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  “Hey, man!” Manuel stood and faced the bartender who kept mistaking me for a potato sack. “What are you doing?”

  Carlos tightened his grip on my waist. I could only imagine how I must look with my barely-clothed bum poking out for everyone to see. His rough handling would earn him a package of vomit on the back of his shirt. It would serve him right.

  “She needs to be somewhere safe,” Carlos stated, his voice low and gravelly. Even I stopped squirming at the tone. Carlos wasn’t asking a question. He wasn’t talking to Manuel as his boss and he wasn’t seeking anyone else’s permission.

  “I’ll go. I’ll go!” I pounded his back. “Just put me down.”

  Carlos hesitated.

  “I’ll be good.” I promised.

  Carlos set me down and I nodded at him and then stared at Manuel. The club owner’s dark eyes glinted in the lights still sweeping across the club. His jaw worked and his hands were fisted at his sides.

  “Go wait upstairs and lock the door,” Manuel instructed.

  I recoiled. Had all the men gone crazy tonight? I was not a slave. Nevertheless, I nodded and obediently backed away. Carlos, Manuel, Steve – the bodyguard that handled the front doors – and a handful of other patrons gave me their backs and crowded around the head.

  My intention to grudgingly head upstairs and lock myself in for safety was thwarted the minute my gag reflexes informed me that it was time for an exercise. I dragged my body to the nearest trash can and heaved. When I glanced up, my eyes caught Carlos’s. He stared at me for a long, hard second before returning his attention to the other men. Before I could diagnose the meaning behind the look, I realized that I had another urgent appointment with the trash.

  Chapter 4

  My stomach finally calmed and I straightened, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. The room had quieted, leaving me with a stilted, frightened feeling. I glanced around, eager to take the advice of Carlos and Manuel and get out of here. Perhaps, I should have done that a long time ago.

  As far as I could tell, I was the only Mickey Girl in sight. Essence was nowhere to be found. She had probably taken off with the crowd when the head and the body, which was my stab-in-the-dark guess for what the long bag held, crashed through the windows. The Borden Twins were also gone, along with Kensie, a pretty Spanish girl that worked during the weekends.

  The men were grumbling, their muted voices reminding me of thunder in the distance. Their muttered conversation filled the room as police sirens rang out in the night air. I winced. This place would be crawling with cops in a couple of minutes. Manuel would be ticked.

  This business thrived in the shadows, beckoned to people who longed for anonymity. Police involvement meant public records, media vultures, and exposure. Mickey’s thrived on exposure but not that particular kind.

  I quickly trotted to the back rooms, collecting my jacket and pulling on a pair of pants. Changing my stripper heels for a regular pair of flats I transformed myself from every man’s fantasy to a regular, everyday woman. The slam of the door frightened me. I whirled around, not sure what to expect.

  I recognized Carlos and frowned. Given his behavior tonight, the bartender and I weren’t on the best terms right now.

  “What are you doing in here?” I snapped, tugging my earrings from my ears.

  “I’m walking you home.” He said gruffly. He didn’t seem any more enthusiastic about the task than I was.

  “I don’t need an escort.”

  Carlos stepped closer, his tall form slightly intimidating. I held my ground and stared him straight in the eyes, refusing to back down. He tucked his thumbs into the loops of his jeans and asked, “Did you know that girl in there?”

  I swallowed as the image of April’s severed head flashed through my mind. “Yes,” I admitted. “Her name is… was April.”

  He stalked closer and grabbed my hand. Pointing to the area on the upper part of my arm, Carlos inquired, “Did she have any tattoos there?”

  I shook my head. Manuel preferred girls without tattoos. It was an effort to differentiate us from the prostitutes and escorts that had taken to coloring their skin with ink. Truthfully, I’d always mistrusted this explanation. I had a feeling that clean skin was simply Manuel’s personal taste and had nothing to do with the image of Mickey Girls.

  Carlos cursed under his breath. “I was right then. She’s been branded.”

