Chapter 12
Nick
Gabe is on the phone talking to one of his women.
I don’t know which one it is this time. Can’t keep up.
It only bothers me because I need to talk to him now and he’s on the fucking phone talking it up with this broad about what she’s wearing.
It’s just him and me tonight. Salvatore is back at the accountancy office dealing with one of our clients who had ten million come in from a business deal. He’s better at shifting the larger sums of money around and hiding it to make it either look legit or off the books. He manages all the offshore accounts, while me and Gabe do the onshore stuff. A few years back Pa expanded the accountancy work we do to include private clients. So we currently take care of the money coming in from the shipping contracts and money from our other clients too.
Gabe and I are sitting on the upper level of the club reserved for just us. We have different levels for different people. The whole top section is ours. It’s what we call the viewing section. We sit up here and we can see everything below us.
Three levels down.
He laughs out loud and ignores the fuck out of me like he used to when we were kids when I cast him a seething glare.
He must be taken with her because he’s been on the phone now for twenty minutes. I would prefer if he went elsewhere with the shit.
I’m in no mood to hear him talk to some doll who’s chasing him, and not when I know he’s been banging Mimi down in the dressing rooms.
That’s definitely not Mimi on the phone.
He acts different when he’s around her. He likes her well enough but she’s not his type and the poor doll can’t see for shit when it comes to him. She’s been in our lives for as long as I can remember. Her father is another family friend and since he doesn’t mind our special tastes, she doesn’t mind working for us. She deals with the waitresses and the new recruits. Been with us right from when we opened ten years ago.
But she’s had her eye on Gabe for as long as we’ve known her. His problem is the same as mine in the sense that he doesn’t want to settle for one woman. Our difference is that he’ll string two dolls along at the same time. Two or three, or ten.
I can’t do that.
I’m either available and dick around and the women know it’s just fun, which is essentially me most of the time, or there are the few occasions in my life when I’m with someone.
Three times it happened to me. The last was the worst. It was however what drew me closer to Gabe. We’ve both loved women who belonged to other men.
Arranged marriages are big in our world. Crime families marry their daughters off, some are debts, some are straight-up payments. Gabe’s was a payment. Mine was a debt.
Vanessa… my… well she wasn’t my anything. She was a debt. The sort you couldn’t get out of without starting a blood war. In my world you have to know when to back the fuck down and back off. You have to know when to stay behind the line set up for you.
That was what happened to me.
Didn’t change the fact that I loved her and I haven’t loved since.
I met her here at the club.
The club’s opening almost feels like it was an expression of freedom. I don’t like putting it that way though because I was never restricted in my life the way most people are.
We’re all like that in my family. No restriction. It was how Gabe came to be with his Charlotte. It’s been ten years and I know he hasn’t forgotten her.
This broad on the phone talking to him is one of his attempts to try. The same goes for Mimi. Unfortunately for her and unfortunately for me because it’s fucking eight twenty and Gabe is still on the fucking phone. There’s a reason why I wanted to finish all that I need to say to him well before now.
The reason is Mia.
I’m pretty sure she’s either here or nearly here. I want to give her my full attention. I want to forget today. Another fruitless fucking day that saw me with no answers.
I knew Vincent would be doing his part to search and gather intel where he could, what we were doing though was searching the lower levels of the underground. I started with Billy’s restaurant and talked to people who knew him. Good idea, except that nobody knew a damn thing, and if they did they wouldn’t squeal to people like us without a threat. Threats and blood, body parts missing. Shit like that, that could coerce a person to talk. Shit that could and would land me in shit with Pa and Vincent if it got back to them. Them with their fucked up fantasy to preserve order.
With the streets being a no go
The next thing I thought of doing was a thorough check through Tommy’s stuff at the office and at his house. Paperwork and files.
We tackled the office first, because I didn’t want to involve Sherine until I had to.
I was hoping to find some clues but there was nothing amongst his paperwork and everything on his computer from files to emails were all encrypted with some type of firewalls and passwords none of us could get pass.
It enraged me, but it was suspicious as fuck because we all use passwords, just not the way he did. The plan tomorrow is to get someone from our technical support team to decrypt them so we can see if there’s anything on his computer we can use.
Everything that is happening makes me want to breathe fire because of that helplessness that looms over my fucking head. It reminds me that I can’t do anything.
Nothing at all. Nothing more than what I’m doing which feels like a waste of time.
