by Sunniva Dee
“So, you’re seeing… everyone once you’re in Venice?”
She sighs, tipping her sweet smile at me. “You know I am. It’s the main reason we’re going. I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see… everyone.”
“Take photos for me?”
“Of course. Same procedure as always, cuz. Maybe I’ll even meet up with her.”
“No.” I shake my head, willing her to remember the risk. “Only at a distance. Okay?”
“I know, but I’m bringing Patrick. We’ll look like tourists.”
“Bullshit. A Nascimbeni won’t go by unnoticed.”
“But what if they’ve moved—to the outskirts, for instance?”
“They haven’t, and either way it wouldn’t matter. Venice, the rest of Il Veneto”—I open my hands—“Same thing. We’re infamous.”
She leans back in her chair. “You don’t know that. I haven’t been there in two years, and I had short, blonde hair, then. Remember that phase?”
“Yeah, no way.” I gesture to her eyes. “You’re all Nascimbeni, no matter the hair color.”
“I’ll be careful. Not sure if you know, but I grew up in this family too. I know what I’m doing.”
I just give her a tight smile.
“Come here.” She doesn’t lean forward, just sits there, arms open for me. I thump down next to her on the porch swing, making the ropes groan, and let her try to wrap me in her arms. “I’ve missed you, cousin.”
“Yeah. You need to stay closer.”
“Life.”
I give my best friend a peck on the lips.
I could have sent McRoy to pick up my dry cleaning, but I decide to pop by the mall on my way home. I’m glad I do when I roll up the stairs to the second story to find some brute lifting and shaking a little girl. Frozen in terror, she’s defenseless, her head rattling side to side like a ragdoll’s. This ends immediately.
I take the last three steps in one leap and grab the asshole by the neck. “Let. Go,” I mutter between clenched teeth.
“What the…?” He chokes on his question while I pry the child from his clutches. Behind him is the knickknack store of an acquaintance, Cynthia. I stride in while the idiot follows me. “Holy shit! This is unbelievable—who do you think you are? That’s my daughter you’re taking!”
“No, that’s not your daughter,” I say over my shoulder. “Cynthia? Hey. Do me a favor. Take this little one to the back and figure out who her mother is.”
“What the fuck?”
I turn in time to block his fist. I slam my elbow in his face, and he howls. “Keep it down,” I hiss. “You want the police on your back?”
He tries for a blow to my temple but misses, his rage making him unfocused, so I clock him in the head, watch him fall, and drag him out the backdoor and into the staff corridor.
“I’mma make you bleed,” he coughs out, squirming to get up.
“I don’t think so.” I kick him in the stomach. Listen to his choked cries for a second. “If you as much as look at that little girl again, I swear to God I will kill you.”
“Yeah, right.” He tries to laugh. “Go raise your own kids. She was having a tantrum, and she wasn’t going to disrespect her father in public.”
“Yeah?” I kick him again, hitting his nuts on purpose this time. He squeals like a pig, and I just want to turn him into a bloody mess. The tiles are white, though, and I have a lot of business at this mall. I’m not going to get myself in trouble. I hike him up by the collar and haul him down the stairs, until we hit the alley.
“What’re you going to do with me?” he whines. His damn voice echoes in the narrow stairway. I can’t listen to this shit anymore.
“I’m going to make you disappear.” It’s not true, but I enjoy the flash of crime films-gone-real rolling through his gaze as I smile coldly.
“Please, I’ll never lay my hands on her again. She’s a good girl, for the most part. I won’t, okay? She’s...”
I push him out the exit and slam him to the asphalt. He wails now, and I’ll have to kick him in the head if he doesn’t shut up.
“Listen to me.” I jerk him up by the collar. “If you were blessed with that little girl as your daughter, I want you to know that you don’t deserve it. I saw the marks on her, no doubt courtesy of your ‘child-rearing.’ You have no right to touch her in any way that isn’t meant as comfort. Fucking. Ever. What’s your name?”
