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“The boy better keep his head on straight,” Watts said.

“Mitch can handle it.” Rebecca knew Watts was partly concerned that Mitch would run into trouble and they’d be too far away to help, and partly jealous that Mitch was point man even though he was still green. But they couldn’t do anything to change either thing, so she focused on something they could affect. “If Clark’s people are here somewhere, I can’t see them.”

“Bet your ass they’re around somewhere,” Watts grunted, crushing the paper cup and dropping it on the floor between his legs. “Clark can pretend he doesn’t have enough manpower to run his own operation, but you can bet he’s got enough to fuck things up for us.”

Rebecca tended to agree. Clark’s modus operandi was to let her people do the dangerous or the boring work while he watched from a distance until something shook loose. Then all of a sudden he and his agents were right in the middle of it. She often wondered whether, if she had the power of his position, she would do the same. She didn’t like to think so.

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“Let’s hope Irina shows, and that Clark is right about her,” Rebecca said.

“She could be playing him, you know,” Watts said. “Hell, if my choice was being shipped back to some gulag or pretending to work for the feds, I’d volunteer to rat out my fellow sleazeballs too. Doesn’t mean that once she’s out from under Clark’s thumb, she’s really going to do it.”

“I know.” Running a double agent was always a risk, because if they were informing on their one-time friends, they could just as easily turn the tables and betray you. If Irina was double-crossing them, she’d need information to convince the Zamoras and the Russians that she was still on their side. And she’d need to get that information from Mitch.

Rebecca didn’t see that they had any choice except to go forward and hope that Mitch would be able to tell if Irina was stringing him along.

As if reading Rebecca’s mind, Watts said, “I don’t mean to put the boy down, but you heard the two of them over the wire. She can seriously twist Mitch around.” He shifted his bulk and sighed. “She could definitely give me a little wood, and once that happens—”

“Not everyone’s brains are smaller than their dicks, Watts.”

Watts laughed. “Probably a good thing Mitch’s rod isn’t hardwired.”

Rebecca didn’t bother to explain how wrong he was about the way things really worked.

v

“Beer?” the bartender asked as Mitch slid onto a stool and dropped his motorcycle jacket onto the one next to him.

“Sounds good.” Mitch swiveled around to face the stage, putting his back to the bar and the husky blond bartender with muscles bulging beneath his tight white T-shirt. Like every other time he’d been here, a mostly naked girl gyrated in the center of the raised platform, one arm draped around a gleaming pole, her legs spread and her hips cocked, her pelvis an open invitation to the hulking figures lurking in the shadows.

He didn’t recognize her, but then the faces changed frequently in places like this. Women were used up quickly when they were bought and sold like commodities. This one, though, seemed too old to be one of

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the Russian girls smuggled in through the port. Mitch felt a flash of disappointment. Maybe the Russians had moved on.

“Here you go,” the bartender said, sliding a bottle in Mitch’s direction.

Mitch caught it and took a swallow. The cold rich flavor felt good in his parched throat. Nerves, he thought. As he took another deep slug, arms came around his waist from behind. He felt the pressure of full breasts against his back and warm breath wafted across his ear.

Fingernails played down his chest and over his abdomen.

“Hello, new boy,” Irina whispered, dropping her hand onto the inside of his thigh.

Swinging back around, Mitch parted his legs and pulled her in tight to his body. He kissed her, taking his time. She pressed slowly into his cock.

Mitch cupped her ass and leaned back with an easy smile. “Hello, baby.”

• 87 •

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Justice for All

ChAPTER EIghT

Sandy walked east on Market Street, then cut over to Front Street and the footbridge that arched over the four lanes of Delaware Avenue. Once she reached the other side, there was nothing between her and the river except empty parking lots, darkened buildings, and the occasional attempt at a park meant to tempt tourists. At night, those isolated patches of grass served as sleeping grounds for the homeless.

She walked fast, her shoulders back, her eyes vigilant. The silent, shapeless forms of men and women huddled on the benches and in doorways did not frighten her. The men in cars who slowed to track alongside her as she walked did not frighten her either, but they were far more dangerous to her than the drunk and the disenfranchised. Their whispered calls formed a familiar litany.

“Hey baby, need a ride?”

“I’ve got something special for you, sweet thing. Come take a look.”

“Fifty bucks to suck my cock.”

