by Hazel Parker
“Hey, Richard,” Igor said, snapping his fingers. “Are you looking at the titties too much?”
Dom, who I didn’t even realize was standing nearby, burst out laughing. His laughter actually accomplished something I didn’t think was possible—Igor cracked a smile. A small one, and one that didn’t reveal any teeth, but it was still a smile nevertheless.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said. “No, I work here, I’ve seen all the girls topless. They’re beautiful, but at some point, it’s just part of the crowd.”
“Hm,” Igor said. “You know, in Russia, a man with money has a way of bringing in all the titties!”
It sounded like the boasts of a drunken rich man more than anything else, so I just politely laughed, even if the statement did feel a little crass and shallow.
But given that Igor was a little drunk, I decided it couldn’t hurt to press him on a few different things.
“So how come you came back?” I said casually. “You were up when we left.”
“Bah,” Igor said as he took a sip of another double-vodka drink. “Money means nothing to me. I could go all in right now for the hell of it, if not for the fact that such terrible poker strategy burns at my intellectual soul. I just enjoy a good game, Richard. So much of my day is spent in serious moments discussing… sometimes, a man wants to enjoy a good drink and a good game of cards.”
“I can get behind that,” I said, holding my glass out for a cheers.
Igor, though, didn’t take it, either not noticing or not caring, and I put my glass back down. I felt pretty sure there was more to it than that. A man like Igor didn’t get where he was by just enjoying “a good drink and a good game of cards.” The drink and the cards were only good if something came of it.
“I am just fortunate that I discovered a private place where I can play with a fellow accomplished entrepreneur like yourself,” Igor said. “Even if you do flaunt the wild side a little bit.”
Again, it was just so damn impossible to figure out if Igor was mocking me or playfully deriding me that I didn’t bother to figure it out. It was easiest to take it as what my gut said instead of spending hours dissecting it all.
“Sounds like your daughter does that some.”
I immediately regretted the words as soon as they came out. I meant it more as “the daughter likes to do things that aren’t so normal” not “sounds like your daughter is a whore.” But there was no—
“Tell me about it!” Igor said, showing emotion for one of the few times all night.
Over his shoulder, I could see Barber and Pork staring in disbelief, as if they couldn’t believe I’d gotten away with saying what I had.
“I would love for that girl to marry someone who is worthy of her, but it is as if she does not understand her worth. Hell, maybe I should bring her here. There are enough men in this place who would be worthy, wouldn’t you say, Richard?”
If only you knew, Igor. If only you knew.
“We do attract a certain type of clientele; this is very true,” I said. “If you want to bring her, I would be happy—”
“Nah,” Igor said. “We throw our own house parties where I invite many men who would make for a great husband for her.”
Left unsaid, obviously, was that while I was willing to extend an invitation to Igor to come here, such an invite was never coming to any of us. We were considered outlaws, no matter how false that narrative. We couldn’t be given invites to such parties.
“And yet she rejects them all,” Igor said. “Millennials these days, I tell you. I do not understand her generation. At twenty-six, if I were not married in Russia, I would have marched myself to Siberia.”
I chuckled politely, but Igor gave no reaction. I decided I had pressed my luck enough on both issues; Igor wasn’t going to say anything else, no matter how drunk I got him.
We played until four a.m., an impressively late time, at which point the club closed for the night. I shook Igor’s hand and said I wished him luck at work early in the morning.
“I will be fine,” Igor said dismissively. “This is not the first time I have shown up to work on a Friday with no more than two hours of sleep.”
Two hours? What the—
“Have a good night, Richard. Dom, please lead me out.”
I couldn’t remember the last time any of our guests, poker or not, had requested that Dom lead them out. Poor Dom looked befuddled, but true to his form, whatever appearance of confusion was on his face vanished in favor of the overly confident smile.
Within ten minutes, the entire club was cleared out except for a few of the girls who needed to change and leave and the officers. Walker was the only other non-officer left, tasked with making sure the women got to their vehicles safely. As soon as he and the girls left, I gathered around so we could recap the night.
“So,” I said with a smile. “As some of you may have noticed, we didn’t have just one Sokolov in the building tonight.”
“Yes, we’re well aware, player,” Mama said.
“Hey now.”
“You’re lucky I let you have her,” Dom said with a chuckle.
“For the record, Dom, you couldn’t have her even if you tried, and no, that is not an invitation for you to try and sweep her away from me.”
“Oh please, don’t be jealous of my good looks and—”
“Good looks? More like—.”
“Pork!”
The simultaneous shouting gave us all a chance to reset after the tangent with Dom.
“Anyways, Natasha bribed Walker to get in. Got a cool extra two thousand dollars for that.”
“Damn!” Barber said. “Don’t think we’ve ever had a bribe that big.”
