“They kicked his ass?”
“They sure did.” She chuckled before becoming serious once again. “I don’t think he would have listened to anything or anyone else. It was the only way.”
“So, this is why you’ve got your personal bodyguard?” I cocked my head towards Maze, who grinned back at us like a Cheshire cat.
“Sure is.” She put the cigarette out with the toe of her boot and hugged me, holding on tight. “I’ve got to get back to work, but we’ll talk more later when we don’t have an extra set of ears listening.” She whispered so Maze couldn’t hear.
I nodded and followed her back into the bar. She was putting on a good front for the customers but it would take time for her to find herself again. I would be there for her every step of the way.
As the bar was still ridiculously busy, I could indulge in my favourite pastime – people watching. I couldn’t believe how some of the girls acted in there. In a way, I wished I could be more like them, free and loose without a care in the world. They danced on the poles like pros, working the guys in the bar into a frenzy.
I’d never been like that. With the kind of upbringing I’d had, there was no way for me to ever let loose like that. I rebelled like most teenagers did, but never that much. I didn’t have that kind of confidence in me. Being quite shy, I was innately more reserved and couldn’t imagine dancing around in my underwear in front of a room full of strangers.
Lauren passed me another Pepsi just as Kacey came in, giving us a wink and a wave before walking through the bar. I had met Kacey several times before and heard all sorts about her boyfriend, Kellin, but had never seen him in the flesh. I watched her as she worked her way across the bar, heading towards a table where three guys were sitting. One got up and wandered off to talk to a girl and Kacey headed straight for the one with the dark shaven hair.
Hot damn, he was sex on legs. No wonder she raved about him all the time. From what Lauren had said, all the brothers were gorgeous, but until seeing Kellin, I did not realise how gorgeous she meant. Kacey was one lucky girl to be going home to that every night.
As Kacey sat down on Kellin’s knee, the other guy at the table got up and walked across the bar. The crowds of people moved for him, like he was the fucking messiah. I couldn’t really see him but I couldn’t take my eyes off him. From what I could see he was stunning, all rough and ready and dangerous looking. The crowds in the bar were too thick to be able to take any real notice but it was obvious how good looking he was, the women in the bar gravitated towards him. It would be a hell of a disappointment to have him turn around and look like a complete dog after all that hero worship.
“Who’s that?” I asked Maze, watching as his tight butt walked out of the bar.
“That’s Dominic. He owns this place.”
Dominic? That was Lauren’s boss? Holy shit! I guessed that the hot gene ran in the family. If he was half as hot as his brother, no wonder Lauren loved her job as much as she did. All I had were stuffy old doctors who had bad breath and were losing their hair. It didn’t really compare.
Turning back to Lauren, I saw her staring after him, too. I hoped that didn’t mean she was interested in him, although her gaze was more akin to gratitude. I wouldn’t blame her. Although she’d never mentioned anything like that about him before, he had just played the hero and got her away from that jerk of a boyfriend. However, I wished that I could have had a better look at him. If the front was half as good as the back, he would be more than swoon-worthy.
Staring down at my drink, I forced myself to forget all about Dominic. He was way out of my league, anyway. He looked like the type of guy to talk with his fists first and that wasn’t my kind of man at all. Not at all. I wouldn’t waste my time thinking about someone I couldn’t have.
Nope. Not at all.
As soon as Lauren finished her shift, we headed back to her place. Maze drove Lauren, and Kacey came with me as we followed along behind her car.
It was a nice, easy going night. Kacey had tried bitching about Kellin because he had to work the whole weekend again, but it didn’t last for very long. She was clearly madly in love with the guy and couldn’t speak ill of him for very long. It was really sweet, in a sickly kind of way.
Kacey decided to tag along, seeing as Kellin was going to be up early in the morning. She was a refreshing presence and didn’t let the conversations get too deep and depressing.
I was thoroughly exhausted and after Lauren spoke more in depth about what happened with Matt, we all fell asleep. Maze stayed in the kitchen out the way and us girls crashed in Lauren’s room. It was like the kind of sleepover you had when you were teenagers and I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
Chapter Three
Dominic
Just when things are seeming to go your way, something has to go tits up. Typical, isn’t it?
Things at Sinners had calmed down over the last couple of weeks since we rid Lauren of that shithead boyfriend of hers. You could see the bubbly girl she once was pushing her way back through slowly but surely. It was just a shame it had taken her so long to come to me, but at least she had in the end.
It wasn’t Sinners that was the problem tonight. Decadence was the issue. I knew things were too good to be true at the club.
Sinners wasn’t the only money maker I had in my pocket. I had started off with the bar and following its success, I decided to branch out a little. Decadence was way at the other end of the scale and between the two businesses, they kept me on my feet.
Funnily enough, you would have thought a dive like Sinners would be the one that would cause me all the problem, but no, the upmarket club was sometimes more hassle than it was worth.
Decadence was a high class nightclub and targeted a certain kind of clientele. The filthy rich kind. Out of the two bars, this was the one that made the most money with minimal effort on my part. We charged a ridiculous yearly membership fee and the prices once you were in there were astronomical. But people paid them, and usually without complaint so I wasn’t going to change a winning formula.
