by Gow, Kailin
The Blue Room
The Blue Room
VOL. 1
Kailin Gow
The Blue Room (The Blue Room Vol I)
Published by Kailin Gow Books
Copyright © 2014 Kailin Gow
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Kailingowbooks(at)aol(dot)com.
First Edition.
Printed in the United States of America.
The Blue Room
When Danny Blue of the Never Knights inherited his playboy billionaire father's businesses and legacy, he didn't realized his father's pet project was the Blue Room, the most elite and secret club in the highest circle. He was happy to let his half-brother Terrence Blue run the club, but with Terrence's womanizing ways and carefree attitude when it came to everything, he wasn't sure if that was a good idea.
Terrence Blue wasn't sure that was a good idea as well because it would cramp his style as a former patron of the club, but when he spotted virginal Staci Atussi starting at The Blue Room, he had a change of heart. Not only was Staci Atussi a knockout without knowing it, but she was the challenge he had been craving.
For Staci Atussi, working at The Blue Room was her solution to a desperate situation, but as she became integrated into the world of The Blue Room and the mysteries surrounding its patrons and the sexy Blues, she wondered if she had traded in her desperation for something far more sinister.
The Blue Room is a New Adult Contemporary Suspense Series intended for readers age 18 and Up.
DEDICATION
To My Readers, Betas, and Kailin Krusaders, Thank You for All Your Love, Support, and Encouragement. You are truly one of the most important reasons why I’m blessed beyond measure.
To God, Thank You for providing me the strength, courage, creativity and sight to follow my calling. The glory is yours.
Prologue
Terrence Blue
Some people, they're happy where they are, with what they have. Some people are happy with the little things in life – the feeling of sunshine on their faces, the sound of a baby's laugh, the taste of fresh-squeezed orange juice on their lips. They're happy with the music from the ice-cream truck down the street, with the sweet-looking girl who grew up next door and who doesn't ask too much, with the smell of fresh flowers growing on the edge of a cul-de-sac.
Not me.
See, there are things I don't go in for. And mediocrity is one of them. The way I see it, anybody who can get close enough to the best – close enough, I mean, to see it, smell it, taste it, almost bite it – and who doesn't is a sucker, through and through. Don't give me any of that BS about “mindfulness”, about “being happy with what you have.” I wouldn't buy it. The things I spend my money on are the things you couldn't even dream of affording. I spend my money on the best. The best women, the best booze, the best drugs. The best sounds. And there isn't a single person who's known me for longer than twenty minutes that's in any doubt of that.
So don't you think that anything less will satisfy me.
My name is Terrence Blue, and everybody knows I'm a hard man to please. I've poured thousand-dollar magnums of champagne down the drain. I've flushed fistfuls of cocaine down the toilet. I've thrown supermodels out of my bed because I don't like the color of their bras.
And I can afford to. So why shouldn't I?
Now, I'm a businessman, first and foremost. I'm no fool. I know that the money that comes in as a result of my reputation as a hard man to please more than makes up for the money I waste. It’s a funny thing about this business, isn't it? The more money you burn, the more people keep throwing at you. I'm a magician. I make money disappear – then reappear. But everything's an illusion here in LA. Living out in La La land, you learn pretty quickly – or not at all. People want the illusion. They want to think they're in a night club like the Blue Room because they're better than all those other identical wannabes lining up outside the door. They wanna believe they're special. And with me, Terrence Blue, they feel special. And once you give them that feeling, they'll do anything to keep it going. You think coke is bad? Try that feeling. There's no more glorious, more addictive substance on earth.
That's all you need to know about me.
So here we are. Terrence Blue's Blue Room – equal parts Studio 54 and Eyes Wide Shut. A burlesque club where you can do more than look, if you know what I mean. My pride and joy. Where the girls can sing – but you'd be mesmerized even if you weren't looking at their voices.
Like this one girl. The girl singing now. The light's dark midnight blue on her face, but it only brings out that milky figure – her porcelain skin, that platinum blonde hair with little fingers waves in it like Jean Harlow would have worn, there in a bikini bottom and bra encrusted with gems – gems from my private collection, I'll have you known – sapphires and rubies. And rubies at her lips, too – top shel makeup, studded with metallic dust, making those lips so bright and kissable you wouldn't mind stopping the song if it only meant you could pull that mouth onto yours. Her lashes so long – like they were trying to keep you away, like she had secrets to hide, that one.
I knew her type. I go through dozens like her every day. Identical, like drones, robots, clones. Fresh from Kansas or Iowa or Idaho or wherever – big in church choir, dreaming of being a star, willing to do whatever it takes, scared of what that means. Lucky for her, though, she could sing. Staci Atuzzi had a voice that could knock your socks onto your hands, and she wasn't bad in a bikini either. Though she didn't want me mistaking her for one of those dancers, oh no, she was clear on that point. A prim little blush, pursed lips, I'm not that kind of girl, all of that. The way she blushed when she heard what patrons of the club regularly shelled out the big bucks to do with performers, you'd think she was a virgin or something.
Maybe she was. You never know. Stranger things have happened in La La lands. But I can't say it's every day you get a virgin trying to claw her way to the top of the greasy pole at the Blue Room. I could have thrown her out, then and there. It's not good for business if the talent gets a reputation for being fresh with the high-rollers. People don't just come to The Blue Room to listen to a girl sing, after all. But I liked her. Something about her made me want to give her a second chance. Maybe she'd change her mind. I've been known to be convincing enough.
