Page 70 of Jump on Three

“He was very stern,” Evelyn supplied.

I swung my head to look at her. “Were you afraid?”

She nodded. “The first time I saw Marco, he was beating someone up. I didn’t think he would beat me up, but I couldn’t be sure.”

Marco tsked. “I hope you’re sure now, sweetness.”

“Oh yes.” She nodded sharply. “You wouldn’t hurt me. Although I didn’t love being spoken to that way, I do realize I deserved it.”

“Yep, you did.” Marco kicked a foot up on his desk. “Never gonna sneak in again, are you?”

“No. I’ll only go through the front from now on.”

“What?” I hissed. “That better be a joke, Evelyn. You will not come back here.”

She shrugged. “Marco said I can.”

“Marco doesn’t have a say.”

That made him sit up straight and cast a narrow-eyed glare at me. “Your daddy may have pumped his money into this place, but make no mistake, boy, this club is mine. If I say Evelyn can come back, you’re not in a position to argue. Unless…” he trailed off, rubbing his chin with two fingers.

“Unless what?”

His mouth quirked, but it wasn’t really a smile. “Unless she’s your girl. Then maybe I can see how you’d have a say.”

Again, Evelyn chose to respond when the question hadn’t been posed to her. “I’m not his girl.”

Marco gave me a look that spoke a thousand words without saying anything.

You’re a dumbass, kid.

How’d you lose this one?

Someone else is going to sweep her up real soon.

Poor sucker.

“Why would you want her in the club? She’s underage.”

“Mmm, yeah.” He wagged a finger at me. “Fair point, but I learned something about Ev tonight. She’s got an impeccable ear. Better than yours, kid. I had her listen to that DJ your dad’s been trying to push on us to perform here, and straight up, no joke, Evelyn pointed out that he’d copied a smaller indie DJ.”

She nodded eagerly. “He stole music from SikHartz. He didn’t change it at all, just lifted the entire thing. I have a song from him on my ‘Get Pumped’ playlist.”

Marco tapped his ear. “Impeccable. She played both for me, and I got pissed on SikHartz’s behalf. You can tell your daddy we won’t be having his DJ in our club, but we will be reaching out to SikHartz.”

It took me a moment to respond. They had me on the back foot, a few steps behind what had transpired before I’d arrived.

I understood now. Evelyn was fine. Safe. So safe, she had ingratiated herself with Marco in a way I hadn’t been able to, despite working with him the past few months. Then again, he saw me more as a spy than a coworker since I was made to report how the club was doing back to my father.

“So, you want Ev to come to this club to help you pick out music?” I asked.

Marco shrugged. “Ev’s good people. She wants to come, listen to music, dance, I’m cool with that. Or she can hang in my office and eat french fries.”

“She’s underage,” I repeated.

“Marco informed me if he catches me trying to drink alcohol, he’ll toss me out on my sweet little ass.” Evelyn grinned like this was funny. I didn’t return the sentiment.

Scowling at Marco, I gritted out, “She’s eighteen. In high school. You should not be speaking about her ass or calling it sweet.”