by Nicole Banks
Sanokova’s eyes darkened. “I’m always well prepared, Ice–Ms. Barbati.” He smirked. “The question is, how prepared are you?”
Ivy leaned against the wall to remove her shoes. Her feet ached and her body was already sore from the four songs she danced on stage. She had no idea how she was going to make it up there for the rest of her shift. She was out of shape and out of practice. It had been too long since she pole danced for her pleasure, and as much as she used to enjoy it, she wasn’t all that comfortable being on stage tonight. While she was grateful that Gia let her keep her clothes on for her nights on the stage, she still felt naked and exposed with all those hungry eyes on her.
But you had no problem performing when it was just Otto watching you.
She stumbled at the thought. She tried to push the man from her mind after he watched her on that stage like his next breath came from whatever move she was about to perform. The weight of his gaze had spurred her on, making her push herself past a practice run because she wanted to dance for him. She wanted to see how hard she could drive him without the experience of touching him. It was the most intimate she’d been dancing for someone and the most turned on she’d ever been.
Ivy felt herself make love to the pole and to Otto. It was like her first time all over again. The hesitation of the first touch, the electric feel of that first kiss—the way her breath hitched when he looked so unhinged, almost desperate to get inside of her. She felt him everywhere at once, like he already had his lips branded on her skin.
Even now, she was getting hot thinking about him, her core ached missing the feel of a man she never had before. He made her feel desired in an intoxicating way that made her want to stay drunk on it. It was a vast contrast to how she felt when she was up there just now dancing for strangers.
The lights blinded her but not enough to blind her from the patrons. She somehow felt dirty, whereas when it was just her and Otto she felt exhilarated, and her performance had been hindered by it. She had gotten too caught up in her head, and moves she’d been able to do in her sleep had caused her to slip up too many times. She almost fell face first into the hard stage and was grateful she had caught herself just in time.
The last thing she needed was to embarrass herself on her first night at Tres. She’d be laughed out the door, and she needed this job. She needed the money—whatever she was allowed to keep—to get her out of New York. She hated it here, hated the winters, and hated how easily it swallowed her up and held her to its mercy. This place wasn’t all the bright lights and wonder her seedy boyfriend at the time convinced her it was. He promised her dreams he could never fulfill all to get her and her sister out of the only security they knew and into something she never would have dreamed of.
Ivy limped the rest of the way to the locker rooms dreaming of going back to California with her sister. She missed the sunshine and the freedom she had taken for granted—a life she thought she hated but would give anything to go back to. Her ex knew exactly the right buttons to push to get her to upend her life and take her to the unknown. She wanted more adventure and she got it. It just wasn’t the kind she hoped for.
She heard the laughter of a few of the regular women trickle out of the locker room. Ivy stepped to the side to give them room to pass her. One of the women stopped in front of her. “First night in those heels can be a bitch—shit any night in those heels are a bitch.” She laughed. “There’s a bunch of essential oils in the top shelf where we keep the toilet paper. Soak a hot towel with some of those oils and wrap it around your feet before you go back out. It should help.”
Ivy was having a hard time remembering the woman’s name, but she’d been the nicest out of all the women here so far. “Uh, thanks,” Ivy started, hoping her name would register.
“Mary.” She smiled. “Just make sure you wash your feet and dry them before you step back in the shoes. You don’t want to make the mistake of leaving oil on your feet.” Mary gave Ivy’s shoulder a tight squeeze before heading back out to the main floor, and it was like the woman had wrapped her in a warm hug. The same way a mom would. Ivy had to blink a few times to make sure she didn’t chase after Mary and cry on her shoulder.
Ivy shook herself and headed for the locker room. She couldn’t deal with getting caught up in a life that didn’t exist for her anymore—or miss people and things from her old life. She made the choice to follow an ass-twat to New York with her younger sister in tow, and now she was dealing with the consequences of her actions. She could only take things one day at a time and bide her time till she could get free of the traps she helped set for herself.
