Second Time Lucky (Club Decadence Book 5) (47 page)

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mara blurted out. “I didn’t expect anyone to be here this time of day.”

“No worries,” the woman replied, abruptly spinning back and shoving things haphazardly into the locker. “I was here for a class and stopped to get something, but it isn’t here. I must have left it at home.” With a tight smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes, she slammed the door and rushed out.

Staring after her, she considered her odd behavior for a moment, then shrugged. Glancing at the paper in her hand, she walked down the row to 116 and found herself standing in front of the brunette’s locker. Maybe Sean had written down the wrong number. She tried the combination and on the first try, it opened. Staring at the contents through the open locker door, Mara turned to stare after the woman wondering what the heck was going on. Either the brunette was the ousted sub who had slunk back to the scene of her humiliation, or some other intrigue was afoot.

Burning with curiosity, she sifted through the cluttered locker. Clothes, a makeup bag and bath products went into the box as well as two pairs of shoes. There was nothing else of interest. Standing on her toes, she reached up and felt around the high top shelf. Finding nothing, she scooted the padded bench close and climbed up to make sure. Peering inside she came up empty. Thinking she was making a mystery where there was none, she hopped down and scooted the bench back.

As she bent to pick up the box, her gaze fell to the bulging makeup bag. Feeling something wasn’t right, she decided it was worth a look. Inside, she found the usual items: mascara, blush and assorted lipsticks. The only other item was a small square of folded paper tucked into a side pocket. She tucked the bag under her arm and unfolded the note. Several multi-digit numbers were listed and a password: SpankMeMaster86. She snorted.
How original.

Finding nothing else, she zipped it back up, or attempted to, but the zipper was caught in the lining. Giving it a tug, she turned all thumbs and dropped it, the contents spilling out on the floor. Shaking her head at her clumsiness, she stooped to gather up the things that had rolled everywhere. As she did, she noticed that one of the lipstick tubes rattled. She opened it and upended the tube into her hand, staring in amazement at the flash drive that slipped out.

Thirty minutes later, she was sitting with Sean in his office, while he, Dex and Cap bent over Jonas’ shoulder as he transferred the contents of the drive onto Sean’s laptop. It wasn’t long before pics of club members at play appeared on the large 27-inch screen. And they weren’t nice pics from the lounge and the bar, they were of players caught not merely with their pants down, but
in flagrante delicto
, in one lewd, salacious and if made public, one compromising—and very naked—situation after another.

“Goddammit,” Cap growled in frustration. “How does this keep happening?”

“There are hundreds of pics on here, dating back months,” Jonas remarked much more calmly. “Here’s one of Gregory. He moved to Europe at least six months ago.”

“So Cecily was our mole all this time,” Sean concluded. “Tell me again what she said to you, Mara. Word for word, as best as you can remember.”

She did, refraining from mentioning that her recap hadn’t changed from the previous ten times she’d repeated it. They were all upset and it behooved her not to get smart-alecky when she was nervous about the whole underhanded business.

“How did she get back in?” Dex asked.

“That’s what’s driving me nuts,” Sean replied. “I personally deactivated her passkey.”

“There is no record of Cecily trying to access any of the doors since the night she was dismissed,” Jonas stated, his fingers flying over the keys.

“Can you pull up a log of dungeon access from this afternoon, Tech?”

Mara was briefly confused at who Sean was addressing, but as Jonas replied, “Doing it now,” she remembered the man had more nicknames than leopards had spots.

A moment later, he brought up a log. Owners, the cleaning crew and a maintenance man had all accessed the doors as well as Mara. One other name stuck out among the others.

“Fuck me!” Cap murmured as he looked at the name Jonas had highlighted. Mara strained to see, but with four sets of unbelievably broad shoulders crowded around the screen, she hadn’t a prayer.

“Pull up her photo ID, alongside Cecily’s,” Sean instructed.

“Got it,” Jonas confirmed and a moment later, the four men turned to Mara.

“What?” She asked, uneasily. “Surely, you don’t think that I—”

“No, baby, we want you to identify the woman you saw in the locker room.”

Jonas turned the laptop toward her. “Are either of these women the one you saw?”

“Yes, that’s her on the right.”

“Not the blonde?” Dex followed up.