And Gabe is still on the fucking phone. I glower at my brother as he asks the doll what color her nipples are.
Accepting I’ll have his attention when he decides to give it I give up on him and allow myself to get lost in what’s happening below us.
The club is packed as always.
Always packed and I get the feeling that no matter how much we charge, people will still come.
We charge two hundred dollars for a standard ticket, five hundred for the general VIP lounge, seven hundred for the sex dungeons. Every night the tickets sell out.
We make six figures a night, sometimes seven when we have special events. To be fair though, every night’s an event. People hear things about The Dark Odyssey. They come for the sex.
Of course they would come for the sex. It’s taboo. People love anything that’s taboo. Even the fuckers who think they don’t like it, do. It’s all the holier-than-thou ones who try to restrain themselves.
Sex is a very interesting thing. There’s something about it that’s forbidden and desirable all at once. The people here like watching like we do, and they like fucking like we do.
I can’t believe a whole eight years have gone by since we set this place up. It was Georgiou’s seriously wild idea. Masquerade parties every night in a sex club. Fuck yeah. He’s the most liberal of all of us.
Liberal as in he’s been married to his doll for the last seven years but he shares her with his best friend. Yeah.
Liberal like that, but it works. He banded together with us to set the place up and while we don’t see him as much as he used to we all take pride in our accomplishment to push the limits of fantasy.
We’d set up the place to create a … safe environment for people to live out their fantasies and boy do they ever. They’re all doing it now.
Although we don’t allow sex on the dance floor, from where I’m sitting it looks like a massive orgy below us, from the way everyone’s dancing. And, from the people in the cubicles.
The usual businessmen are in the private cubicles on the outskirts and on the floor. There are people having threesomes, foursomes, fivesomes. Most of the groups have more men than women. The men all share the women. I like that dynamic. Even though I don’t like sharing. Tried it many times and hated it. Gabe and Salvatore are different. They don’t mind.
I just like to watch.
It’s the watching part that we like.
As if I’m not pissed off enough at Gabe for being on his damn call for so long, Robbie approaches me from the side entrance. He has paperwork in his hands. That means he’s found something out about Mia.
Of course I followed through on my plan to have her checked out. This is my guy who does all that for me, he’s just late and he’s got that tentative look on his face because he knows I don’t like late.
“What the fuck took you so long?” I snarl. Truth be told I almost forgot he was supposed to come see me before eight.
It’s all the fucking shit on my mind. I can’t focus on what I’m supposed to.
“Sorry Boss, I had one last thing to check out,” he hands me the paperwork. I take it and cut him a crude glance. He knows I’m pissed but I won’t take it out on him.
He’s been my street guy since we opened the club and I trust him. Trust is a hard thing to come by in our world.
I scan over the document and see that Mia’s a lawyer and her credentials are as long as my arm.
Fucking hell, my eyes snap wide when I see Harvard listed in her academic qualifications.
Harvard… She studied at Harvard and got into Silvermans in L. A.
Even the best people I know never got into a firm like that.
I look at Robbie who’s already giving me that expression of suspicion.
“Father’s sick. He’s in hospital as we speak. She has an older brother and a niece. Nine years old. They all live together.” He summarizes. “Her father’s a software developer, runs his own business but hasn’t done anything all year. House has been re-mortgaged and he took out a business loan.” He quirks a brow on that last part.
Gabe’s off his call now and looking at me with interest.
I’ve seen this sort of thing many times. Anything that looks like it might be legit, most often isn’t. It all looked fine until he talked about the house being remortgaged and the business loan.
“She owes someone,” Gabe fills in.
I cut him a crude glance because I’m surprised he heard anything.
“The father owes someone,” I impart. It’s what I figure from what the intel isn’t saying and her actions over the last few days. “It’s the father, I’m guessing it’s him.” I tap the document and think about it.
Her father owes someone and she needed ten grand to pay them. I gave her twenty so she could pay her debt and not have to worry. I just threw it in for good measure.
“What should I do? Want me to get access to bank statements? We could see more,” Robbie asks.
I shake my head. I don’t want to pry too much. She’s agreed to take the job here with me. So the situation is in hand. No need to dig around deeper. Not right now. It does however make me wonder how much she owes.
Would the twenty g’s I gave her cover it? Or did she owe more?
Maybe I’d find out. It’s not important now, and not when I have her right where I want her. She owes me for the advance so I have her on that front.