This time, it wasn’t one of the clients that was giving me grief, it was the staff. Someone was pocketing money, and had been for a while. For some reason, my club manager had waited until now to bring this to my attention and I was royally pissed off as I slammed my way into my private office.
What was the point in hiring staff if they couldn’t do their fucking jobs? Richard had come with glowing references, but he was the kind of man to try and shoulder every problem, just to show that he was the one to resolve it. Well, he’d fucked up this time.
Putting a call through to reception, I asked for Richard to come to my office immediately. Sitting down behind my desk, I waited.
It didn’t take long for the knock to come at my door. “Enter.”
Richard came into the room, looking as stiff and as uptight as ever. “Mr Saint.” He nodded as soon as he walked in.
“Take a seat, Richard.” I knew it irked him that I used his first name, but I didn’t give a crap. He was a competent manager in most ways, but there was something about him that really got on my nerves. Richard was the kind of man who thought he was better than everyone else because he had money. Even serving the people he did, Richard thought he was one of them.
Richard Evergreen wasn’t a tall man, probably coming up to my shoulders at the most, although at 6’3” I was taller than most anyway. His immaculately styled hair was starting to thin and he had the most annoying little moustache. Everything about him grated on me, but while ever he did a good job, I’d put my personal thoughts aside.
“What’s been going on?” I narrowed my eyes at him, resting my elbows on the desk.
“As I informed you, I have been keeping an eye on the situation.” Richard looked like he was sweating under the pressure.
“And the situation is?”
“Helen has been, how shall we say? Taking her own share?”
I wasn’t sure whether to roll my eyes at him o
r smack him in the mouth. Why couldn’t he just be upfront and say what he really meant? The bitch had been stealing from me. It was as simple as that. I didn’t have the time to beat around the bush with his sensitivities.
“How long have you been keeping an eye on the situation?”
“For the last two months.”
Two months? This was news to me. “So, let me get this straight. Helen has been stealing money from me for two months, you’ve known about it all this time and not said anything to me?”
He could tell from the look in my eyes that I was getting seriously annoyed. In the grand scheme of things, what she had taken was a piss in the ocean, but that wasn’t the point. His job is to deal with situations like this and inform me accordingly, not to sit on it for a couple of months before deciding to tell me.
“Well, Mr Saint, it wasn’t quite as simple as that.”
“What do you mean?” I interrupted.
“I had no proof.”
“You still should have come to me. This is my money, my business. If you had told me what you had suspected, I would have been able to put in measures to get that proof you so desperately needed.”
“Yes, sir. You’re correct.”
Too right I was correct! I shook my head at him. “You have proof now?”
“Yes, Mr Saint. I had the security footage sent over to you.”
I grunted and turned to my laptop, hitting up my emails and finding the one from him and another from my security team. It wasn’t only Richard I was pissed off with. Someone else should have found out about this and come to me.
Watching the security tape, I wondered how long it had really been going on for. Helen was getting sloppy. She had clearly been at this for a while and thought the coast was clear. How wrong she was.
“Get her in here.”
“Right away, Mr Saint.” And Richard scurried out of my office, closing the door behind him.
All I wanted to do was get this shit sorted out so I could head home. Thankfully, I knew that ‘Sinners’ was in good hands. I had a great team of people working there that I trusted and liked. None of this kind of shit would happen there, and if it did, it would get dealt with quickly. Not like the dipshits who worked here.
It went pretty much as I expected. I’d had to send Richard out of the room, which didn’t impress him in the least. Not that I cared. He was making the situation worse, butting his nose in every two minutes. You could see the thoughts ticking over in his head, he was the manager of the club and therefore had the right to be included in the firing of this individual, but I didn’t like how he was handling things.
Helen had tried to plead poverty, but I knew that wasn’t the case. She had been pilfering enough money from me not to have money worries, for the time being at least.
However, it turned out she had a gambling addiction and was stealing from me to feed her habit and to pay off her creditors. I’m not a mean bastard, and although I did fire her, I had made a call to a friend of a friend who was going to help her out. She was a nice girl and that wasn’t the kind of life she wanted to be leading.
Grabbing my things, I decided to call it a night. My head was thumping and all I wanted to do was go home and turn out the lights.
Fallon
I really, really hated nights like this. Why couldn’t I just say no? Was I really that much of a pushover? After a long shift, going out was the last thing on my mind. All I really wanted to do was go home and soak in a bubble bath, but here I was.
It made it all that much worse because I’d been dragged along to Decadence. This really wasn’t my scene, being surrounded by people who thought that they were important just because they had more money. It made me feel uncomfortable, reminding me of my childhood. Back then, I didn’t even know that people struggled to earn a penny and now that I did, I hated to see this kind of wealth thrown around recklessly.
I got the phone call earlier in the day to inform me that my presence was required tonight and I immediately called Taylor to come to my rescue. We’d been friends for years and although I hated this club, she loved it.