  “Branded?” I echoed.

  Shouts rang out in the main hall. Carlos gritted his teeth and arched an eyebrow. “Is there another way out of here?”

  “Y-yes,” I stuttered.

  “Let’s go.” He urged me forward.

  I barely managed to collect my bags and scurry toward the emergency exit. Carlos didn’t stop fast-walking until we were out on the street. Mickey’s was located in a warehouse next to the sea. From the outside, it seemed a simple storehouse in an abandoned lumberyard. Had I passed it by in the daytime, I would’ve paid it no heed. In fact, I’d only known about Mickey’s because of April.

  I thought of her as Carlos pulled me down the street. April Kelly had been a sweetheart. She was quiet and shy until the lights came off and she did her thing on a podium. She came from a crappy home and was attracted to the easy money that this business promised.

  I’d met her in a club, a couple months before I started working at Mickey’s. She’d danced with all her might and we ended up striking a conversation. It was there that she suggested work at Mickey’s. If it hadn’t been for April, I would have never been able to pay for my university fees. I owed her my future. It saddened me to think that hers had been stolen.

  “Where do you live?” Carlos’s voice shook me from my thoughts.

  “A couple blocks away.” I informed him.

  He nodded. His eyes kept darting around as he shuffled toward the street. I said nothing as we walked, but the night was far from still. The Caribbean Sea thrashed angrily, further adding to the storm gathering in Carlos’s dark eyes. Coconut trees waved their fronds as the wind rustled through the leaves. A dog barked. Another answered.

  “Do you always walk home?” He disturbed the quiet.

  “Sometimes I take a taxi,” I informed him. “But since I left in such a rush, I’m walking.” I couldn’t hide the snarkiness in my comment.

  Carlos snorted. “You have no idea what’s going on right now, do you?”

  “It sounds like you do.” I shot back.

  His jaw worked and he ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Are we there yet?”

  I recognized the change in conversation and stubbornly kept on. “Yes, we’re almost there. Now what do you know about this… craziness that I don’t?”

  Carlos kept on walking, his face set like granite. My temper flared and I stared straight ahead. So when he felt like being chatty, I had no choice but to obey? The minute he wanted to clamp up, I was just supposed to stand back and take it? I glared at the night sky as a few choice words paraded through my mind.

  “This is it.” I said abruptly, standing before a small bungalow with a chain link fence and a well-groomed lawn.

  “You live here?” The note of surprise in Carlos’s voice was almost amusing. Almost.

  “Where did you expect me to live?” I inquired, stopping at the gate and folding my arms, “in a tenement in Shanty Town or under a bridge?”

  It was a common misconception that women in my line of work were stupid, unintelligent, or foolish. Maybe all three. Perhaps to an extent we were, but in addition to pursuing my Bachelors Degree in Business, I had invested most of my nightly profits into hedge funds. I’d reaped plentiful returns. I didn’t work at Mickey’s because I had no other options.

  “Don’t even answer that question.” I cautioned when he turned to me. “Good night, Carlos.”

  “Wait,” I froze. He stepped through the gate and locked it. “I’m coming in.”

  Once again, Carlos wasn’t asking.

  Chapter 5

  My mother and father had me
later on in life. I was their surprise. They raised me with more love than I could hold. When I was twelve years old, they died in a car accident on the way to my dance recital. I’d been crushed. My grandmother took me in after that. She died five years ago. I was only eighteen. My aunts, uncles and cousins were spread throughout the Caribbean but none had stepped up to take care of me when I needed it so I didn’t consider them family.

  Looking back on my life, I’d learned to observe my history with an almost clinical eye. I’d lost everyone that I ever cared about. Death was as commonplace a reality as eating soup or going to work. The understanding influenced the choices I made and the connections I forged. My parents, my grandmother, they’d all been taken from me so suddenly. Death was always lurking around the corner. It only made sense to live as I pleased while I still had the time.

