Sniper

by Lagomarsino, Giulia

  “What do they want?”

  “I’ve set up a poker game for some of my more lucrative clients. They would like some entertainment at the game, someone to look at. You would need to dress just as you do when you dance. You’d be serving drinks to them, dancing for them, whatever they require.”

  “That doesn’t sound that different from what I do now.”

  He was stalling. He didn’t want to tell me what the catch was, and there definitely was a catch. One that I probably wouldn’t like.

  “Some of them would want more than just entertainment. The poker game will be held upstairs. You may hear things that could get you in a lot of trouble if you were to repeat anything.”

  “So, keep my mouth shut and be the entertainment.”

  “Exactly. Do you think you can do that?”

  One of the things I liked about Jeremy was that he seemed like a pretty upstanding guy. I knew he was former military and he ran his strip club with what I would imagine was the same intensity. He didn’t treat us girls like we were cheap, trashy whores. He was strict with what he expected, but always fair. The club wasn’t at all what I expected when I took this job. It was higher class clientele and he didn’t tolerate men getting too handsy. If they stepped over the line, they were thrown out without any second chances.

  That being said, what he was asking was basically for me to have sex with this particular group of men. I would be there to please them in whatever way they needed. I had only slept with one man in the last five years and my so called attempt at getting information from him didn’t really work out. In fact, the information bit was only an excuse since I didn’t actually try to get information from him. I wasn’t so sure that trying to get information out of these men through sex was the way to go. What I really needed to know was if these men had any connections that could help me. I didn’t want to sleep with these men, but for my daughter, I would do anything.

  “What do these men do?”

  “That’s none of your business,” he said harshly.

  “I just want to know if mobsters are going to be coming after me. I don’t want to get involved with anything that’ll get me killed.”

  He seemed to relax slightly. “They’re all businessmen of some sort. I’m not going to lie, some of them are shady, but as long as you keep your mouth shut, you’ll be fine.”

  “Will you be in the room?”

  “Yes, I’ll make sure they stay in line.”

  “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “Good. We’ll see how the first game goes. If everyone’s satisfied, you’ll get to continue with this weekly. I’ll have to take you off the rotation one night, but you’ll bring in ten times what you could if you were dancing.”

  I didn’t give a shit about the money. If they were businessmen, they had connections that I could never fathom. Maybe even this Wes guy was part of the game. He did say that Wes would be here at the end of the month. That meant that in a few weeks, I could have the answers I was looking for. In the meantime, I couldn’t just sit around and wait.

  “Thank you, Jeremy. I won’t let you down.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sniper

  I STOOD OUTSIDE the office and felt like shit for the way I treated Shyla. She was doing this because she was trying to help her sick niece. I wondered what she would be doing if she didn’t need all the extra money. Maybe she would have a normal job and she wouldn’t have to take off her clothes for men.

  “Some of them would want more than just entertainment,” Chief said.

  What the hell? He was actually going to let one of the women prostitute herself out for these men? I had never thought that he would do something like that. But then again, we weren’t in the military anymore. He was just trying to run a business, and if the women chose to sell their bodies for money, that was on them.

  There was no way Shyla would take the job though. She couldn’t. As much as I implied that she slept with men that came into the club, I didn’t actually believe that she did. She was different from the other girls. She had her shit together more than the other girls I had seen.

  “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “Good. We’ll see how the first game goes.”

  I didn’t hear the rest because I was too pissed to stay and listen to whatever they had to talk about. She was actually going to do it. Even to save her niece, this was going too far. Men that would fuck a stripper at a poker game were not the kind of men that would be gentle with her. They would hurt her and do things that no woman ever wanted to go through. It made me sick to think of her at that poker game.

  There was no way I was letting this happen. I’d just have to talk with Chief and make sure she wasn’t allowed to work there. He could find some way to help her out without her fucking men. I stormed back down the hall to bust into his office and tell him just that when I ran into Shyla and lost all sense of reason.

  “What the fuck are you thinking taking that job?” I shouted at her. “Are you really so desperate that you’d fuck a bunch of men that are gonna get off on hurting you? Because that’s what they’ll do. They’re not gonna be gentle or make sure you come. They’re gonna use you like a warm hole that they can get off in, and then they’re gonna take out their fantasies on you. I can fucking guarantee that it’ll break you long before you ever make enough money to help out your sister.”

  She just stared at me with her mouth slightly open. I waited for her to give me some excuse or tell me to fuck off, but she didn’t do either. She held her head high as she walked past me and into the dressing room. Since she wasn’t willing to acknowledge anything, I’d have to go talk to Chief. Storming into his office, I slammed the door behind me.

  “Are you really going to let her do this?”

  “I see you’re still listening in on private conversations,” he said drolly.

  “She’s not the kind of woman that should be doing something like this.”

  He leaned back in his chair, giving me the same stern stare I remembered from our military days. “And you came to this conclusion before or after you fucked her?”