Fifty dollars for ten minutes’ work, maybe less. Food money for a week. She could blank her mind for ten minutes, hell, she could be somewhere else in her head for a whole night if the price was right.

“Suck my cock. You know you want it.”

Sandy almost laughed as the car kept pace with her, the passenger window rolled down. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him leaning across the space between the front seats, steering with one hand while the other most likely worked his cock. You know you want it. She so didn’t want it. She didn’t have anything against cocks. She loved

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Mitch’s. She loved to watch his eyes get all fierce and hot when she rode it, and she loved the way she felt connected to him all the way through when he was inside her. Yep. She liked cock just fine, as long as it was Mitch’s.

“You got to see my man about that,” Sandy called back, never breaking stride. The car zoomed off. Married guys from the suburbs always panicked at the mention of a pimp. An anonymous blow job in an alley was okay, but they didn’t want to be reminded of exactly what it was they were doing. Paying another man for a piece of a woman’s body.

Sandy angled across a parking lot lit sporadically by the few remaining lights that hadn’t been knocked out. The Blue Diamond was another strip club in a long line of sex clubs, and just as popular with women as men. In a lot of ways it was safer than some of the other clubs because men didn’t hit on the women in the audience as much. A girl like her could still turn a trick, but nobody would expect her to. And that was good. Because fifty bucks wasn’t worth getting on her knees for. Five hundred wasn’t even enough. She wasn’t foolish enough to think she might never have to do it again, but tonight she had a choice.

“Hey, hot stuff,” the Mini Cooper–sized bouncer at the door said, treating her to a thrust of his bulging crotch. “Look me up later and I’ll give you a present.”

“It’s not my birthday, but thanks,” Sandy said, breezing by him.

He always had a come-on line, but unlike some of the bouncers and bartenders, he didn’t bother the girls if they didn’t put out. She was pretty sure he was gay.

Inside, the place was indistinguishable from a dozen others like it—dark, crowded with tables, smelling of beer and smoke and sex. The namesake recessed blue lights shrouded everyone except the dancers in a ghostlike pallor. Three gleaming poles jutted from a stage set against the far wall, and a woman in white cowboy boots, a suede vest, and red tassels on her nipples slithered up and down the center one.

On her way to the bar, Sandy scanned the crowd. One of her friends, Lily Chou, was giving some guy a hand job under the table.

Sandy caught her eye and tilted her chin toward the far end of the bar.

Lily nodded, never slowing the steady up and down of her arm. Sandy hopped onto a stool, stretched a leg out across the stool next to her to save Lily a place, and waited for the bartender to make his way down.

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The African-American’s head was huge, completely bald, and gleamed like polished wood beneath the blue lights. The massive muscles in his shoulders and arms strained his black T-shirt.

“What can I get you, honey,” he asked in a bored voice.

“Beer.” Sandy didn’t want it, but she needed the prop. After all, she was supposed to be working. When it came, she sipped at the tepid foam. God, the beer in these places sucked. She shifted her leg aside as Lily stepped in beside her. “How’s it going?”

“The same. You know.” Lily made a subtle jerk-off motion and dropped onto the adjacent stool.

Sandy smiled wryly. “Yeah, I know.”

“I heard you’ve got some new kind of action going on.”

Sandy’s pulse jumped. Frye was always careful not to be seen with her unless she made it look like she was rousting Sandy. Fuck, maybe someone had seen them in the diner the other night. She’d had her arm around Frye’s waist while they were walking down the street.

Hell, Frye had had her arm around her shoulders. Being cozy with a cop was not a good way to make friends around here. “What would that be?”

“Some pretty boy who rides a big bike?” Lily cocked her head.

“Maybe a boy with something a little different in his pants.”

Sandy shrugged. Not Frye, then. Mitch. “He’s fun to play with.

And he knows what to do with it, you know what I mean?”

“Hey, if it works, why not.” Lily laughed. “Does he have a friend?”

Sandy bumped Lily’s shoulder. “Three of them.”

“Maybe someday.”

“Let me know.”

“So what do you hear?” Lily asked.

That was just the question Sandy was hoping for. The fewer times she had to ask for news, the better. She looked around to be sure they wouldn’t be overheard, then leaned closer. “I heard some guys are looking for new talent. The party circuit, maybe films. You get anybody asking, I want in.”

“Funny,” Lily said. “That kind of action dried up earlier this year, but Julie told me last night a couple of guys were asking around for models. Stills, and maybe some videos. Said there might be other work soon too. Parties and like that.”