“No, I’ve never seen the blonde, it was the brunette.”

“Shit!” Dex swore.

“Fuck me,” Cap repeated.

“What’s wrong?” She looked to Sean who was silent, a bleak expression on his face. “That isn’t Cecily, is it?”

“No,” Sean answered grimly. “The brunette is Rachel “Moon” Monihan, Megan and Regan’s cousin.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Her hand trembled on the doorknob as she waited for the receptionist to buzz her through to the interior offices at Rossi. It wasn’t fear or nerves that had Angela Hixson rattled, it was anger. She was early for the conference scheduled with the Rossi group, but after leaving the meeting with her chief a short while ago, her blood pressure was through the roof. She had to get out of the station before she blew. A detective in the San Antonio Police Department for the past five years, she’d dealt with the sexism and narrow-mindedness that had cropped up on occasion, but with the promotion of Richard Stapleton to Chief of Police, it had run rampant.

Trying to shake off the rage the arrogant asshole stirred every time they spoke, she took a deep breath, attempting to restore her professional demeanor. She enjoyed an excellent relationship with Cap Rossi and his crew, which she planned to maintain, no matter how much she wanted to pinch off her infuriating superior’s little head. Comparatively speaking, the adjective she used for the troll was spot on. At 5’8” in flats, she was eye-to-eye with him and was the reason she’d taken to wearing heels whenever she could. A veiled taunt that he didn’t like in the least, but gave her great satisfaction.

The sound of a baby crying greeted her as she came to a stop at Cap’s open door. Peering inside, she thrilled at the chance to see her new second cousins, despite one sounding very unhappy. Caleb, she guessed, his mother appearing a bit frazzled, as she bounced him on her lap.

“Hand him over, angel.” The giant of a man moved from behind his desk, his other son Connor, gurgling happily from his place in the crook of his daddy’s arm. Megan gladly relinquished her crying son to her husband and collapsed back in her chair with a long drawn out sigh, visibly exhausted. Immediately, the baby stopped fussing, becoming the mirror image of his angelic brother as he smiled and squirmed joyfully in the place he obviously wanted to be most.

Standing unnoticed in the doorway, she hated to intrude, but she’d called and requested a few minutes with Cap before the meeting. The new parents were obviously too caught up in their twins to have noticed their audience so she made her presence known.

“Knock, knock,” she called. Cap’s head came up, his dark brown eyes meeting hers directly. Not for the first time, Angie noticed how absolutely gorgeous the man was. Raw sex on two legs, Megan often called him and she wasn’t kidding. Tall, dark hair and eyes, with a finely honed, thick muscled body, Tony Rossi at forty, was not only gorgeous, but the air of command that surrounded him was overpowering at times, dominance oozing from his pores. Successful in business, co-owner of a hugely lucrative sex club, add to that, a wonderful husband to his adoring wife and loving father to his twin sons—that he actually helped care for according to Meg—it was no wonder her cousin was so in love with her man.

“Ang!” Megan greeted, having twisted in her seat to peek around the high backed chair angled in front of Cap’s desk. “See how unfair this is?” Megan complained. “I walked him, bounced him, fed and changed him—forget about the agony I went through to bring him into this world—heck, I even sang to him, but all his daddy has to do is smile or say his name and abracadabra, magically he morphs into a perfect cherub.”

“You sang to him?” Angie shot a horrified look Tony’s way. “That explains all the crying. Are his ears bleeding?”

Tony chuckled.

Meg scowled.

“Ha, ha, very funny, not all of us are blessed with great pipes.”

“You weren’t even blessed with mediocre pipes, cuz. Remember in youth group growing up when you told your mother you were going to join the choir?”

“Never mind that,” Megan urged, shaking her head in warning at her cousin.

“Oh no! I’ve gotta hear this.” Cap grinned at his wife.

Angie eyed her cousin who hung her head over the side of the chair in defeat. “Meg, if I don’t tell, you know he’ll hear it eventually, at Christmas, Thanksgiving, or the 4
^th
of July picnic at your parents.”

“Go ahead. I’m too tired to care.” Her exaggerated eye roll made Angie grin, knowing her cousin well enough to tell she wasn’t really upset.