She pushed through the locker room doors, surprised to find the guy they called Smoke leaning against her vanity. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be in here.” She kept her voice even as she made her way to her vanity.
“Says who?” he questioned. His eyes never left hers as she walked toward him. It was eerie and she felt exposed, like he had known all of her secrets and was here to call her out on them.
“Says the sign on the door. Unless that’s a sock between your legs.” She shrugged, doing her best to seem unaffected by his presences. This guy had an edge to him that made her want to turn around and run out of the room. “Then maybe you should be in here.”
Smoke chuckled. “Is that your way of asking for an invitation to find out? I’m all for accommodating the ladies.” He winked at her.
Ivy scoffed. “I think I’ll pass, thank you.” She dropped her shoes next to Smoke’s feet and quickly grabbed one of the robes she had hanging off her vanity mirror. It wasn’t much in the way of protection, but she felt uncomfortable half naked and alone in the room with Smoke. She hoped whatever he wanted from her, he would get to it quickly. She wanted to check in with her sister before her next set.
“Such a pity,” he purred as he pushed off her vanity and stood at his full height. He took a step closer and invaded her space. “I bet if Otto was standing in front of you, your response would be different.”
SOFIA TSKED UNDER HER BREATH. “To think I came home ill-informed seems a little hopeful for you gentlemen. Of course I’ve done my homework. It’s why I’m wondering how come Zhao seems to be the angriest out of all of you. Aside from Ethan, he has the least to lose.”
Zhao went to speak, but Boris shut him up with a flick of his hand. “I figured that would be obvious, Ms. Barbati.” Boris’s tone was bored. “He may have the least to lose, but he still has something to lose.”
Sofia chuckled. “He’s safe, as are all of you.”
“For now.” Ethan, who had been the quietest, decided to speak up. “Let’s cut the theatrics, shall we? I’ve been in business long enough to know anytime there’s a new entity, power shifts, and with that shift comes territory shifts. You’ve already accommodated more than the Barbati organization is supposed to have. We just want to keep our dicks wet, our pockets fat, and our bellies full.” He leaned back in his chair. “I know you won’t come outright and say it, but should we be preparing for more war?”
Sofia cocked her head to the side, studying Boris. Otto didn’t have to see her face to know she was trying to figure the man out. She’d done the same shit the night she met him and Gia. She had been able to piece together their dynamic within seconds, and that was before Otto had spoken to her. She knew exactly how to get their attention, and in return, they were able to give her what she wanted. He had a feeling she was about to do the same to the men who sat at that table now.
She addressed Ethan as she spoke, but she never took her eyes off Boris. “What’s that old saying? If you want peace, prepare for war. My grandfather made sure to teach me a lesson or two on that.”
Otto heard exactly what she didn’t say, and going by the slight twitch in Boris’s left eye, he heard it too. While Sofia may have wanted peace when this was all over, she was ready for the war that was about to begin.
She abruptly stood up and the unease in the room grew. “As enlightening as this has been, I thin
k it’s time for me to go. We’re not going to get what we all want by sitting here.”
“I think you need to sit down, Ms. Barbati,” Boris snapped. “You haven’t been dismissed yet.”
Sofia placed her palms on the table. “I don’t need your permission.” Her words struck like a snake—hard and fast and dripping with poison. “I’ll save you the trouble of verbally threatening me; no need to waste your breath. I’m sure we will be seeing each other soon enough.”
She turned and Otto grabbed her wrist with Dom shifting his body in front of hers. They were both ready to get Sofia out of here as soon as Boris stood up. Otto expected the door to burst open with the sound of bullets going after them. He knew this meeting was going to go south; it was only a matter of time before these men got tired of listening to a woman they couldn’t control.
