Dance Till I Die (gxg) ✓

"Ace of Hearts"

You have to listen to that song―no, I'm not kidding! 

                  She moved like she knew. 

                  She knew what she was doing to the men cheering for her beneath the platform. Enraptured, they watched like she was the sun―and they were the moths, clinging with their fragile wings to the semblance of heat.

                  And Heaven Almighty, that woman was hot. 

                 There was no other word for it―not in English. Not in Russian.

                  Heat. Smoke. That dark, dark red between temptation and addiction. 

                  She wasn't thin. Ace liked that. The girls in Moscow had always been slim to the point between modeling and starvation, with long legs and flat stomachs. Ace wasn't picky―all women were beautiful―and she had enjoyed them for what they were: nothing but a good fuck.

                  Two years. She had been kept in Black Dolphin Prison. 

                  No women. No alcohol. No power. 

                  This was Las Vegas. City of Sins. If she couldn't drown herself in the America's cheap imitation of vodka and fuck a beautiful woman whose name she would forget tomorrow, what was the point?

                  Aleksi had sent her to America last night. She had three days. He would not expect her to find her target so fast, but Ace had always been the best at her job.

                  They had announced this woman five minutes ago. Valentina. 

                  Ace wanted her.

                 When Valentina moved, she was a siren: her caramel skin glistened, hugged by a deep red thong and a sheer bralette. Her brown hair tumbled down her back, her thick legs slung over the pole, and she circled it over and over, as gracefully as a bird of flight. Her eyes were dark and expressive―Latina, she guessed. There was ferocity written in the curves of her round hips, and Ace felt a shiver. She was used to taking what was hers, but this woman . . . she would present an entertaining challenge.

                  Ace raked a chair out from an empty table, and she sat in the back.

                  The gun grew warm at her thigh.

                  She was looking for someone named Mavis Griffon. Aleksi had told her to get in, kill her target, and get out. 

                  But it had been a long time since Ace had been to a strip club.

                  It had been a long time since she had been anywhere.

                  When the music began to fade, Valentina hooked one leg over the pole, letting herself arch back. Her hair flowed behind her, the edge of her jaw sharp. The rounded edge of her hip glittered, and Ace dragged her eyes along the length of the woman's body.

                  There was a word for her, in Russian. Krasotka. 

                  The music ended, and Ace stood.

                  She had a target―that was her purpose here. But there was nothing stopping her from fucking this woman afterwards. 

                   Once Valentina's show was over, she unwound herself from around the pole, flushed, with glitter on her cheeks. She looked dazed―as though she had just awoken from a dream. The men around her were cheering, and as she bent down, one stood to tuck money into the lace straps of her high heel.