He hesitates, and I’m not waiting for him to decide what to do. I rip his wallet out of his pocket, grab his driver’s license, and snap a photo of it.
“’Kay. Got you on my blacklist. I’ll be siccing my blood hounds on you, Kyle George Ketner of Agora Hills, and if they see you as much as lay a hand on your daughter again, you will disappear. Understood?”
His nod is so fast it’s on speed.
I give a last shove of my boot to his chest and walk back inside. In Cynthia’s backroom, the three-year-old has perked up. She still has tears on her cheeks, but she’s eating ice cream and chattering about her grandmother in Ventura. Mom doesn’t live with Dad anymore. She’s moved to Ventura with the grandma, and that’s where little Erin lives too. Sounds good to me; I’ll be making a detour to Sylvia Street 15C to drop off a little treasure who should never have to deal with her violent father again.
“I don’t think I fully understand what you’re planning, here,” McRoy says, ticking out a nervous blink. He folds his lips between his teeth, worried I’ll lose my patience. I’m not. Not yet.
“The studio’s ready for the party, correct?”
“Yeah, but we don’t ever take it this far, not even for full-length wrap parties.”
“I’m aware. Listen.” I grab the front of his shirt and pull his scrawny self closer. He gasps warily; I’ve been known to throw a friendly punch when he’s been too stubborn. “It’s the price I pay for business, okay? Watch and learn. Now, get all performers onsite in studio 1.”
“Yes, sir.”
I take the stairs to the second story. About thirty girls and six of my male actors are already there, with a few more corralled in from makeup by McRoy.
The studio has been transformed into a club. We’ve got hired help playing music, high-quality speakers in each corner, and a bar that looks anything but makeshift lining the entire back wall. Yep, my event girl has knocked this out of the park on short notice.
We have a dozen round tables at the center, but it’s the purple couches, enormous roman-style ones that are impossible to just sit on, that make all the difference. They’re covered in purple and grey pillows, which match every detail in the Lucid club, all the way down to the straws. We’ve rented lava lamps, a plethora of small fish tanks with black light and purple glow fish in them. The whole thing’s damn impressive-looking, actually.
“Wow,” Belen purrs, sauntering in. What she wears can hardly be considered a tube top. A silk band. A ribbon, maybe?
The deejay is in sound check. I signal for him to cut the music. McRoy turns on the light, and some of the girls aww with disappointment.
“Don’t worry, I’ll dim the lights again once we’re finished, here, and when Clown Irruption arrives, it’ll be free-for-all. Clothing optional, basically anything you can do to impress and make the night memorable for the band and their crew, is on.”
“Oh my god, Clown Irruption!” Irene hollers, and Ana chimes in, wiggling her hips. They trigger an impromptu applause. In the back, I even see our voice-over guy, Ciro Silveira. From what I hear, he used to be a damn good performer.
“I need everyone on your best behavior,” I say. “Or worst behavior, whatever works.” I wink.
“Wooh, yeah!”
“Careful with the band wives. You do not want to mess with them.”
Belen groans out loud.
“Belen?” I stare her down.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Everyone: do not go after the married guys unless they explicitly ask for it.” I meet my female performers’ gazes, until I still on Belen again. She rolls her eyes.
“Their tour manager just called. They’re done at the Greek and about fifteen minutes away from here.” I raise my voice, continuing, “They’ll be on a high from the concert, and they’ll want to have fun. Are we going to show them how Lucid Entertainment parties?”
“Ye-e-es!”
“Are we gonna give them a night they’ll never forget?” I shout.
“Ye-e-es!”
I nod slowly. Signal for the deejay to play and for the bar to start serving. Tonight’s on me, and every performer knows it. They’re ready to have a fucking blast. And I’m ready to think outside the box.
Once I’m done here, one of the most popular rock bands in the United States of America is going to have a new promo opportunity on its hands. Once all’s said and done, they’re going to skyrocket in popularity, and they will bring Lucid Entertainment to the cover of every gossip magazine in the country. Fuck yeah, this is going to be epic.