“Yeah, I let Walker keep two hundred of it. I think he was trying to play it cool when it all went down,” I said. “In any case, Mama made a great point about Papa Sokolov. He’s up to something. It may be something as innocent as seeing if the Saints can provide security for him and his family, or it might be something much more. I tried to get him to open up about coming back, but he was very guarded. Dom, if you bring him back—which I would encourage you to do—I want us to keep a close eye on him. I want to know what he’s getting into.”
“You got it, boss.”
I looked around at the other club members. They looked like they understood what I meant. It wasn’t like I thought Sokolov was secretly an agent for the Degenerate Sinners. I just wanted us to make sure that we were aware of the pitfalls of not being on top of things—rival MCs were not the only threat that a group like us faced, especially since the city of Las Vegas itself was often competition for our clients.
“I think that’s it, unless anyone else had anything to talk about.”
No one spoke up.
“Alright, have a good night, and as always, remember the three rules of being a Saint. Respect your brothers.”
“And your sister,” Mama interjected, as I had always let her do at the close of such nights like this.
“Respect the women.”
Even though, Dom and Barber, I know you’re going to skirt around that rule as much as you can.
“And respect the club. See you tomorrow.”
With that, everyone departed after a few hugs. I was the last one to leave, locking the actual red door behind me before also closing the screen door. I always appreciated these moments of being alone and being able to take in the building before me. Out of a dinky place, out of a place set to be destroyed, the rise of the Savage Saints has all but reached its pinnacle. Out of the terrible years that Mama and I spent together comes this wonderful time.
And we’re not done yet.
I can’t let myself be done. I won’t let myself be done.
I headed around the building, hopped on my bike, and began the drive south to my home in a small neighborhood called Blue Diamond. There was something special about ending each night with the Las Vegas Strip behind me, fading away. It was like I was giving myself a small break from the glitz and glamor that I h
ad earned; it was time for me to get a brief rest in. But tomorrow, the gambling would begin, the club would pick back up, and our clients would come through the door once more.
The growth and evolution never stopped, and I wanted it no other way. I didn’t want to think of a world in which I stopped growing and stopped pursuing potential for the Savage Saints. If I did, I didn’t know what I would do with myself.
When I got home, entering the code for my gate, I brought the bike into my garage, next to my Lamborghini, and shut the door. I staggered to the couch, too tired to make it upstairs. The poker game and challenges of figuring out Igor—or failing to do so, rather—had gotten to me, and I couldn’t make it up to my bed. I almost passed out before I stuffed my hands into my pockets, finding the napkin with Natasha’s number on it.
It was awfully late to text. While it wasn’t like I was going to ask her out on the spot, even just a “had a great time” text at this hour was probably going to smell of a little bit of desperation.
But it was fatigue that led me to actually send that text. I didn’t have the energy to consider how bad of an idea it was, and so I wrote “Great meeting you! Let’s talk tomorrow.” And then I hit send.
It took me all of about five seconds to pass out.
* * *
When I woke up, it was about eleven in the morning, not too late of an hour, but a little bit later than usual for me. I liked to go to bed around two thirty or three in the morning and wake up shortly after ten. I reached for my phone on the ground, fumbling and trying different spots, still not awake enough to move to get it.
I finally found it and opened the screen, smiling at the fact that Natasha had texted me.
“Likewise! I can’t wait to hear from you :-)”
It put a smile on my face, something of a rarity that early in the morning. Then I looked and saw that she had sent the message at about half an hour past five; had I stayed awake for the duration of just one TV episode, I might have been able to have a conversation with her.
Still, this was better than nothing, so I immediately started texting, even though my brain hadn’t fully awoken yet.
“Hey! Just woke up. Long night. Your pops loves poker. You were up early!”
It was definitely more exuberant than I was used to sending, but Natasha made me feel more exuberant—how could I not feel a little excited about it all?
I stretched out my arms and turned on the TV, watching the local news with mild interest. There was talk of a heat wave coming to Vegas, but that didn’t mean much of anything to me. A heat wave in Vegas meant the temperature was going to go from a hundred and ten to a hundred and fifteen; at that point, what was the difference?
I checked my phone again, more out of habit than thinking Natasha had said anything, only to be surprised to see she’d already written me.
“Good morning! Yeah, he’s played it with me a few times. He really gets into it. He’s not as adept at the math as I am, though, so I’m starting to beat him. What have you got planned for the day?”
Obviously, I was going to tell her that it was just going to be a typical day at the club, complete with showing up for preparations for the show, calling clients, that sort of thing, but I was surprised to see her discuss poker and math. Some of our guests had discussed things like pot odds and probability at our table, so I did a little bit of research, but Natasha sounded like she had a much stronger grasp on it than I ever could have guessed.
She was clearly not just a cute body with a great smile. She had some intellect in her head. It was almost intimidating in a way. Surely you must have some flaws, right? I thought with a smile.
“Damn, poker savant, huh? Just club business. Getting The Red Door ready for another night of operations. Maybe you can come and see it sometime without worrying about Pops.”