“No, that’s not necessary yet. Keep eyes on her though, just in case it turns into something to worry about.”
Robbie nods and backs away.
“What the hell’s this?” Gabe asks, flicking the edge of the document in my hand.
“None of your business,” I snap.
“Prick, you like her. You wouldn’t go through all that trouble if you didn’t.”
I narrow my eyes at him and put the document in my jacket pocket. “Gabe, you’ve already pissed on the few minutes I needed to talk to you, don’t piss me off even more.”
“Come on man. I was talking to Allana, you seen the tits on that woman. I’m meeting her later.” He chuckles.
“And Mimi?”
“Meeting her after for more fucking.” He laughs now.
I roll my eyes at him. “You get on my nerves man.”
“Don’t take a moral high ground with me. Our ways are different, but we’re the same, brother. I just divide my attention between my women. You focus yours on one at a time. Look at you with this woman. You actually had her checked out and don’t think I didn’t see her contract. Your personal waitress, Nick? You just got yourself a real life fuck toy.”
I smile. Sure it looks like that, but part of it isn’t.
“Like I said, it’s none of your business. What is your business is today’s shit.”
He frowns and straightens up, resuming the tension we’d had prior to his call.
He sighs with frustration. “It’s all so fucked up.”
It sure is. Fucked up, and worrying because I know if something is hard in our world, it means there’s more at work. The Fontaines involving a guy they know to be associated with the Giordanos is big.
It suggest betrayal on Tommy’s part and I don’t want to think like that.
I want to say that Tommy wouldn’t do a thing like that but my best friend had already disrespected me by associating with people who would kill me if they could.
I can’t say because he was my friend he wouldn’t do whatever this shit is to me. What I do know is he must have had a good reason. A fucking good reason.
Gabe presses his lips together and shuffles in his chair. “Nick, I didn’t want to be the one to say this, but fuck, I’m just going to say it. I think Tommy was dealing. I think maybe he was some kind of dealer. Billy said he overheard the guy say Tommy could hook them up.”
Dealing…
I’d thought of that, but the fact that Chrysanthemum was also mentioned makes me think otherwise. “I don’t know Gabe. Those drugs are hard to come by. I think …” My damn voice trails off.
I was going to say that I’d know about it if Tommy was dealing. The truth is I doubt it. Everything that’s happened and is happening makes me doubt I’d know anything.
I’ve been scanning through possibilities and ending up with shit.
Maybe he was dealing but it doesn’t explain everything else. It doesn’t give any answer to why he was gunned down.
That’s what I want to know. The answer and a name. I want to know who did it. Who put the hit on him and who fired the bullet.
Gabe rests a hand on my shoulder and sighs. “Hey, something will come up. just got to keep looking. We’ll see what we find on the computer. Then maybe we’ll know what to do next.”
I nod, definitely agreeing.
“We’ll grab Salvatore in the morning,” I answer. Salvatore is more technically minded than any of us. It was the fact that he couldn’t get into Tommy’s computer that made us suspicious of what could be on there.
I’m about to elaborate but there’s a sudden movement to my left.
The talk of Tommy took my mind off her.
Mia… Angel Doll.
She approaches us with that coyness I’ve seen her exhibit every time. I thought it was shyness, now I know she’s a lawyer I know it’s not that she’s shy. She’s wary of me and afraid. That’s what it is.
Tonight the coyness is masked by how she looks.
That blond hair has been done up and cascades down her shoulders in long graceful waves.
She’s got that smoky eye makeup that makes her eyes piercing, stunning and breathtaking. Her skin is flawless with a shimmer to it.
I’m already taken with her face and her hair, but the rest of her robs my mind of thought.
She’s wearing a gold negligee that clings to her body, caressing her the way I want to. Everything but the cups of the built-in bra and the lining that covers her mound is see-through.
Good. Mimi knew what I meant when I said take care of her.
I gave specific instructions because I don’t want anybody looking at all the parts of this woman I want for myself. I don’t want any other man touching her, or looking at her. End of story.
In her hands is a little gold masquerade mask. She would have been wearing it on her travel up to me from downstairs.
It hides your identity. Take the mask off when you want to reveal it.
I stand and move to her.
Gabe clears his throat in a very exaggerated manner.
“No intro, brother?” he says with a sinful smile as he looks over my doll.
“No…” I simply reply. He’s such a fucking prick. He’s seen the contract and all the paperwork. He knows her name but thinks he can pull rank in seniority, by making me introduce her, because he’s two years older than me.