“I wouldn’t, Ms. Barbati. You are outnumbered, and we haven’t okayed your position as a boss yet,” Boris barked. His tone brooked no argument, but Otto saw the smile on Sofia’s face. She lived for this shit—never turning down a challenge because to her, there wasn’t anything she couldn’t win or walk away from. She had every confidence in her ability to read people and her will to survive.
Otto cursed under his breath. Sofia would stand in front of a raging bull if only to prove that she could defeat it—zero self-preservation.
Sofia turned slightly so she was still in between him and Dom but had a clear line to Boris. “Again, I don’t remember having to ask permission to run an empire that was already mine. I’m a Barbati, and I deserve a seat at this table like any of you—if not more. Lucky for you, I don’t desire acceptance. I don’t need approval to be a boss; I already am one, and trust me, I’m never outnumbered.” She winked at Ethan who chuckled before shaking his head.
Ethan wasn’t with them, but he wasn’t necessarily against them yet, either. The fact that he neither denied nor accepted the claim let the rest of the table know there was a possible relationship brewing between the two of them. It would make them wary because while Boris and Zhao had the money, Ethan had the heavier manpower that would come in handy if they all went to war.
Sofia slipped out of Otto’s hold and pushed her way past both him and Dom. She knocked on the door three times, and that had seemed to be the only sound in the room as Boris looked at Sofia’s back in rage. Otto saw him flex his hands and the rapid rise and fall of his chest like he was itching to shoot all of them where they stood.
As soon as Otto heard the door swing open, he turned and watched Sofia brush right past the guards like they weren’t there. Otto and Dom were hot on her heels, and while Otto tried to keep watch to make sure no one came at them with butcher knives, he quickly scanned the restaurant for the woman he saw earlier.
A part of him wanted to find her again, just so he could commit her face to memory and get her name. It was uncanny how much that woman and Ivy looked alike, and it didn’t sit well with Otto that she had come out of the same room he’d just been sitting in.
Was she a victim or was she a pawn? If she was Ivy’s sister, where did Ivy fit into all of this?
Otto pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind, needing to keep focused on getting out of Bocca Felice. He felt eyes on him, and his body tensed waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The meeting had gone a lot smoother than he anticipated. He still couldn’t believe they were being allowed to walk out of there not riddled with bullet holes after Sofia all but told them she wasn’t going to follow their rules. She pushed open the doors to the restaurant, and he braced himself to be greeted by something other than the crisp fall air.
“That went smoother than I expected.” Otto murmured as they made their way toward their cars. “How bad do you think they’re going to retaliate?” he questioned, knowing bodies were going to be dropping soon enough.
“Bad enough that we’re going to take your car back and not ours.” Sofia laughed like it was more of a joke than a life-or-death situation. “Boris is over in Sheepshead, right?”
Dom spoke up.“Yeah, he’s actually pretty close to Tres. You want me to hit up Nico and Bebo and see how quick they can get product into that part of Brooklyn?”
Sofia nodded. “I’d rather not wait for him to hit us. I have a feeling he’s going to want to bury us—well, you guys—me he’s going to want me alive as long as possible so he can kill me slowly or sell me. I have a funny feeling he was either a buyer or the one who was running the women through Tres. Especially since Otto’s little girlfriend came out of that room—it was odd for her to even be there and not have been removed before we got here.”
She stopped walking and turned toward Otto. “It’s almost like she was there on purpose. I wonder why though.”
Otto stopped alongside her, wondering how Sofia’s mind seemed to work faster than the rest of the world. It was like she could see things that had yet to come to fruition. Otto had the same thoughts as Sofia, but only because he had met Ivy already. Hearing Sofia say out loud what was running through his mind made him wonder if Ivy was in Tres for a reason other than making a quick buck.
Otto cleared his throat. “I’m not sure about the woman, but if Boris is the one behind the sex trafficking, it would make a lot of sense. Bruno used to tell me to let the guy have whatever he wanted when he would come in on Thursday nights. It was getting hard to find girls to entertain him without a huge price incentive.”