“Seriously?” She had sounded like a giddy kid when I asked her if she wanted to come with me to the club.
“You do realise that it means you’ve got to put up with my sister?” Olivia and Taylor didn’t get on too well, but as long as I kept them away from one another, we should be able to avoid fireworks. Or I hoped, at least.
“Ugh! I don’t care about that hag. We’re going to have so much fun!”
I knew that Olivia being there wouldn’t put her off and I wanted Taylor with me for a bit of moral support. She knew the kind of shit Olivia and her friends would be talking about and was always happy to take me away from it all. All that wedding talk was going to give me a headache if I didn’t have Taylor as a diversion.
Now we were walking up the street from where I’d parked the car. I didn’t plan on drinking tonight and wanted my car close so I could make a quick getaway if my sister gave me too much of a headache with all her wedding talk. You can’t call me stupid.
What was she doing this for anyway? The engagement had only just been announced a couple of weeks ago and I knew it would take forever for her to finalise the details and as far as I was aware, they hadn’t set a date yet. Why the rush? They hadn’t even had the official engagement party yet.
I knew why. My sister was an attention seeking ho-bag. She loved being the centre of attention and this wedding would ensure she was the talk of all her friends for the all the time it took to plan, and knowing Olivia, the actual wedding would be so over the top and the talk of the town for several years to come.
As we walked down the street, our heels clicking on the road, I spotted Decadence. There weren’t any queues to get into the place, but that wasn’t surprising. The prices to get in were ridiculous and not for the average Joe off the streets.
My parents had renewed my membership, even though I hadn’t been in there in over a year. They did it at the same time as they renewed Olivia’s. Decadence was right up her street, but it sure wasn’t mine. The clue was basically filled with wall-to-wall snobs that luxuriated in the fact that the extortionate prices kept out the unwashed masses. There was no way I would waste my money on this kind of place, but yet again, my mother was keeping up appearances.
“Are you sure I can’t change my mind?” I said, frowning at Taylor.
She laughed. “You know you can’t. Your sister would go ape-shit if you let her down.”
“Pretty please?” I pouted, knowing that there was no way I was getting out of this one.
“Not a chance. Olivia is going to be the belle of the ball and you’re going to have to be the ugly sister and suck it up for one night.”
“It’s not going to be just for one night, though, is it?” I already had the feeling that wedding preparations were going to become a weekly thing. I would have to start thinking of excuses soon enough.
Taylor grinned happily and hooked her arm through mine, pushing me on towards the entrance.
Even the plain building that held the club stood out from the rest of the buildings on the street. The matt black brickwork and the stylised silver writing that announced the name of the club commanded attention with its simplicity. It lured people in, only to disappoint them when they were told they weren’t good enough to enter.
Yeah, I had a real problem with this club.
“Good evening ladies.” One of the smartly dressed doormen nodded in our direction. They didn’t need meathead muscle here, only a discerning eye to keep out the riffraff.
We both nodded towards them, but their eyes were on me. I knew that my name would have shown up on their security scanning, showing my membership to be up to date and allowing me to enter.
Taylor elbowed me in the ribs and grinned. She loved coming here. We paused in the foyer to register me and my guest before heading up into the main room of the club. There were several smaller rooms that veered off, but I knew Olivia would b
e where all the action was.
The main room was extremely large, the space looking even bigger because you would usually expect to see more people in a nightclub. Decadence was spacious and luxurious, offering only the best of the best for the most discerning customers.
“Where are we going to sit?” Taylor asked as she looked around, smoothing down her skirt.
“Anywhere you want. Olivia isn’t here yet.”
Following her over to an oval glass table, I sat down on one of the plush chairs. To give this place some credit, you couldn’t find any fault with the décor. The blacks, silvers and pearl accents blended together perfectly, making for a relaxing atmosphere as opposed to the stuffy heat of a ‘normal’ nightclub. I didn’t really have anything against the actual club, just the people that frequented it and their mentality.
As soon as one of the servers came over to our table, Taylor ordered some obscure cocktail. That was one of the other reasons she loved to come to Decadence. She could throw anything at them and she would never win. Taylor always scanned the internet before coming, looking for the wildest and weirdest cocktails to see if she could ruffle their feathers, but it never worked. When the beautiful server dressed in her elegant black and silver uniform turned to me, I simply shook my head. I could get my own drink. I didn’t need anyone to wait on me.
“Again?” Taylor rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you do that. These people need to earn a living just like the rest of us. I bet the tips they get in here are out of this world.”
I smiled. She knew me well and knew I was always fighting my childhood when we had an army of staff to wait on us, always ready at our beck and call. “That’s not it. Elliot is over there, working the bar. I thought I’d go over and say hello.” Elliot was an old friend of mine and one of the plus sides to coming here. “I’ll be right back.”
Taylor nodded absentmindedly. She was already too busy people watching to worry about where I was going.
Moving across the room, I nodded politely at the few people I vaguely knew through family connections, but I didn’t stop to chat to anyone. I had nothing in common with these people and couldn’t be bothered to waste my breath on them.
Dominic (Saint Brothers #1) Page 4