He went to the vanities where the girls would get themselves ready and put their makeup on.
“Smoke break,” he said to three of the dancers. “Now.”
That was all Reese needed to say to get his point across. They hurried to find some clothes and scattered away.
Reese put a chair to the middle of the floor and sat down, dropping the bag to the floor. He lit up a smoke and waited for Starla to join him.
The moment Starla appeared from the front, standing there topless, her face dropped. She went pale white and looked terrified.
“Put on a robe, sweetheart,” Reese said calmly. “We need to talk.”
“Reese. Hey.”
“Put on a robe,” he said again.
She opened a door to her locker, storage, cubby, whatever they wanted to call it, and she took out a black silk robe and put it on. She tied it tightly and lingered back.
Reese stood up and pointed to the chair. “Take a seat.”
“Reese… whatever you…”
“I said to take a seat,” he said. “Look. I’m here to talk.”
He opened his leather cut and reached for his gun. He saw Starla cringe. He unloaded the weapon and put it on a table, along with the clip.
“Now sit.”
Starla put her nose up a little and walked to the chair. She slowly sat and adjusted the robe as she crossed her legs, her left leg bouncing like crazy.
She was nervous.
She should be nervous.
Reese stepped in front of her. “Do you know why I’m here?”
“I can guess,” she said. “I guess that little bitch ratted me out.”
“Little bitch, huh? The woman that runs this place. Keeps you in a job. Helps you when you get too fucking drunk. Yeah, she’s a bitch.”
“Sorry I said that then,” Starla said. “I bought some stuff for fun. She found it. I didn’t mean for anyone to find it. I wasn’t going to spread it around here.”
“Okay. Good. That’s what I was worried about. You know, the MC is tied to this place. We can get in trouble if anything goes wrong here.”
“Like the police showing up?”
“Exactly,” Reese said. “But that bitch covered your ass. She tossed me her bag to take so the cops wouldn’t find it.”
“I said I was sorry for calling Josie a bitch.”
“Now that the police are gone, we can get back to normal,” he said. He nodded to the bag. “There you go.”
“What?”
“Your stuff.”
Starla swallowed hard. “My stuff.”
“Open it, Starla.”