Sofia nodded. “His eyes are familiar. I’ve dealt with eyes like his before in Columbia. It was always men like him who challenged my rule. Men who only see women as property. Something to fuck and abuse at their will.”
“And what happened to them?” Otto asked even though he knew the answer; she didn’t make it to the top in Columbia by playing nice.
Her eyes took on a faraway look like she was reliving a past she’d almost forgotten about. It was the first time Otto had seen any emotion filter through her gaze that wasn’t anger or love when she was looking at Dom. It was now that her mask truly fell that Otto saw her. He knew once upon a time she was just a kid caught in the wars her father was constantly in. She had a past, like they all did, but Sofia had come from two parents who loved her. Her father probably never wanted this life for her and hadn’t prepared her the way Columbia had.
“The thing about this life.” She spoke so low Otto had to lean in a little to hear her. He wasn’t even sure she was still speaking to him with the way she seemed to look past him. “You’re either bred for it or you have to adapt to it, and the only real benefit about adapting to this is your need for survival is higher. You can’t afford to be complacent, and you’ll do anything to make sure you’re the only one still standing when it’s all said and done.”
Otto leaned back, and he could have sworn her eyes were watery, like she was fighting back tears. He watched Dom come up on her left and grab her wrist, and she fell right back into the woman he’d met at Tres a month ago. Her eyes were dead, no life in them like there had been moments ago.
“Let’s head back to Tres so we can call Nico and Bebo and Wolf to see how we’re doing with the casino renovations.”
Dom and Sofia walked ahead of him like nothing happened. It was over so quickly, Otto thought he might have imagined it. He had no clue what brought on the tears, but it made Otto look at her a little differently. He thought for sure her capacity to feel anything only extended to Dom and maybe it did.
Or maybe the Ice Whore, as they called her, wasn’t so frigid after all.
IVY SWALLOWED PAST THE NERVOUS lump in her throat. She wanted to brush Smoke’s question off—to laugh at it even, just to prove that she had no reaction to Otto, but she remembered he’d been there when she took the stage for her practice round. Smoke and Gia had a front row seat to the silent foreplay between her and Otto, which only intensified when they were finally introduced.
She couldn’t deny how attractive he was with his tall build and dark eyes and a beard she wanted to feel brush up against her inner thighs. She
enjoyed the way his palm swallowed hers when he took her hand in his, and she loved the deep timber of his voice when he spoke; it reminded her of a time when sex had been used as enjoyment instead of pain.
The man had “delicious sin” written all over his quiet demeanor. There was a part of her—the one that wasn’t weighed down by the need to escape this city with her baby sister—that wanted to spend a few nights with him just to see what type of beast lurked beneath his skin. She wondered what pleasures he’d be able to reintroduce to her after years of being someone’s property.
Smoke stepped farther into her space, catching her off guard, he grabbed her chin and forced her gaze to his. His hands were as cold to the touch as his eyes had just become, and she shivered. She had no clue what Smoke was about, aside from the cut he wore and the way he seemed to hang around Gia. He didn’t seem dangerous, but neither had her ex, and the only reason she was in this shitty situation was because of him.
He smiled at her and it was all venom, like he enjoyed her being scared, which managed to piss her off. She was so tired of men in her life constantly trying to intimidate her and keep her scared beneath their thumb.
She tried to jerk herself free and brought her knee up to connect with his balls. He deflected her attempts to get away like she was no more than a playful kitten. “Easy there, spitfire. I’m not trying to hurt you. I just need to look at you in case you try to lie with that pretty little mouth of yours. Why are you working at Tres?”
His question caught her off guard. “What?” She wondered if she heard him correctly. Didn’t he just ask her about Otto? Why did he want to know about her picking Tres as a place of employment?
“You heard me, spitfire. Why are you here?”
“To make fast money. Why are you here?” Ivy quipped, and the corners of Smoke’s mouth tipped up like she amused him. She hoped that was the answer he was looking for and he’d leave her alone.