“You might not know it, Cap, but Aunt Marion is one of those blessed with a great set of pipes, and Regan’s no slouch either. So when Megan came home from church one day, her five feet nothingness bouncing with glee—”

“Hey,” Megan cried foul. “I okayed the humiliating story, not short jokes.”

“Sorry,” Angie replied, her big smile making it clear she was anything but. “Well, it seems Meg told her mom that she’d decided to sing in the church choir. It broke my sweet aunt’s heart to have to say it, but she couldn’t do that to the congregation. What was it she said exactly, Meg?”

Megan groaned before repeating in a perfect imitation of her mother, “Honey, you’ve got a lot of gifts to give to the Lord, but singing ain’t one of them.”

Angie snickered as she tacked on, “She then had her sign up for youth ministry instead.”

Tony’s rumbling laugh delighted both babies, the precious sounds they made infectious, especially when they started batting their arms and kicking happily while grinning up at their dad.

“See! Look at that. I could stand on my head and spin around like a top. I get nothing.” She sounded offended, but Meg’s eyes on her husband and beautiful twin sons were warm and gleaming. Angie couldn’t remember ever seeing her so happy.

“You’re tense, angel. Babies can sense that, besides, we’ve got the father-son connection going on here.”

Meg snorted, softly. “I’ll remember that connection the next time Caleb’s chewing on my nipple and let you take over.”

“Mine are merely for show. Yours, thank goodness, are multipurpose of both beauty and function.” He looked at her, eyes dipping to her bounteous breasts with a grin. “Sorry, baby, but them’s the breaks.”

“Hmph… at least Connor loves me,” Megan returned with a pretend pout.

“They both love their mama,” Tony replied, turning gentle eyes on his wife, “and would love her more if she got enough sleep. Which reminds me, did you line up those interviews with the nannies?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure abdicating my motherly responsibilities when they’re four months old is a good idea.”

“Maybe I should come back,” Angie suggested.

“Stay,” Cap urged, shaking his head, the one word an obvious command. “You can help convince her that there’s nothing wrong with getting help. Or have you decided to sell the bakery?”

The last was directed at Megan, but it was Angie’s jaw that dropped in disbelief. The bakery was Megan’s pride and joy, second only to the twins. “Are you seriously considering it, Meg?”

“Heaven’s no,” she replied without a moment’s pause.

“Are you planning on divorcing me then?” This came point blank from Cap.

Angie sucked in a shocked breath at the idea. Meg and Cap were perfect. If they couldn’t make it, no one had a shot.

“Captain,” Megan scowled, “will you be serious?”

“I am completely serious, angel. With the bakery, a demanding husband and being a full-time mother times two, something’s gotta give. So if it’s not the bakery and it’s not me, that only leaves getting help with the boys. It’s not as if you’re renouncing them as your children. You’re merely getting much needed help so you can get some rest and feel energized when you
are
caring for them. You’ll then have time to keep your eye on your bakery—part-time as we agreed—and still have time to attend to your loving, though feeling slightly neglected, husband.”

“Um, on that note, I really should go…”

“No, Ang, don’t,” Megan insisted. “You’re here for a meeting and I’m being hormonal. Tony’s right as usual, on all counts.”

“Of course, I am,” he stated, at his most arrogant, before making a funny face as he cooed to the boys in a singsong voice. “Daddy always knows best, doesn’t he my handsome boys?” As if in on the joke, Caleb and Conner chortled and wriggled, highly entertained.

A pang of envy wedged like a dull blade in Angie’s heart. At thirty, she wondered if such a man, a family, love and happiness were in the cards for her. Sadly, the glimmer of hope to fulfill any of those dreams wasn’t even a speck on the distant horizon.

Cap addressed their business as he crossed the spacious office to the sofa along the far wall, a cooing, happy twin cradled in each arm. “You wanted to meet, Angie. Come in and tell me what’s on your mind.” As he settled on the couch, he crossed an ankle over the opposite knee and laid one of the boys in the bend. He then raised his free arm invitingly to his wife. “Join us, won’t you, angel?”

Posed as a request, it clearly wasn’t. However, his tone warm with affection and when said in such a way, Angie didn’t wonder for a second why her cousin instantly obeyed. She watched as Megan padded to the couch on bare feet. As he wrapped a solid arm around her shoulders, she melted against her husband’s side.