Page 33 of Angels Fall

But I wave him off and walk towards the stage just as my song starts to play.

“He’s here!” Jerry whisper-yells from behind me.

“Who?” I ask over the music. There’s like, one guy in the front row, sitting near the backstage entrance. Not that guy who was halfheartedly waving singles at Candy when I walked in, but—

“Shit.”

“Time to pay up, Scarlett,” Logan says, standing up, still sipping his drink. “Three weeks is half of six. And that means you owe us half the money right now. Ninety-three thousand. Where is it?”

Logan says all this like it’s reasonable to expect me, a stripper, and not a very good one at that, to actually have this ridiculous sum of money. On me. In a strip club. In cash.

“It’s ninety-two and a half,” I say, controlling my eye roll. “Not ninety-three. And when the hell did we say I had to get you half now?”

Logan steps in far too close for my liking, pushes a strand of hair behind my ear, which makes me cringe, and whispers. “Fair enough. I’ll tell you the truth. Carlos didn’t send me this time. I’ve been watching you.” He’s been watching me? What the fuck? “And I know you’re here in the mornings, and as I was heading home from taking care of a few things last night, suddenly it occurred to me that you and I haven’t really had a chance to… talk.”

I don’t like where this is going. Not at all.

“Carlos is right to feel… intrigued by you, Madison Clayton.” Oh, Jesus, I think I’m going to fucking puke. “You are an absolute puzzle waiting to be solved.”

My jaw tightens as he twists my hair around his fingers and says, “Remember when you showed me your pussy, Maddie? When you spread your legs and let me see that sexy snatch you’ve got? Shit. I’ll be honest, I was so sad that you’re shaved down there.” He reaches one hand far too close to my thighs. “Because I imagine that fiery red cunt of yours is just as beautiful as all this.” And he takes a fistful of my hair and yanks my head back just a tiny bit.

And at that instant… for whatever reason, Ricky Ramirez, tequila salesman from Acapulco, comes to my mind. Ese es tu problema. Tienes mal genio. And that just pisses me off.

In fact, everything right now pisses me off.

And so I decide… That’s it.

I’m fucking done.

I crash my pitchfork into Logan’s head, kick him in the balls so hard my stripper shoe goes flying across the room, and then give him an uppercut to his jaw just as he looks up at me with rage and pain in his eyes.

You were wrong, Ricky Ramirez.

My goddamned temper is not my problem.

My goddamned temper is all I have left.

Chapter Eight - Tyler & Maddie

TYLER

Well, that’s some shit you don’t see every day.

A devil in a strip club, at eight in the morning, beating the fuck out of the bag man for a Mexican drug lord with a pitchfork.

Huh.

One of her shoes has come off, so she’s sorta limping toward him, swinging her pitchfork, as he scrambles backwards to get away. Everything else in the club has come to a dead stop, save for the song still playing. Maddie’s song. The one that plays when she does her stage dance. The song I had Shazam identify for me as Angel by Massive Attack, and then downloaded and put on a playlist called “Maddie,” which currently consists of just the one song that I play over and over, so, y’know, it’s an easy track for me to recognize.

It’s funny to watch a dude get his ass kicked to a soundtrack.

(And is it wrong that I think it’s insanely sexy? Whatever. I do.)

Before I can take another step, she’s cast off her other shoe, tossed her pitchfork down and is going full fuckin’ Ronda Rousey on old boy. The daytime door guy is trying to hold her back, but she’s off the chain.

Holy shit, I’m so fucking hard right now.

I’m hanging back, partially because she’s got this and partially because I’m enjoying the show. The handful of other sad sacks in the joint are hanging back too, but I’m guessing that’s because they’re afraid of getting their dicks kicked in.