  But something about April’s senseless death unnerved me. She was only a couple months older than I was. What if it had been me in that body bag? What would I be remembered as? What kind of legacy would I leave? It was a frightening thought. I had no regrets about the life I had chosen. And even if I did, there was nothing I could do about the past.

  I sighed as I unlocked my door and flipped on the light switch. April’s death was starting to sink in and it was causing me to think crazy thoughts.

  “Nice place,” Carlos observed.

  His broad shoulders and tall build seemed to fill up my living room, turning what I’d considered a decent sized hall into a doll house. I smiled weakly in reply and tossed my shoes off. I’d decorated the living room in rich colors. The sofas were a deep maroon with colorful throw pillows scattered throughout. A large television sat on a mahogany entertainment center and picture frames of my parents and my grandmother hung from the walls.

  Carlos contemplated the photographs. I could tell that he was trying to figure my family out. “My parents,” I pointed to the frame of an older couple. “They had me in their forties.”

  “Wow,” Carlos nodded. “That’s really cool.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you see them often?”

  “No,” I shook my head, “they passed away when I was young.”

  “I’m sorry,” he rumbled. His deep voice, all caring and low like that, made me want to kiss him. The desire was so far out of the left field that I sank into the sofa, stunned. Obviously, the horrific events of this night were messing with my head.

  I shifted uncomfortably, eager to change the topic. “So, what was so important that you needed to storm into my house?”

  “I didn’t storm.”

  “You weren’t invited.”

  He tilted his head, unable to pull up a good comeback. “True,” a small smile played on his lips and I found that it made his roughly handsome face even more appealing. “I’m sorry, tonight’s been intense.”

  I sobered, my mind returning once more to the severed head and body bag tossed into the club tonight. “You said that April was branded. What did you mean?”

  “Do you have a piece of paper?” He inquired. I quickly retrieved a pad and a pen for him.

  Carlos balanced the page on his knee and spoke while he drew. “The police call him The Executioner. His first kill was a three years ago in Belize City. His last was in Toledo a few months ago.”

  I shivered, thinking of all those girls that had been grotesquely mutilated.

  Carlos continued, “He’s been moving through the six districts of Belize seeking out prostitutes, exotic dancers, anyone involved in the adult entertainment business. His picks are random but once he chooses a venue, he goes after three girls. It’s always the same number. Always three.”

  I gasped. “You’re joking.”

  Carlos looked up from his sketch with dark eyes. He wasn’t. “He cuts off their heads and then brands them with this.” He held up the paper. I grasped it from him and held it up to the light. It was a bunch of random markings that I didn’t understand.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It’s Hebrew,” his eyes skittered away from mine, “for soiled.”

  Soiled. I knew what the word meant. I knew all the others like it. Ruined, stained, tainted, dirty. A crazy serial killer was rounding up girls like me, cutting their heads off and marking them so that even in death, they’d be ridiculed and looked down upon.

  It angered me. How dare he?

  “Why isn’t there more information about this guy? Why isn’t the news all over this?”

  “He’s working at random,” Carlos sighed, “there’s no pattern to his choosing. The police want to keep any copy cats from joining his cause.”

  I frowned and then glanced suspiciously at him. “How do you know so much about this?”

  He firmed his jaw and completely ignored my question. “He’s chosen Mickey’s. You and all the other girls are in danger.”

  He was staring at me, waiting to see a flicker of understanding, but all I could think was that Carlos knew too much about this case. Was this the key to the mystery that had stumped me for three months?

  Carlos had arrived at Mickey’s out of the blue, touting a story about paying back loans for an English degree. He was huge, way more beefed up than a regular English teacher. His constant refusals to share any information about himself or his family, and his interest in the Executioner guy were unendingly suspicious.

  My eyes raked his thick head of hair, his broad shoulders, his dark, brown eyes and his square jaw. He could subdue me with little effort, his strong arms were like bands of steel. What if I was in danger right now? What if The Executioner, the serial killer that had sawed April’s head from her body, was Carlos Fuentes?

