by Matt Rogers
When someone achieves everything they ever wanted in terms of financial success, it becomes hard not to satiate any vice they’d ever had.
Slater had become all too familiar with that concept during his time in Black Force.
Nothing of this magnitude, though.
This was obscene.
Wearing five thousand dollars worth of Armani, almost impossibly sculpted to his frame, he stepped out of the two million dollar supercar and handed the keys to the nearest valet with as much nonchalance as he could muster. On the street, in his day-to-day life, his physique and general appearance turned heads on its own — something he hadn’t failed to make full use of.
Here, surrounded by such unconditional wealth, the effect was almost godlike.
People stared, and no-one was shy about it. A long line of young men and women dressed to the nines trailed out the entrance to the White Phoenix. The general unrest on their faces signified they’d probably been waiting for hours — Slater realised the establishment had to let a reasonable crowd of ordinary civilians in over the course of the night to maintain the appearance of a booming nightlife hotspot. A single glance at the line showed it was populated by nearly four-fifths women, most of them beautiful enough to grace the cover of international magazines.
So it wasn’t a secret that the White Phoenix hosted the uber-rich.
Slater noted all of it in a single glance, his mind sober and sharp for the first time in days, and stepped away from the Bugatti. He moved across the sidewalk, shoulders up, head back, gait confident. The small army of bouncers manning the door watched him approach. Scorn laced their features. They’d never seen him before. He had a Bugatti, and he had a five thousand dollar suit, and he looked important enough to lure attention like a magnet, but as far as they were concerned that meant jack shit. And he could see it in their eyes. The billionaires and ultra-powerful who’d managed to cosy up to upper management could have their way with the security. These door grunts were probably ordered around left, right, and centre.
They didn’t get to flex their muscles on the sharks — not in a place like this. That would be squarely reserved for the common folk.
So here was a shark — a whale, even — strolling up to them without a care in the world.
And, as far as they were concerned, he had no relationship whatsoever with the boys upstairs.
So the six-foot-five bald guy in front built like a dump truck — probably a reject from the NFL combine, but not by much — reached out and planted a gigantic hand in the centre of Slater’s chest, an eye-catching display of authority.
‘No,’ he said instantly. ‘Back of the line.’
Slater stepped back half a foot, adjusting his stride so he didn’t trip and stumble from the change in momentum. He planted a perfectly polished shoe behind himself, shoved his hands in his pockets, and smiled. One of the guys at the front of the civilian line laughed, cruel and discordant, echoing down the street.
A rich guy rejected, he was probably thinking. What a sight to behold.
Slater didn’t react to it. Didn’t even turn and look at the guy. He kept his attention squarely focused on the bouncer who’d stopped him in place, exuding confidence, dripping with surety.
Would the guy start to doubt his own actions?
There was already a flicker of something in the bouncer’s eye.
Because almost anyone would respond in one of two ways to getting shoved in the chest in front of a hundred disgruntled bystanders — sheepishly walk away, or pump themselves full of scorn and puff their chest out, reacting with fury, causing as much of a scene as they could manage.
‘Will Slater,’ Slater said, like it meant everything in the world.
‘Never heard of you,’ the bouncer said. Behind him, two of his friends moved forward, all three of them as big as each other, forming a literal wall of muscle between Slater and the entrance. From within, pulsating bass rumbled from hundred thousand dollar speakers, filtering out into the street. Inside was warm and lavish and packed full of pleasure and booze and chemicals. Out on the street was cold, confrontational, a world of separation away.
Slater knew he had to get in.
‘Yeah, look,’ he said, ‘I’m new in town. Haven’t had time to suck up to the right people.’
‘Management doesn’t know you, then I don’t know you,’ the big guy said. ‘I’m not gonna fuckin’ tell you this again. Back of the line or we make a scene out of it. And I’m perfectly fuckin’ happy to make a—’
Slater let him unload every sentence in the tirade apart from the last, cutting him off at the last second with, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Three seconds.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Two seconds.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘One second.’
‘What’s your name?’
The guy burst forward with enough ferocity to confirm that he probably had almost made the pro leagues, and seized Slater by one lapel of his pristine suit. As he closed the gap, probably fascinated by Slater’s uncompromising commitment, he muttered, ‘It’s Gavin. Now, back of the line.’
But the gesture had been solely designed to intimidate. He hadn’t thrown a punch, or even shoved Slater with much passion. Slater tensed every muscle in his body at once, tapping into the kind of strength forged through a lifetime of suffering, and didn’t budge an inch. At the same time he gently slipped a hand through the giant bouncer’s forearms and tucked a neat bundle of hundreds totalling three thousand dollars, bound together by a metallic money clip, into the guy’s jacket pocket. He’d only been able to do it because Gavin made a grab for him, and he kept enough restraint to show his gesture wasn’t hostile in any way.
Gavin looked down, still holding onto Slater’s jacket.
‘Let me go,’ Slater said calmly, succintly. He slapped Gavin on the shoulder with enough force to stun the man. ‘Good lad. Management doesn’t know me, but you’d like to know me, wouldn’t you?’