I also did something I had never done, or couldn’t ever remember doing, there—I added an emoji.
Me, Richard Peters, a thirty-nine-year-old who had never been married, adding an emoji.
What was going on?
“For sure! Can I call you on my lunch break? I’d love to know what a good time is.”
Actually, I’m going to figure out what a good time is to take you on a date. We’re not just going to arrange for you to come back to The Red Door. But let’s build some anticipation for that, shall we? Let’s let it happen.
“Definitely :-)” I wrote back.
I let my phone drop for a second, smiling at my good fortune. It was strange for me to be feeling this way when I hadn’t even had a full conversation with her. We hadn’t had a first date yet, but I knew the value of a good woman when I saw one.
Which was funny, because the truth was, women like her didn’t come around very often. Oh, sure, plenty of women with great bodies would show up, and we’d get the occasional intellect coming through, but it was rare to have someone who seemed to have it all. I saw an opportunity to be with a beautiful woman, and in conjunction with my deep-rooted questions about relationships, well, life seemed to be handing me a pretty solid opportunity right now.
I stood up to make myself breakfast, taking my clothes off and getting down to my boxers for comfort. I opened my email, thinking I was just going to send off a few replies while my eggs and bacon cooked.
But the first thing I saw wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I could ignore. It was an email from Mario, the LVPD chief. It read:
“Richard,
Degenerate Sinners have threatened more killings if the investigation doesn’t stop. Just for your information.
-Mario”
Mario was never going to tell me what to do in an email like this, especially since such things could come up in public records later. But the implication was clear.
The Savage Saints could not remain on the sidelines much longer. We’d have to show them why the word “Savage” was part of our name.
Chapter 6: Natasha
There was just something so natural, so easy with Richard that it made me wonder why I had never experienced anything like it before.
I was still trying to filter out what amount of it was him and what amount of it was me rebelling against what my father wanted, but I think I could objectively say that he was a charming guy who could both be polite and banter. He’d flirted with me and played a little at The Red Door, and yet this morning, he was being sweet over texts. It was such a wonderful contrast compared to the arrogant pricks my father liked to choose.
Of course, I knew that with time, he was going to display a middle finger of sorts to some social norms and customs. He was a biker, after all, and he wasn’t going to roll over and do whatever my father said. My father might have been a client, but that didn’t mean that money was going to cause Richard to act a certain way.
I just had to see how it would play out, I supposed. And it was going to be pretty damn fun to see how it all ended up.
I told him I would call him on my lunch break, which I had scheduled for noon, but by half past eleven, I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to get up and go. No one was going to question me, anyway; I didn’t like to invoke my family name to get what I wanted, last night notwithstanding, but if I had to, I wasn’t afraid to.
I walked out of the Sokolov Industries building, just a bit north of the Las Vegas Strip. It was steaming hot, far hotter than anything I had experienced in my life, and since Antonio had driven me to work, I didn’t have a car that I could use to talk in. So instead, I pinged for Antonio to come and stayed by the door, hoping that the blasts of AC would do enough to cool me off before he showed up.
I felt a tad nervous calling him, especially because I hoped we wouldn’t just talk about The Red Door. I found his name, hit “Call,” and held it to my ear.
“Hello, Natasha,” he said.
His voice was playful but also mildly seductive. It was the perfect level of charm, and it brought a smile to my face despite the oven-hot heat.
“Hi, Richard,” I said, pretty sure that he would’ve been a
ble to hear the smile on my face. “Have you had your breakfast yet? Or does it qualify as lunch in your spot?”
“Hey now, I cooked myself breakfast,” he said. “Unless you count bacon and eggs as lunch.”
“I think for you, you can count it however you want.”
“You’d give me that kind of power? That’s bold of you.”
The conversation was so light and so simple, and yet I couldn’t even begin to express how nice it was just to have sweet small talk. Most guys wanted to ask me what I intended to do with my father’s company when I took over or what I saw as the future of a given industry. While such conversations might have been fun once in a while, to know they would come at all our family parties exhausted me before the parties even started.
So, yeah, to just talk about bacon and eggs was something that I relished.
“I mean, you seemed to have a pretty good shop running at The Red Door,” I said. “Even though I had to bribe the front guy a couple grand. How’s it feel to know I basically paid two thousand bucks to give you my number?”
“Pretty damn good, I have to admit,” Richard said.
I was sure that I wasn’t the first person to bribe my way in. The place was tiny, so I could see why they had a guest list, but there were very few private businesses in the world one couldn’t bribe their way into. There were even some government locations one could pay their way into, although those were much harder.
“Yep,” I said, careful not to come across as condescending and so wealthy that two grand didn’t matter, even though the reality was it didn’t. “I suppose I just wanted to meet the leader of the Savage Saints that much.”
“Oh, jeez, that’s a first,” Richard said, suddenly off guard a bit. “Well, hell, if I had known that you were coming, I’d have let you in.”
“Just like that?”