Page 91 of Lawless in Leather

“Don’t change the subject,” he said with a grin. “So somebody is trying to scare you off.” He stopped suddenly. “You haven’t heard from Jeremy again, have you?”

She shook her head. “Radio silence since that first email.”

“Good. Didn’t think so. Then probably not him.”

He looked somewhat smug. Which made her suspicious. “Did you do something to Jeremy?”

Mal shrugged. “I may have tracked him down and discussed the error of his ways with him.”

It was wrong to feel happy about that, right? She decided she didn’t care. And that she didn’t want to know what Mal’s discussion had involved.

“It was only a discussion,” Mal said, seemingly reading her mind. “I didn’t beat him up. It was tempting. But unnecessary. Usually is with bullies.”

“That’s very restrained of you. Are you giving up your dark lord ways?”

“Not entirely,” he said, eyes glinting at her in a way that made her shiver with remembrance about exactly what they’d done the night before.

She fanned her face a moment, trying to clear the fog of the heat. “Weren’t we talking about something?”

Mal laughed. “Yes. Right. Back on topic. The incidents at the club. New theory. Maybe it’s not you they have a problem with, maybe it’s the club?”

“You thought it was me originally,” Raina said. “Why the change of heart?”

“Originally that was the most obvious solution. But if feather guy isn’t guilty, then obviously that might not be the way to go. Maybe it’s not personal. Maybe it’s business. So who has an issue with your club? Got any burlesque enemies?”

“Corsets and pistols at dawn? No.” She snorted. “I really don’t know. It’s not like we’re a strip club. We get a lot of women and couples coming. We’re not near any schools or day care centers or churches or anything. I made sure of that when I picked the location. It’s mostly bars and restaurants and small businesses and young-and-upcoming couple types.”

“Young and upcoming,” Mal mused. “Yeah, I saw the for sale signs on some of the buildings in your street. Lots of condos going up.”

“The way the market has been, people are happy to sell. I got a great lease because my landlord couldn’t find a tenant at the time. Locked him up for five years with an option for five more.”

Mal lifted his eyebrows. “Landlord? Now, there’s someone who might be unhappy if the market is picking up and he has a tenant in a building he might want to sell. Does your lease have cancellation penalties?”

Raina nodded. “Yeah, he can kick me out with six months’ notice but it would cost him.”

“Unless you decided to break the lease yourself?” Mal suggested.

Raina stared at him. “It couldn’t be that, could it? I mean, I’ve always known that Phil was a weasel but that’s pretty low.”

Mal smiled grimly. “I don’t know. But I vote we find out.”

“Me too,” Raina said. “Got time for a little field trip?”

“Hello, Phil,” Raina said silkily as she stalked into her unfortunate landlord’s grimy office a few blocks away from Madame R. She’d slicked her mouth with red and found her spike-heeled boots again. Her black leather jacket kind of matched Mal’s. The thought pleased her.

Phil was middling height with a rapidly expanding waistline, bushy black eyebrows, and graying hair slicked back with gel. He hadn’t grown any more pleasant smelling since the last time she’d had to deal with him in person. She fought not to wrinkle her nose against the smell of stale cigarettes, old fast food, and slightly too-long-unwashed male.

Phil got to his feet. “Raina? Late with the rent, are you?”

“You know I’ve never been late with my rent even once,” Raina said pleasantly. She looked at the pile of papers on the chairs in front of Phil’s desk. It wasn’t often he had visitors. The few times she’d been here the place had been deserted other than two or three of the younger guys he always introduced as his nephews hanging around doing nothing much. She picked up the papers and dropped the pile on his desk then settled herself on the chair. Mal did the same with the other chair, saying nothing.

“Who’s your friend?” Phil asked.

“This is my … security adviser,” Raina said with a sunny smile. “We had a couple of incidents at the club. So we decided to get some advice on our security setup.”

“You do anything like that and you have to pay for it,” Phil said. “Check your lease.”

“Oh I know,” Raina said. “I pull it out every so often to read it. That non cancellation clause makes me happy every time. It’s so nice for a girl to have some security in these uncertain times, don’t you think?”

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