Gavin stepped aside. ‘Anything you need, give me a buzz.’
‘Will do. Glad we got off on the right foot.’ On the way past, Slater seized hold of Gavin’s elbow. ‘Strong man. Quarterback?’
The man nodded. ‘Almost made it to the top.’
‘Get to know me and you’ll have that chance again.’
‘You said you’re new in town. What do you do? You’re fuckin’ strong yourself. Hard to tell under that suit.’
‘A lot of things, Gavin. Great to meet you.’
He sauntered into the White Phoenix with the leering glares of the general public boring into the back of his head.
Without a care in the world.
7
This was the dark, electrifying, tantalising, toxic world of the social hierarchy, but it was just as much of a puzzle to solve as a war with narcoterrorists in the jungles of Honduras. Slater treated it with the same respect. He counted every interaction, every exchange of dialogue, as the most important words of the night. It bought him power, it planted seeds, and it achieved the impossible.
It got him a spot in the ranks of Malvado’s private party.
In truth, it didn’t take long. Gavin proved enough of a simpleton to be swayed into almost total obedience by the smell of cash. After three of the most exquisitely concocted beverages Slater had ever tasted in his life, served to him by a bartender with unparalleled expertise, he strolled back to the entrance and discreetly passed Gavin another three thousand dollars in a tight imperceptible bundle, with the understanding that it be distributed evenly between him and his friends. The bouncers then perused the hundred-strong crowd of socialites queueing for a descent into euphoria and chose three of the most stunning women Slater had ever laid eyes on. The trio were whisked into the White Phoenix under promise of indulgence, parted from their friends in an instant. The sudden acceptance into the club proved isolating and uncomfortable enough for Slater to immediately make a bond with the three of them individually.
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Doing his best to look flawless, he politely shook each of their hands as they stepped into the gloomy subterranean den, surrounded by lights and drinks and the intoxicating smell of the ultra-rich. They certainly seemed surprised to greet a man attractive enough to pass as a male model. Usually a personal invitation into a place like this meant getting up close and personal with a geriatric, but when Slater stepped forward without a shred of fat on his body and a sturdy jawline and a confidence you couldn’t fake believably, it put them on the back foot immediately.
And then he approached with a conversation starter they certainly hadn’t been expecting.
‘Natasha,’ the first woman said.
‘Lucia,’ the second said.
‘Mia,’ the third said.
In any other situation, on any other day, he would have pursued them with such relentlessness that it would have been inevitable that he ended up in bed with one of them. But this was not a social outing. This was a Black Force operation. So he treated it as such. As much as Lars doubted his professionalism, when Will Slater accepted a job, he did the fucking job.
‘Girls,’ he said, guiding them to a private booth that cost him a two thousand dollar tip to a member of staff to receive access to. ‘I’m happy to spend as much money as I can on you, but I need something from you first.’
‘Oh?’ Mia said, raising an eyebrow and flashing a smile, and for a tantalising moment Slater wanted nothing more than to kiss her right then and there.
But he didn’t.
Instead he said, ‘There’s a man in this club who I would very much like to do business with.’
‘Who is he?’
‘He’ll respond to Malvado, but you’re not supposed to know that, so to you he’s the tall guy with the ponytail. Skinny but strong. Wears a nice suit. Has blue eyes, but you probably won’t be able to see them with this lighting. Looks like Zlatan Ibrahimovic. You know the soccer player?’
Two of the three smiled. Natasha said, ‘I know him. Dreamy.’
‘Yeah. Dreamy.’
Slater didn’t feel the need to enlighten them on the finer details of Malvado’s career, namely the rumoured two hundred deaths by grievous torture that the U.S. government suspected him responsible for. If he did, they wouldn’t consider him dreamy, but they also wouldn’t be so inclined to co-operate. So he kept his mouth shut. He said, ‘I imagine he’ll be floating around the club over the course of the night — if you can convince him to get the four of us back to his private room, I’ll be very grateful.’
‘What will you give us in return?’ Mia said, now awfully close.
Slater leant over, hovered his lips half an inch above her neck, and whispered into her ear exactly what he could do to her as a gesture of gratitude. She visibly quivered, and pulled away with enough vigour in her eyes to make Slater want to abandon the mission — and his career in turn — right then and there.
But he didn’t.
Instead he ordered a round of drinks that cost the price of a used car, and drank twenty-year-old whiskey from a crystal tumbler as he gossiped with the trio of models. The good alcohol seeped in, and he welcomed it. He needed the glow in his eyes, the kind of aura you couldn’t fake, when he first met Malvado. It would be integral to what came next. At one point, in the midst of a raucous outburst of laughter amongst the four of them, as Natasha and Lucia momentarily turned away to survey the dance floor, Mia snatched Slater’s head between her palms and pressed her lips to his with enough intensity to freeze him in his seat. He felt blood flowing to areas of his body that would prove disastrous to his concentration, so even though he savoured the drunken kiss for a couple of moments too long, he pulled away all the same.
He pressed a finger to her lips, smudging her lipstick, and she stared at him with sparkling green eyes, not shy about her lust. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted anyone so badly, but he made a scene of the incident, winking at her and whispering, ‘Later,’ in her ear.
