag of yours.”

After today, I’m going to start, I think. At the same time, I reach up under my skirt and shimmy out of my panties. Let them drop to the floor to assess the damage.

Fuck.

They land straight between my feet with a solid plop, enough to make Damon turn back around before I’m even done stepping out of them.

“Fuck, Ashley, you’re dirtier than I thought.”

The panties get stuck on my shoe, so I simply kick my foot in his direction. They land right across his lap, a perfect strike. As I watch, he peels them off himself, amusement written all over his face. “I don’t think I need to tell you I win.”

“I don’t think I need to remind you that you’re wrong. You’re in prison, Damon, and us? We’re holding the keys.” With that, I wrench the doorknob and yank open the door.

Only to find the guard right outside, watching. He sees the panties in Damon’s fist and laughs. “Souvenir?”

As I watch, Damon lifts my panties to his face and breathes in deep, a feral grin taking over his expression. He looks hungry, and in spite of myself, I can’t help feeling even hotter at the sight.

“From my sexy fox of a fiancée,” Damon replies. “Don’t worry, it’s a one-time only souvenir. Next time she won’t be wearing any panties. Isn’t that right, sweetie?”

I slam the door in his face at that, which makes the guard burst into laughter. To the guard, all I say is, “I’m ready to go.”