  “I never could keep anything from you,” I grumbled.

  “It’s my club. Do you think I don’t know what’s going on around here? I know everything. Believe me, I don’t think she’s the right person for the job either, but she needs the money.”

  “So find her something else to do.”

  “Sniper, she agreed to it. I didn’t lie to her about what went on at these games.”

  “Speaking of which, when did you start dealing with men that are so dirty?”

  “It’s the industry. I may do business with them, but it’s all legit.”

  “Still, it’s basically prostitution. You know Shyla isn’t like that.”

  His eyes zeroed in on me, looking at me bafflement. “You don’t even know her real name. It’s obvious it isn’t Shyla.”

  “And you do?”

  He shook his head slightly. “No, I couldn’t find out a single thing about her. I figured that she was running from someone because she was pretty secretive about who she was.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why would she try to hide who she is if she’s just trying to earn extra money to help her sister?”

  “I’m guessing that she doesn’t want her sister finding out how she’s getting the money. Hell, who knows what her life was like before this. Maybe she’s ashamed that she’s coming here to strip.”

  That could be a possibility. She held herself with a lot more dignity than the other strippers, so it was very possible that she was trying to keep a piece of her old life. Either way, I didn’t like it.

  “Isn’t there something else you can find for her?”

  “I already had her scheduled for six nights a week. She stays as long as possible and always takes the extra jobs. It’s almost like she doesn’t want to go home.”

  “Because her place is a shithole,” I grumbled.

  “Look, I can’t do anything else. She needs the
money and I need a woman to work the room. You’re not going to change her mind on this, so let it go.”

  I nodded, but didn’t actually intend to. I’d have another talk with Shyla and do everything I could to change her mind. It just really rubbed me wrong to think of her fucking dirty, old men.

  “Can we get to why I called you here today?”

  “Yeah, man. What do you need?”

  “I have a job for you.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “KP duty. What the hell do you think? You’re in security and I need someone to help me out with a situation. I have a special shipment coming in and I need a security detail to protect my investment.”

  This whole fucking thing sounded shady and I didn’t want any part of that. “What kind of shipment?”

  “That doesn’t matter, but if you do a good job, it’ll mean more jobs for you. And it’s good money.”

  “You’ll have to talk to my boss. He’s the one that approves jobs.”

  “You mean you don’t have any pull with him?” he smirked.

  I didn’t know how to respond. This was my Chief in the military, but now, he was into some shady shit. That wasn’t something I wanted to drag my team into.

  “He’ll want to know what the shipment is before he agrees.” His jaw clenched and his nostrils flared. He didn’t like that answer, which confirmed my suspicions that he was doing something illegal.

  “You can’t just take my word for it? It’s a sensitive matter.”

  “We can’t protect your investment if we don’t know what we’re protecting.”

  “Give me the card.”

  I handed it over against my better judgement. I didn’t want to insult the man. He had been my superior and a damn good man, but now I was starting to wonder if I really ever knew him. I was going to have to talk to Cap about this.

  “You coming by this weekend?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  His lips twitched in amusement. “Not your scene?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I’ll tell you what, bring some of your friends by this weekend. Drinks are on the house.”

  I rolled my eyes at his blatant refusal to accept my dislike of his club. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Not that I wanted to come back, but some of the guys would like it. At least, the single ones would. It was doubtful any of the married guys would make an appearance, not if they wanted to keep their dicks in working order.

  I was about to leave when I remembered my conversation with Shyla. I needed to talk with her again and try to get her to stop this insanity. There were already a few girls in the dressing room and Shyla was putting shit all over her face. I didn’t like her looking like a whore. I wanted to see her without any makeup.

  “Shyla, you got a minute?”

  She looked at the other women and glared at me as she stood. She pulled me out of the room and down a dark hall. “What do you want?”

  “You need to back out of the deal.”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Why? You can get money a different way. You don’t need to whore yourself out for that.”

  “You didn’t seem to have a problem when it was you,” she snapped.

  “I wasn’t-”

  “Don’t even go there. You fucked me from behind so you didn’t have to see my face. There was nothing even remotely romantic about what we did. You didn’t even wait two minutes after you finished to leave my apartment. And let’s not forget the money you threw at me before you left.”

  This woman was infuriating, but the look of anger on her face had me backing down real fast.

  “Look, I’m an asshole. I know that, but that doesn’t change the fact that you don’t have to do this.”

  “And why not?” I looked at her like she was crazy. “No, seriously. Why are you so concerned with whether or not I work that game? I’m a stripper. I take my clothes off for men all the time. I give lap dances and let men touch me. Why do you give a damn?”

  “Because I have a feeling that this is not who you want to be. You don’t talk like a stripper. You don’t throw yourself at men for money the way all the others do. You let the men come to you, and yeah, you don’t stop them from touching you, but you don’t even look like you want it.”