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“Damn, I could have used a little something extra.” Sandy signaled the bartender to get Lily a drink. “Did she say who the guys were?”

Lily shook her head. “Uh-uh. None of the regulars. They were talking up the girls at the Zodiac.”

“Oh well,” Sandy sighed, pretending to check out the room. “I ought to be able to score something here.”

“Don’t go in the back,” Lily said. “There’s a cop hanging around there somewhere. Getting a blow job, I think.”

Taking the easy excuse, Sandy stood up. “I don’t need any of that.

I’ll catch you later.” She started away, then turned back. “Listen. Tell the others to call me if those guys come around again.”

“Gotcha. Thanks for the beer,” Lily called after her.

Once outside, Sandy headed back the way she had come to catch the subway home. She heard footsteps keeping pace behind her, but she neither sped up nor slowed. At one in the morning the streets were nearly deserted. An occasional cab zoomed by, and now and then someone staggered out of a bar, but she was on her own.

She was used to that, but for the first time she realized she had someone who would care if she didn’t come home. She liked the feeling. A lot.

v

Talia sipped her pinot noir and watched numerals scroll on her computer screen. A fire burned in the marble fireplace across from her antique carved walnut desk. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined her study walls, the uppermost shelves accessible by a brass ladder rail that ran around three walls. Behind the double glass doors, first editions mingled with contemporary works. Opposite her desk, a matching 1930s art deco sofa and chair bordered the edge of a Persian wool rug.

The understated elegance of the room and the rich, warm atmosphere afforded by the rare books and furniture filled her with pleasure.

Taking another mouthful of wine, she let the velvety liquid play over her tongue, then tapped a few keys. She always worked better when her senses were sated, and the wine was very smooth, its fruitiness underpinned with just a hint of earth and wood. She studied the screen intently. Reconnaissance was one of her favorite parts of

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hacking into a remote system. Sending out probes and enumerating the OS parameters, generating port maps, looking for the forgotten opening—the chink in the armor, the way in. Cracking was very much like seducing a woman—teasing out her desires and her weaknesses and playing to them, until she invited you beyond her defenses. Those early encounters were so exciting that Talia rarely stayed beyond the moment of capitulation. Bedding a woman was certainly pleasurable, but far less rewarding than that explosive moment when the object of her campaign surrendered.

She smiled, thinking about Kratos Zamora and his persistent probing, his subtle forays into seducing her. He was an attractive man, a powerful one, and she enjoyed dominating powerful men almost as much as powerful women. But she didn’t trust him not to take a sexual encounter as a sign of weakness, and in her line of work, it was important never to appear weak. The weak were ultimately culled, and she had no intention of making herself vulnerable.

She sent another probe, not expecting instant results. She knew within moments of scanning the system that she wasn’t going to find something as simple as an open port or a weak password, so she didn’t even bother to try cracking JT Sloan’s authentication process by brute force. If she tried, the system log would undoubtedly trigger the activity, and for now, she preferred to remain anonymous. No system was unassailable, and eventually she’d find an insecure program to exploit or a way to write one to gain superuser status. Until then, she had other avenues to explore.

Leaning back in her Victorian leather desk chair, she regarded the image on the computer screen adjacent to the one still scrolling data.

She’d found the photograph in the archives of a tabloid newspaper and the picture was slightly out of focus, but the poor quality did nothing to detract from JT Sloan’s incredible charisma. Talia appreciated the jet black hair, slightly hooded deep-set eyes, and etched-in-marble features, but what ignited the excitement in the pit of her stomach was the wild ferocity in Sloan’s gaze. She’d been caught by a photographer as she climbed out of an ambulance, her hand clasping that of a woman on a stretcher. Captioned “Center City businesswoman victim of hit-and-run,” the brief article gave few details, but Talia didn’t need to see any more. It might take her some time to find the weakness in Sloan

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Security’s computer network, but she’d already found the woman’s personal Achilles’ heel. She wondered how much the information would be worth to Kratos.

v

Mitch couldn’t tell if anyone in Ziggie’s was watching them, but he had to assume they’d attracted the attention of the men who controlled Irina and her girls. Possibly the Russian handlers, possibly Zamora’s men. The Zamoras would never have let outsiders set up competition in their territory unless they had a piece of the action, and Mitch had to trace that connection. But for now, he just needed to convince anyone checking them out that he and Irina were an item.