Page 84 of Nightfire

She stopped, heart pounding, knees suddenly weak, fighting back tears.

Everyone waited patiently. Marisa by her side, the two large men in front of her. She drew in a deep breath and continued walking until she stopped right in front of the big shiny desk.

Both men watched her, faces blank, eyes on hers. Neither of them eyed her breasts or her legs, they looked her straight in the eyes. It gave her permission to look right back.

One of the men looked…familiar, though she knew she’d never seen him before. Dark blond hair, light brown eyes, almost golden in color, skin a light gold. Familiar, yet not. And then it struck her.

“You’re Chloe’s brother!”

He dipped his head. “Yes, I am. My name is Harry Bolt and I am Chloe’s brother though we don’t share a name.” He tilted his head to his right. “And this is Barney Lewis. Happy to meet you.”

And then he did something so unusual Consuelo didn’t recognize it. He offered his hand. For a second, she thought maybe he was showing her something and looked at his hand to see what it was. But the hand wasn’t palm up, it was simply outstretched. Outstretched for her.

She looked at it for a moment, then up at him. His face was so like Chloe’s, yet utterly male while hers was so feminine. It puzzled her. She had no family and none of the other girls at the Meteor had families. She’d never seen family resemblances before.

Hesitantly, because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d shook anyone’s hand, she reached out. His grip was warm, strong, brief.

“Ma’am,” a bass voice said and she turned to the other man. Where Harry Bolt looked like a successful businessman who worked outdoors sometimes—as opposed to the lawyers and CEOs she had sex with—this man looked…dangerous. Someone you’d cross the road to avoid. Even taller and broader than Harry Bolt, he was huge, rough, biceps bulging out of a tee shirt.

He, too, took her hand and squeezed it even more briefly than Harry Bolt had, but with great gentleness. He could crush her hand on a whim, but everything about him spoke of enormous strength under enormous control.

“Sit down, please, Ms…”

“Consuelo,” she said. She’d almost forgotten her last name, Sanchez, she said it so seldom.

“Consuelo, please take a seat.” Harry Bolt indicated a comfortable chair, walked back around his big desk and sat down. The dangerous one, Barney, sat in a chair next to her.

Both men looked at her with expressions she couldn’t figure out until it hit her. They didn’t know she was a prostitute. She was dressed in jeans and a white blouse. They didn’t know.

Oh God.

For a second, she just sat there with two men she didn’t know and who didn’t know what she was. Who looked at her and treated her as if she was a normal woman.

She spent most of her life inside the Meteor. She couldn’t remember the last time a man didn’t treat her like a whore.

She breathed this in and breathed this out. If everything went well, there was a possibility of a life where this would happen every day. Leave it all behind.

Please.

“So.” Harry Bolt folded his hands on his desk. He was going to get her to say why she was here but there was no pressure on her, none. It was a busy, successful company, that was clear from everything she’d seen, but he was giving her his time. “You’re a friend of my sister’s?”

Another breath. Just one more second of being normal.

She lowered her eyes, raised them. “Yes. It’s my fault Chloe was hurt. My fault and the fault of a few of my—my friends.”

Nothing changed in his expression. Consuelo turned her head slightly to look at the other man. Barney. No expression there, either.

“How so, Consuelo?” Bolt asked gently.

“She talked to us, encouraged us. Gave us a little courage. Some of us started to—talk back. Rebel a little. They couldn’t stand it and they sent the Russians.”

He straightened suddenly, shooting a glance at the other man.

“The Russians? What Russians?”

Another deep breath. It had been such a brief moment.

She lowered her eyes again, spoke to her knees. “The Russians at the Meteor Club, where I…I work. Four of them. They’ve been there for about three months. They’ve put money into the club, a lot of it. There’s something coming, they’re preparing for something. Something big is about to happen.”