She called one of the concierges over and ordered another round of drinks on Slater’s behalf.
The music pounded, the strobe lights flashed, the floor vibrated with a deep resonating hum, and the booze seized Slater by the throat. The drinks were full strength — there was no watering down these concoctions. He made a mental note to take it easy, but it aided the cover he was trying to achieve.
Four young souls, full of youth and vitality, lost in a world of hedonism and wonder, laughing and talking and rolling around the authentic leather couches that must have cost the owners hundreds of thousands of dollars. It wasn’t a hard act to maintain. Slater was having the time of his life.
So when Lucia locked onto a solitary figure across the dance floor like a predatory hawk and leapt off the couch, Slater knew exactly what was happening. She looked at him and winked, and he slid off his own couch, planting a kiss on Mia’s cheek that made her go weak at the knees. ‘Be right back.’
8
Slater made it to the bar in record time, the bass of the music surging him forward. The pulse-pounding rhythmic track thumped through the room, penetrating the darkness, almost giving permission to the patrons to give in to their vices, to drink and snort until their bodies went numb. He could see how effortlessly these tech tycoons could fall into the trap of unrestricted hedonism. He could even see himself doing the same. It was almost impossible to separate the operation from real life in this place. There was organic chemistry with Mia, a woman of such stunning beauty that he found it hard to concentrate on anything else.
But he was Will Slater.
And he never failed to do his job.
He signalled for the bartender, and as soon as the man approached Slater said, ‘What’s the most expensive bottle of alcohol you have?’
‘We serve Louis XIII,’ the bartender said without a beat of hesitation. ‘But we do not sell it by the bottle.’
Slater knew of the cognac. Remy Martin. It went for thirty thousand a bottle. He’d never tried it, but there was a first time for everything.
‘Thirty-five thousand,’ he said. ‘Cash. You keep the difference.’
It didn’t take much persuading. The bartender threw a glance in either direction, eyeing the nearest security, and then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Okay. Make it quick. You got it on you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Here.’
As the bartender busied himself extracting a sealed bottle of Louis XIII from a locked cabinet at the back of the bar, Slater slid four crisp bundles of hundred dollar bills out of his jacket pocket and laid them bare on the countertop for all to see. No-one made a lunge for the money. No-one so much as looked at it twice. That, more than anything, proved the nature of the White Phoenix.
The bartender eyed the money. ‘That looks like forty thousand.’
‘For your generosity.’
The man smiled and gracefully slipped the four bundles into the pocket of his suit pants. He passed the bottle over. ‘Don’t let anyone seeing you carrying that around. We’re not supposed to hand bottles out. And be careful with it. It’s a work of art.’
Slater half-tucked the bottle into the inside of his jacket and exchanged a knowing nod with the man. He slunk into the crowd on the dance floor, the alcohol now seizing hold of his veins, stimulating certain receptors in his brain and turning the entire club into a single node of pleasure. The effect was intoxicating, to say the least. Slater moved through a sea of gyrating bodies, passing beautiful people from all rungs of society converging to celebrate obscene wealth. Something about it seized hold of him, luring him in. He was a disciplined man, but all disciplined men had their weaknesses.
Right now, he wanted nothing more than to lose control.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he timed the following encounter perfectly. Lucia was all over Malvado, who Slater finally laid eyes on in the flesh for the first time.
He’d seen the man on surveillance footage Lars had sent over earlier that afternoon, the only physical evidence they had again
st the Sinaloa cartel’s chief torturer.
The grainy footage had been taken inside a disused warehouse. Malvado had systematically cut a young man to pieces as he lay there writhing, begging for death. Slater had watched ten seconds of the tape and almost thrown up in his mouth.
That gave him all the motivation he needed.
He saw Lucia muttering something in the tall man’s ear, who surveyed the White Phoenix’s dance floor like a watchful predator. Slater had mentioned something about not being able to see the colour of the man’s eyes in the darkness, but somehow they glowed even brighter thanks to the strobe lighting. Blue and wide and piercing, they kept vigilant watch over the club at all times, instinctually searching for threats. The spindly man didn’t spot Slater, though.
Malvado’s face twisted into a grimace — Lucia had no doubt told him that if he wanted the three of them in his private room, he would have to invite their male friend, too. He would obviously refuse. He wasn’t here to put up with that shit. But as soon as she uttered the words, Slater materialised out of nowhere, draping an arm around Malvado’s shoulders and flashing the Louis XIII’s label in plain view. He played up the glow in his eyes — alcohol had seized him, explaining his overly forward behaviour.
‘Hello, my friend,’ he said. ‘I hear you have a room. Tough to get one these days, isn’t it?’
‘Who are you?’ Malvado said, his words heavy and poignant. He chose them carefully. Slater noted that.
‘Just a fellow degenerate wanting to share a bottle of the good stuff,’ he said. Then, taking a brazen risk, he leant in close, risking getting his tongue sliced off for such a bold move. ‘Louis XIII. Rarest shit you’ll ever find. All yours if you let me party with you. I’ve got three friends with me, and let me assure you, they’re animals.’