The Clown Irruption gang is twenty men strong. There are a few wives, and sure enough, Belen grumbles behind my back. “Goddamn, I was gonna have a fling with the singer. I’d hit that stud hard.”
The guy’s wife has the gaze of an assassin. Zoe Something has already sized up her competition in the room and is lowering her lashes against Belen in particular. She smells it, I’m sure.
The lead singer, Emil, guffaws at Ciro’s joke. The voice-over-dude hitting it off with the lead singer? Guess it’s not so strange. For now, I’m observing, discussing Sweden over a glass of whiskey with Bo Lindgren. I went to their home country a year ago for business.
“You have a beautiful wife,” I tell him.
“That I do. I still can’t believe I caught her. Nadia, you’ve met Isaias di Nascimbeni, right?”
“Yes, it’s nice to see you again. I didn’t know a film studio would have a club like this,” she says, smiling. If she’s shocked by the outfits some of my girls wear, she’s hiding it well.
“Oh that.” I wave it off. “It’s a special occasion thing. Many of my performers love Clown Irruption, and they wanted to make it something to remember for the guys.” I end it on a shrug, like it wasn’t my idea.
My eye is on the two single guys of the band, though. Elias is the bass player. He’s got some sort of milky-white vampire look to him, and my girls are subtly fighting over him. An hour in, and he’s already on the couches, halfway leaning on his elbows and laughing at the entertainment provided by the girls. Irene is doing an air-lap dance for him to the music, and I think Belen just pinched Vicky’s butt to get her out of the way.
After a chat with Emil and now this one with Bo, my mind is made up. It’s got to be Troy. Although Bo is the leader of the band and Emil the spokesperson, their band decisions are run as a democracy. If I can sway Troy, he’ll get me a meeting with the band as a whole, and we might be in business. This is exactly what can get Lucid on a map that’s not purely pornographic.
Troy is the black panther of the group. Rumor has it he’s a sexual man. Tall, lean, and strong, with slender ebony muscles gleaming under a rolled-up white shirt, there’s no hiding the quiet simmer in his gaze as he averts it from my girls. Two of them are slow-dancing together a few feet from him. They’re goddamn fascinating, actually. I don’t remember their names. Maybe I’ll invite them home tonight if Troy doesn’t bite.
“A tour of the studio?” I suggest once he’s off the dancefloor with Belen half an hour later.
“Sure. You’ve got a good thing going here.” His voice is hoarse, road-worn from backup vocals on tour, I assume.
“Thanks, man.” I slap his shoulder as we head off, Belen’s possessive glare following us out the door. She knows her place well enough to stay behind, though.
As I show him around, we talk about family. About Sweden, the home country of the three other band members. He’s from Los Angeles, which I already knew, another good reason to have a chat with him.
In my office, I hand him a whiskey, plopping boob-shaped novelty ice into his glass for a laugh. Once we’re done chuckling, his smile fades into lazy delight. Those long dreadlocks, dark skin, and green eyes to rival my own is part of the allure for his fans. Fuck, they’re going to be happy once I’m done.
“You’re living the life here, aren’t you?” He studies me calmly, intelligence and self-control evident in his gaze, a lethal combination. I have to be cautious.
I half-ass a shrug. “It’s a business. Lucid Entertainment was doing okay, but I can make it better. That’s the rush, man. As soon as the challenge disappears, I do too.” I flop my hands open and clasp my glass again. “Pussy’s a short-lived rush.”
He ticks his head toward the hallway. “Unless you have what a couple of my bandmates have.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
Troy lets out a quiet chuckle, looking into his glass. “Love.”
“You believe in love?” It sounds ridiculous in my setting. Not that I haven’t seen it. Ma and Il Lince have it.
“Try being around Bo and Nadia, or crazy-ass Emil and his nut job of a wife, Zoe, and you’ll see people who don’t run out of the rush.”