  Chapter 6

  As quickly as the thought came, it fled. Carlos had been right in front of me – and then on top of me – when the body was flung through the windows. And even if he was The Executioner, why would he go to so much trouble to see me home safely?

  Unless this was how the Executioner worked? Maybe he buttered up the girls before he killed them. And maybe Carlos was working with accomplices which could account for why he was beside me when the body was delivered via window. It could account for why he hadn’t been caught yet.

  The possibilities were driving me crazy. I groaned and leaned back in the sofa. If Carlos was The Executioner, I wished he’d get it over with and kill me now. The suspense was just as torturous. I inched slowly away from him toward my phone which I’d carelessly placed on the stand at the other end of the sofa.

  “Are you okay?” Carlos inquired.

  My heartbeat ricocheted against my ribcage. “I’m fine.”

  I gritted my teeth and subtly grabbed my cell from the desk, hiding it underneath a portion of my thigh. “How about you? Are you okay?”

  His eyes glanced down and then a slow, understanding smile crossed his face. It was so devilishly handsome, I nearly choked. How twisted would it be if I was attracted to my own murderer!

  “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Jade.” Carlos soothed.

  I shook my head. “Afraid?” – I laughed nervously – “I’m not afraid. Who’s afraid?”

  “You’re biting your bottom lip the way you did last week when that guy tried to manhandle you.” He pointed to my mouth, which I was indeed gripping in my teeth. “And you keep glancing down at your phone.”

  Managing to relax just a tad, I loosened my hold on the device. “How does a simple bartender know so much about this case?” I tapped my chin and leaned closer, “are you with the police?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’m just a regular guy with bills to pay. Just like anybody else.” My eyes raked down of their own accord as I pictured the muscles on his arms, chest and back. Carlos Fuentes was the farthest thing from a regular guy.

  “I should go.” He stood and made his way toward the door. “Lock up tight for the night and don’t come back to work unless you have to, do you understand me?”

  “That’s ridiculous!” I railed. “I have bills to pay too.”

 
; “You want to lose your life over this?” He stepped forward.

  I tilted my head and rested my hands on my hips, ready to go a few rounds with this stubborn, obnoxious bartender. Carlos had pushed me around – literally – all night. I’d listened to each of his instruction, well kind of. But we were standing in my house, discussing my life. I refused to be pushed around anymore.

  “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” I insisted, wishing I’d kept my heels on so that I could match his height. Carlos would have towered over me anyway but I always felt more confident in my heels.

  “This isn’t a joke, Jade.”

  “Do I look like I’m laughing?” I threw my arms out and poked him in his well-defined chest. “You’ve been nothing but bossy all night. I don’t take orders from anyone and especially not from you.”

  “That I know,” he muttered.

  I took it as the insult that it was. “You think you’re so untouchable, Carlos Fuentes?” I poked his chest with each word, slightly stunned by the rock hard mass beneath his black T-shirt. “I know you. You are an entitled, arrogant, presumptuous, pain-in-the-butt!”

  “Would you like another vowel or do you need a moment to consult a thesaurus?” He arched a dark eyebrow.

  I seethed, preparing to order him out of my house, when he dipped his head close to mine and whispered.

  “I know you too, Jade Hunter.” I glared at him, ready to hear the adjectives that men had flung my way since I signed up for this gig. None of them were pretty or flattering in the least.

  But Carlos surprised me. “You are ”–he closed his eyes–“ funny, smart, caring. Incredibly sexy.” He opened his eyes and his dark gaze held me unwaveringly. “And broken.”

  I sputtered. “I am not…”

  “It’s something you hide,” – Carlos interrupted – “under all that witty banter and that sharp temper.” His hand darted out and, with a gentleness that belied the strength in his arms, he ran a finger down my cheek. “I’m not trying to order you around or tell you what to do. See here?” he pointed to his chest, “I’m broken too. I know how it feels and I don’t want you to feel that way. I don’t want you to get hurt anymore.”