Page 3 of Strip Search

I blinked. That was twice what I was going to ask for. She was serious if she was dipping into her bank account. Despite having inherited a ton from her parents, my mother was a notorious tight wad.

“Don’t you dare blow it in the casinos.”

Rolling my eyes, I pictured myself throwing dice on a craps table. I didn’t even know how that worked. Did I want a seven? Did I want snake eyes? She should have warned me not to blow it all on spa treatments because that was more my style. So I would have cash, my expenses would be paid, and I’d be out of the snow. I should be overjoyed. Instead, I felt like I had taken a huge step backward in my career and life.

“I’ll call you when I land,” I said, but there was a part of me already regretting my decision. I needed to stop letting my mother and sister dictate my life. And I would. Just not today.

Chapter Two

Miles Carvello

I dodged a punch, grabbed the asshole’s wrist, and twisted his arm behind his back. “Not in my bar, motherfucker,” I told him and literally kicked his ass out of Dalton’s.

My bouncers were the best money could buy on or off the Las Vegas strip—and we were very much off the Strip, which probably is why these drunken frat boys thought they could get away with this kind of shit in my club.

“You need help, mate?” Darcy Ross said. He and some of his rugby buddies were sitting on barstools with their backs to the bar, itching to get into the fight. Darcy and I went way back when I took a bottle in the head for him at an unruly club in Sidney. He was a great guy—bloke, as he said. It was a shame that he only played one game professionally before an injury sidelined his career for good.

“We got this,” I said. “You boys keep drinking and watching the girls.” That was all I needed. Five half-crocked Aussies “helping” me.

“What’s a bachelor party without a biffo?” Darcy grinned and slid off his seat.

Hell no. I looked over my shoulder and gave a sharp whistle. Kikki, Betty, and Nalia wound their way through the combatants toward the private lounge, their tassels shaking from all the right places.

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said, tugging Darcy back. “Why don’t you take the groom and the rest of the blokes over to theVIP lounge? Free champagne beer for as long as the fight out here lasts.”

“Good man.” Darcy clapped me on the shoulder and herded his team into the area where my three best exotic dancers had just entered.

I needed to get this fight over quickly before the Aussies drank me into bankruptcy. Wading into the brawl, I separated the frat boys from the other patrons. When they swung at me, I swung back. They went down regretting their actions, nursing a swollen jaw or trying not to puke from a well-placed gut or kidney punch. Luckily, after a few more of the frat boys were shown the error of their ways and the door, the rest went willingly. Aside from a couple of scratches and a few bruises, my bouncers came out of the fight all right. As they drifted back to their stations, I saw a bunch of patrons leave. Fighting wasn’t good for business, but sometimes I didn’t get the choice. Most days I felt like Billy the Kid. But instead of gunslingers coming to test their skills against me, I got college kids on vacation throwing hands.

I was proud of my reputation as an ass kicker. The tabloids named me a “celebrity bouncer” when I was working the club scene in Europe in my twenties. I had thought it was ridiculous, but one of the club owners told me that reputation was everything. If he advertised that Miles Carvello was head of security, the troublemakers usually stayed home—or more likely, found another club to act up in.

The stage show tonight had stopped when the frat assholes started chucking bottles at each other. I walked into the dressing room to check on the girls. I used to knock first, but the dancers kept laughing at me. So now, I just walked right in.

“You guys all right?”

“Fuck,” Ginny said, hiding the packets of pills behind her back.

I locked eyes with her buyer, one of the frat boys who was back here hooking up with drugs rather than brawling. “Get out.”

He must have already been high because I saw the moment he decided to try me. I went up on my toes to pivot out of the way and I planned to smash him in the mouth with an elbow.

“No,” Ginny said, stepping in front of the swing.

Cursing, I yanked her back and we crashed into the vanity table in front of the mirror. The kid pulled a knife, eyes wild. “Give me the pills. And your wallet.”

Shoving Ginny behind me so she wouldn’t get in my way again, I charged the little bastard. He swung his arm back to swipe at me, but I outweighed him by a good hundred pounds. I tackled him into the ground. He hit his head hard on the shag carpet and the knife went flying. Dragging him up by the hair, I marched him to the back door and threw him down the cement steps to the alley. He made a satisfying crash when he hit the garbage bags.

I toggled on the two-way earpiece I wore. “The frat is banned for tonight. No one wearing their letters is allowed in.”

“You got it, boss,” my head bouncer said. Highway was a former marine and looked like a meaner version of Clint Eastwood in his day.

The back door locked behind me as I returned to the dressing room. Ginny was sitting on a stool, posing seductively. Yeah, she was in deep shit and she knew it. She was a busty redhead who knew how to work a room. She had regulars, whom I’d assumed kept coming back to Dalton’s to watch her work the pole to David Guetta. Now I had to wonder if that was really the draw.

“Where’s everyone?” I asked. There should have been four other dancers back here.

“Mingling.”

“Did they know you were selling?”

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