Page 24 of Lawless in Leather

“Sure,” he said. “Always good to have an expert opinion.” He jerked his head toward one of the chairs near the desk where he did paperwork. “Pull up a seat.”

“Did you get any footage of the guy who tagged your door?” Mal asked as he pulled up the chair.

“Nothin’ but the first few seconds before he sprayed the camera,” Luis said. “There’s only the one out front. The queue isn’t usually long enough to warrant more.”

Mal nodded. “I see. Do you mind if I take a look?”

Raina felt herself bristle. “Luis has stuff to do. I told you, it was just a dumb kid.”

“And I told you, I take the security of anyone associated with the Saints very seriously,” Mal said. That earned him an approving look from Luis. Damn, between baseball and acting all protective, Mal was winning brownie points with Luis.

“I—”

Another knock on the door interrupted her. Brady stuck his head into the office, smiled blindingly at Luis, and then looked at Raina. “There you are. I ran the girls through the rest of the routine but they’re on break now. Are you coming back to rehearsal? I want you to try on the wings again. I’ve made some tweaks.”

“Wings?” Mal said, looking startled. Maybe it was Brady’s hair, which was currently mostly brilliant blue with a few black streaks. It set off his blue eyes very nicely but still took some getting used to.

“Wings for your Angels,” Brady said. “I’m helping Raina with the costumes.”

“Wings?” Mal repeated, turning toward Raina.

“It was Alex’s idea,” Raina said.

“I’m sure it was,” Mal said, shaking his head.

“If you’re going to have a baseball team called the Saints and a dance squad called the Fallen Angels, then you’re just going to have to put up with all the bad heaven and hell imagery,” Raina said.

“I know that,” Mal said. “I’ve been a Saints fan a long time.”

“Should’ve picked the Yankees,” Brady said. “No wings in the Yankees. Though, thank God you didn’t. Not sure what we would have done for costumes there.” He nailed Raina with a look of impatience. “So are you coming back? Or do you have something more important to do?” He lifted an eyebrow then, his eyes flicking to Mal.

Raina’s face went hot again. Damn it. Brady had a supernatural sixth sense when it came to registering sexual tension. She should have hustled Mal out of the club as soon as possible. Because now she was going to get grilled six ways from Sunday about Mal and what she might or might not feel about him.

She bit her lip, torn. If she stayed, then Brady would be teasing her about being unable to keep her mind on the job with the big boss man in the house in about thirty seconds flat. Which was so not a conversation she wanted to have anywhere in the vicinity of Mal.

But if she went with Brady, then Mal would have free rein to wangle all of Madame R’s security dilemmas out of Luis. Worse, he might then decide he needed to get involved in fixing them.

Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.

Where was the convenient wall to bang her head against while she decided which was the lesser of two evils.

“Raina?” Brady said again. “We need this routine down before tonight. Carla’s sick, so she’s out. Which means we need the extra group number. Unless you want to do ten minutes of flirting with the crowd to make up the time?”

No. No she didn’t. She was tired and, while she was very used to working when she was tired and cold, and could, if needed, turn on the charm and the smile and the flirting and have an audience eating out of her hand even when she was nearly dead, she didn’t want to. Between the Saints and the door and all the other balls she was trying to keep in the air, she’d save energy where she could.

“I’m coming,” she said. “Just give me a couple more minutes.”

“Five, max,” Brady said. “The bloody wings take forever, so you need to sign off on the design tonight so I can get the seamstresses working on the white ones. The feathers are arriving tomorrow. Eighteen pairs of wings by Saturday week is cutting it pretty fine.”

“What color is the pair you’ve made for Raina?” Mal said.

Brady smiled at him. A sneaky sort of smile that Raina didn’t like the look of. “Why don’t you come by the stage when you’re done here and we’ll show you?”

“I might just do that,” Mal said.

Raina’s heart sank. She wanted him to leave. But he was one of the people paying for the wings and the outfits and her time, so she could hardly tell him no.

Brady looked somewhat smug. “That would be awesome. Raina, five minutes.” He spun on his heel and disappeared back out the door before she had time to object.

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