  “Do you really think any stripper wants men to fondle them? It’s our job. It pays the bills. That’s why we’re here. You barely know me, so what makes you think you know anything about me?”

  She was right. Sleeping with her once didn’t make me an expert on who she was. I had seen her dance at the club and interact with other men, but that could have been an off day for her. The truth was, I really didn’t know this woman and hearing one sob story about her niece shouldn’t change my opinion of her. Everyone had problems, but it was how they dealt with those problems that showed who they were.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I was just hoping you weren’t the slut you appear to be.”

  I had to get out of here before I got wrapped up in anything else. This wasn’t my life. I didn’t need to be here or deal with other people’s problems. I had a great job and a large family that would always be there for me. Hanging around here just made me depressed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Morgan

  I WAS VISIBLY shaking as I waited for the time to pass. Tonight was the night that I worked the poker game and I was nervous as hell. The thought of walking around naked in front of those men made my skin crawl. Sure, I was a stripper, but I was in a dark club and I could pretend I was someone else. Tonight, I would be in a room that would show off my body under bright lights.

  The only article of clothing I could wear was a thong. I had to serve drinks like that while men stared at my breasts and my ass. Some of them would grab me and I had to pretend that it didn’t bother me. There was a very good possibility that I would be fucked by a stranger tonight, a pervert that would take what he wanted from me. As much as I wanted to throw up and call Jeremy to tell him I couldn’t do it, I needed information. I wouldn’t have been led to this club unless someone had some piece of information that could help me.

  I had to do this, but I couldn’t do it if I was shaking. Nobody would want me there and I would probably end up throwing up on someone. I had been prescribed anxiety meds after Payton had disappeared. That was before I took control of the investigation since no one had any leads. Knowing that I had to go through with this, I took one before I headed to the club.

  By the time I got there, I wasn’t shaking quite as bad, but I was still nervous about all of this. I was supposed to serve drinks and I really hoped that all they wanted was straight up alcohol. I went through the motions of getting my makeup finished and adding some shimmer to my body. The other women were already there and giving me nasty looks. Apparently they heard about my new job.

  I rolled my eyes at how petty women could be. It really was ridiculous that they were mad at me because I was going to walk around naked in front of men. I grabbed my robe, but then realized how silly that was. I worked in a strip club and I pretty much walked around naked wherever I went.

  When I got upstairs, Jeremy was already there setting up for the game. There were six chairs around the table and a few bottles of alcohol sitting on a cart with clean glasses.

  “Good, you’re here. Are you ready for this?”

  “As ready as I can be.”

  “You know, if you’re not up to this, you can back out. I’m sure one of the other girls would step in for you.”

  “No, I can do this.”

  “Are you sure? You’re shaking a little.”

  “Just first time jitters. Besides, I took some anxiety meds, so I should be good for the rest of the night.”

  He nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “Don’t ask about names tonight or any other night. To you, they’re all just men that you’re serving and entertaining. To them, you’re just a sweet ass to look at. These men are not men you want to fuck with. Don’t ask questions and
don’t offer anything unless they ask for it. Understood?”

  I nodded and kept myself over by the serving cart. The men slowly started arriving and glanced at me from time to time, but mostly talked with each other. I ignored the fact that I was naked in front of these men and focused on what I could gain from being here. I didn’t recognize any of the men, so I assumed that they didn’t frequent the club. Then again, Jeremy had said that these were all businessmen, so it wasn’t likely I would recognize any of them.

  I waited for Jeremy to wave me over and then I plastered a smile on my face and wheeled the cart over. “What can I get you gentlemen?”

  Jeremy raised an eyebrow at me as his jaw tensed. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to speak at all. There was an older man at the table that looked like he was about sixty. He had the decency to not stare at me. Probably the only good man at the table.

  “Whiskey,” he said gruffly.

  I poured whiskey for him and moved onto the next man. He had a sinister look to him. His hair was dark and slicked back with gel and he had a bushy mustache that matched his eyebrows. His dark eyes moved across my body like he was actually fucking me in that moment. I was disgusted, but I kept my grin in place.

  “Vodka.” As I poured it, his eyes never left my body and when I placed it on the table, he snatched my wrist and pulled me toward him. With two fingers he motioned me closer. He grabbed the back of my neck and squeezed painfully, bringing me right down to his face, so he could force me to look into his eyes.

  “When the game is over, you will come with me to one of the rooms.” His hand slid across the small of my back and pulled at the waistband of my thong. “I intend to use some of my toys on you.”

  His hand cupped my breast and then he pinched my nipple so hard that it brought tears to my eyes. His eyes darkened and a slow, evil grin spread across his face. When he released me, I took a step back and blinked to clear my eyes before everyone could see what he had done to me. No one dared look at me. Even Jeremy had his face buried in his cards. Whoever this man was, he wielded power like a king and feared no one.