“Maybe marriage is all about the steady flow of pussy?” I wink at him.
He chuckles again. “Right. That’s probably it.”
“So no old lady for you at the moment?”
“Nah.” He pulls a good drag from his glass, tipping his chin back and letting the burn trickle down his throat in a swallow. It’s a good look. Gay and straight alike will fall over themselves for a close-up like this. “Only ever been seriously interested in someone once. Lots of great ladies out there, ya know, but they’re not her.”
Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. I lift my glass in a toast. “To the ones who got away.”
“Anyone for you?” he asks, eyes on me again.
“Sure,” I half-lie. “I had my indiscretion in Italy a few years back. Romeo and Juliet thing, only neither of us died.”
“Interesting.” Troy nods slowly, dance-like. Damn, I want to turn on that camera myself. I wish Gianni had come tonight. He’s a miracle worker, and Troy would have been an unpolished diamond for his lens. Later.
“Who’s your woman?”
“Oh.” Troy’s smile grows slowly, gaze sliding over the dew on his glass. I’m familiar with that look. Fingers flexing, he wonders how much to tell me.
“Your secret’s safe with me. I’m no journalist.” I curl a one-sided smile.
“Right.” When his eyes lift again, they’re narrowed in a squint. His full lips, which I’m sure women go ape shit over, remain in a barely visible curve. “You’re gonna laugh.”
“Never.”
“She used to be our merch girl. Emil tapped that, and she only saw me as a friend. I’m not going into detail, but Emil made some mistakes. I made some mistakes. It resulted in a black eye on Emil and Aishe running off to a new gig.”
“Oh geez.”
“Yeah, she pretty much hates me.”
“Sounds like a Lifetime drama.”
“Wish that was all it was.”
“What band’s she with now?” Any intel is good intel, but if it’s about a potential business partner’s weak spots, it’s more than good.
His features still, amusement abating. “Nah, it’s not important. She’s free of Clown Irruption. We see her every now and then, but this shit’s hard to mend and I’m not pushing it. It’s better left in the past.”
I shake my head, mock-surprised. “What? You’re giving up on the love of your life?”
He empties his glass and slaps it to my desktop, a clipped snicker accompanying the move. “This is hilarious. The owner of Lucid Entertainment’s giving relationship advice. I guess in my book
love has to be reciprocated?”
“Oh man. I have an idea.” I lean forward like I just came up with this. “You should bring her here and make some seriously romantic love to her on film, and it’ll be your poetic rocker way of saying, ‘You’re it for me.’”
So far, Troy’s facial features have been slow to react. He’s a man who hides his emotions well, but I just cracked through his surface. Shock and what looks like regret roll over them until he settles back into blankness. He tries for another laugh.
“She’s not the type. Yeah, that kind of invitation wouldn’t go over well.”
“No? She’s not the passionate type?”
“Oh, she’s plenty passionate. Goddamn, she’s fireworks like no one I’ve ever met. Aishe is a Gypsy, and she has that fire too. She’s fucking special as hell. Everything she does is on a medium to high burn if you know what I mean, and in bed?” He gives up and just shakes his head, incredulous. “Just. Whoa.”
Okay. Emil wasn’t the only one “tapping that.” I’ll give it some more thought and see what I can do with my new intel. I have to put McRoy on the specifics too, find out who the girl is.
“Now that I think about it,” I begin, having found my in. “Rockers walk with runway models, movie stars, and the like.”
Troy just nods.
“Porn stars.”
He doesn’t deny it. Just waits for me to go on.
“You have a record dropping soon.”
“In about six months, and then we’re on to the Twisted tour. We’re recording next.”
“Valley studio?” I ask conversationally.
“Yeah, the one off Mullholland.” He snaps his fingers, not remembering the name of it. I’m not well versed in recording locations.
“Cool. Have you guys decided on the first single yet?”
His brow contracts in a subtle frown, wondering where I’m going with this. “Yeah, it’s called ‘Deep in You.’”
“Is it about what I think it’s about?”