He laughs. “No?”
I hate the way he’s looking at her. Looking at her breasts. It’s one thing Mimi can’t hide. Mia has the kind of breasts best reserved for fantasies. It would be great in a place like this to bring in more money. But she’s mine and only I get to play with those.
“No,” I tell him again.
“So not sharing?” He leans forward and turns up the stare even more.
He knows if he wasn’t my brother I’d shoot his dick off.
“Fuck the hell off Gabe and don’t cross me. Don’t fucking do it,” I point at him and he looks at me and sees I’m serious as fuck.
The cunning expression falls from his face and he resumes his composure.
I look back to Mia and see her cheeks are flushed with the soft rose color I adore.
When she looks at me the unease fades, only slightly though.
Only slightly does it fade, which is also good because I don’t want her to be comfortable with me. I like that she’s wary because she should be.
Taking her hand, I lead her away from Gabe.
We go to the upper floor so we can talk first before I give her the tour.
Her hand feels so small, but I like that her fingers are laced in between mine.
We get to the balcony on the raised platform and I release her.
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I take a step back and look her over.
“You look beautiful,” I tell her. Mimi would have given her the negligee to wear. Everything else though would have been her.
Her cheeks flush again. “Thank you.”
“And you showed up.”
“I showed up. Thank you for the money. I appreciate it. I really appreciated it.” She nods and I can see she did. I knew she would. It was why I gave it.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Twenty thousand dollars is a lot not to mention,” she points out.
And yet it was spare change to me.
“Did it help you?”
“Yes, big time.”
I hope she didn’t pay all of it on the debt. Whatever the debt is. Sick father and a niece to take care of. That’s a handful.
What happened to the niece’s parents?
Robbie mentioned she had a brother. Why isn’t he helping? Maybe he is.
She seems to have come from what I call a goody-two-shoes vanilla family. Maybe they just fell into a lot of debt.
I guess me helping gives me kudos points.
“Good. No more talk of money. Understand?” I ask, because I want that element I crave. Her.
“I do… I understand.”
I want all of her and when I’m inside her I just want her to be thinking of me. Just me and the pleasure. That’s all.
Nothing else.
First I want to prep her and give her a taste of my world.
I reach forward and pick up a lock of her hair. It curls around my thumb as I run my fingers over it. It feels soft with a slight crisp, probably from hairspray.
“This for me?” I ask.
She blushes again and her eyes dart to the floor then climb back up to meet mine.
“Maybe?”
Maybe… I like that, but it’s not what I want to hear. I like the sass the answer carries with it and the spark of sensuality in her eyes, but I want the control.
“Maybe?” I say that with an edge of the serious tone I took with Gabe.
It should have done the trick to put her back in line but to my surprise a little smile tugs at the corners of her lips. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile. It’s not a full smile, just the hint of one and it does something to me.
“You want me to say yes?” she challenges.
“I’m not going to tell you to say yes and make you obey like a robot.”
She presses her lips together. “Yes.” She says and gives me a full smile. “I’m not saying yes because I was told to.”
Sassy… and very sexy. Very, very sexy.
Her personality is coming out and that’s what I want. This must be close to what she’s like when she’s a lawyer.
I like it, but I’m boss.
I reassert myself when I step forward and she backs away like she usually does.
She backs against the pillar and looks at me, eyes slightly wide.
People can see us and that’s the point.
I reach out and move away the cup of her bra covering her right breast and expose her breast right there.
She lets me, and she will let me do what I have planned next.
Someone passes by us and her face goes beetroot red. I smile at her response and I bend down to cover the light pink tip of her nipple with my mouth, sucking hard.
While she’s shocked at that, I slide my hand up her thigh, move her panties to one side and slip my fingers in her already wet pussy.
My cock hardens at the discovery, and I want to fuck her right here up against the pillar for all to see.
She moans and I’m tempted but I stop sucking. I don’t stop sliding my fingers inside her though.
She likes it. I can tell and I want her to say it.
“You like that Angel Doll?”
“Hmmm hmmm.” She moans and presses into the pillar.
“Good. I love how wet you are for me. Stay just like that.” I stop then.
This is part of the prep, part of her tour. By the time I’m ready for her, she’ll be begging me to take her.
I bring my hands up to my mouth and lick the sweet nectar from my fingers. She tastes sweeter tonight. Sweet on desire.
I can’t wait to make her come.