Flashpoint Read Free Page A

who’d set him up to be killed. Two pals, out making the rounds of the strip clubs. “Yeah, I do.”
    “Well, they’re waiting for us now.”
    “That’s good,” Decker said. “They can wait. We don’t want to look too eager, right?” He looked at Tess again. “Make it imported.”
    Mondelay looked at her, too, narrowing his eyes slightly—a sign that he was probably thinking. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
    “He’ll have another beer, too.” Decker dismissed Tess, hoping she’d take the hint and disappear, fast.
    Mondelay was in one hell of a hurry to leave, but he was never in too much of a hurry not to harass a waitress when he had the chance. “Whatcha hiding there, honey?”
    “I’ll get those beers.”
    Tess was just a little too late. Mondelay had already caught the bottom of her tray, keeping her from leaving. He tugged on it, pulling it away from her, and she let him, but not because she wanted to. She was still smiling, but she wasn’t a good enough liar to hide her discomfort completely. Decker had to look away, hating the fact that she was subjecting herself to this, for him.
    Yeah, who was he kidding here? She was doing this for James “Diego” Nash.
    “How long’ve you worked here?” Mondelay asked her.
    The volume of the music dropped as the routine ended and the stripper left the stage. There’d be about ten minutes for their ears to recover before the next woman started to dance.
    “Not very long,” Tess said. It was still noisy, but she didn’t have to shout quite so loudly anymore.
    “You need to work on your all-over tan.”
    “Yeah,” she said, cool as could be. “I know.”
    “Let her get those beers,” Decker said.
    “I’d throw her a bang,” Mondelay said as if Tess weren’t even standing there. “Wouldn’t you?”
    Deck had been trying to pretend that a woman who was pole dancing on the other side of the bar had caught his full attention, but now he was forced to look up and appraise Tess, whom he knew had a photo of her two little nieces in a frame on her desk along with a plastic action figure of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He knew it was Buffy because Nash had asked her about it once, and she’d told them it represented both female empowerment and the fact that most people had inner depths not apparent to the casual observer.
    Decker felt a hot rush of anger at Nash, who, no doubt, had been taking his flirtation with Tess to the next level when the call came in that Decker needed assistance. He wasn’t sure what pissed him off more—the fact that Nash had sent Tess in here without her shirt, or that Nash was sleeping with her.
    “Yeah,” he said now to Mondelay, since they’d been talking about the waitresses in these bars like this all week. He gave Tess a smile that he hoped she’d read as an apology for the entire male population. “I would also send her flowers afterward.”
    “Tell me, hon, do women really go for that sentimental bullshit?” Mondelay asked Tess.
    “Nah,” she said. “What we really love is being objectified, used, and cast aside. Why else would I have gotten a job here? I mean, aside from the incredible health plan and the awesome 401(k).”
    Decker laughed as she finally managed to tug her tray free and headed toward the bar.
    He watched her go, aware of the attention she was getting from the other lowlifes in the bar, noting the soft curve of her waist and the way that, although she wasn’t very tall, she carried herself as if she stood head and shoulders above the crowd. He was also aware that it had been a very long time since he’d sent a woman flowers.
             
    They were in some serious shit here. Whoever set up this ambush had paramilitary training.
    There were too many shooters in position around the building. He couldn’t take them all out.
    Well, he could. The setup was professional, but the shooters were all amateurs. He
could
take them all out, one by one by one. And like the first two he’d