Not that I know too many virgins to convince. Let alone hot ones. The only one I could think of was Neve Knight, that hot little number who kept my brother wrapped around her finger. Either that, or Danny was keeping his success with her close to the chest. I figured the latter. The girl was hot, but from what I knew of my half-brother's reputation, he wouldn't be giving her a promise ring if he wasn't getting something. What a waste, I figured. A girl like that – with an emo brooder like my brother. I would have shown her a much better time. If she'd met me first – but them's the breaks, in La la land. It's all about who you know, and when. It's all about luck. And when it comes to chance, first one in always wins. Early bird and all that.
Besides, she was a nice kid, and I – many things that I am – am not. I go through women like breath mints. My idea of a long-term relationship is a weekend in Vegas.
But looking at Staci shake her hips, I start to wonder if maybe the whole virgin thing was just an act. As she stars unclasping her bra, letting those full and delicious breasts as loose as nature intended, I start to wonder if she's done this before. She knows what she
's doing, that one. She knows what she's making us want – and she's making us believe that she wants it too. A real magic act. LA at its finest. She's moving across the stage all assured-like, like she knows exactly what's going on in every pair of trousers in the room.
But she's got another thing coming if she thinks she's got power over us. The kind of guys who I let into my club are the kind of guys used to getting what they want. They got in here, didn't they? And if one of them put down the right amount of cash, even the blushing Staci might find herself in one of those luxurious pleasure suites for the night, and then no doubt she could kiss her virginity goodbye.
Her breasts free, Staci starts wriggling out of her bottoms. I can see the contour of her hips. I can smell the desire in the room. The fierce wolf hunger. We're all feeling it.
Then, just as those delectable panties fall to the floor, something blocks my view.
“Danny!”
My half-brother, his chest so broad I can't see an inch of female flesh, is standing in front of me.
His finger is in my chest.
“Your office. Now.”
Now, a man like me – we don't like to be rushed. We take our sweet time. But I don't mind saying in this case that – fully of my own free will, you understand – we went straight to Danny's office. You may have heard that Danny grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me there. I can't say. Had a bit to drink, after all.
“What do you want, big brother?” I almost spat in his face. “I was at the best part!”
“What were you thinking? What was going through your mind?”
“Well, just now I was thinking that those were the nicest pair of...”
“I mean when you slept with her?”
Now, as I've told you, I'm not exactly a one-woman guy. Her, on any given week, could refer to between five and ten lovely ladies.
“You're gonna have to be more specific, bro.”
“You gave her an alibi.” Danny wasn't kidding around. He was the kind of mad where cartoon smoke is a couple seconds away from blowing out your ears. “We can't prosecute her because of your alibi, and now she's gonna get away with it. Attempted murder.”
I'm sure I could have listened to him, if I wanted to, but I'd had a bit to drink, and there was a gorgeous naked girl prancing around on the stage of the Blue Room, so I can't say I was paying a lot of attention.
“Attempted murder? What, man? I'm gone...
“Attempted murder on Never Knight.”
Now, I'm a lot of things, and I forget a lot of crazy nights, but I'm pretty sure that murder's not on my list of after-midnight vices.
“Bro, I would never. A walking bombshell like that – I would never do humanity the injustice of depriving her of one waking moment in our company.”
“You realize you're talking about my soon-to-be fiancee?” I'm sure a lot of people think Danny Blue is pretty imposing when he growls, but that's the thing about being someone's brother. You can't take them seriously when you've seen them soil their onesies after watching Barney that one time. “Anyway, your depravity, your lack of morals....to go so far as sleeping with...”
“Hey, I didn't sleep with Neve!” I had to admit it. It wasn't for lack of trying, but the girl really loved her boyfriend. And while I had to make a good show of wanting her – didn't want to offend her, after all – I respected that.
“Not Neve. Roni.”
“Oh.” Who hadn't slept with Roni? It was a rite of passage, like bar mitzvahs or your first beer.
“Don't you have any family loyalty? Don't you ever think with your brain, instead of with your...”
“I like to think I'm a creative thinker. Besides, I have the Blue family genes. Not like Dad didn't cuckold a bunch of sorry husbands in his day. May the best man score and all that.”
“But Roni.” I hate it when my brother makes me feel guilty. It's almost like he's morally superior or something. “It's like sleeping with the devil.
“But you beat me to that already, didn't you?” I played the cards I've got, and that card needed to be played.
“Before she got with Dad! And even then it was a mistake through and through.” Danny mops the sweat from his brow. The man knows how to look brooding and serious even when he's screaming his lungs out. What a drama queen.
“It's not like I even knew she married our dad!” I feel I have a point. “She turns up at the club this one time – I mean, I can't keep track of who Dad marries. They all look the same, act the same, talk the same, walk the same. It's not like he asked us to the wedding. I don't do a background check on every girl I get with to see if Dad's also had her.”
“You're disgusting. Don't you even bother getting to know a girl before...”
“Don't be so high and mighty with me! Before you were a lovesick puppy you were just as bad as me. Maybe worse.”
“I've changed.”
Sure he has. Or better say been changed. By one Miss Neve Knight.
“Everything I do now is for love.”
“Oh, go write that down in a song.” I can't listen to this BS any longer.
“Already did.” Danny's in my face now. “Just try and give me a reason to fire you, little brother. Just try.”
Chapter 1
Terrence
I like it when Danny gets angry. Always did. To see that smug little face scrunch up in anger, to see those bright blue eyes blaze in the old Blue way. Someone like Danny Blue doesn't rage easy. Brooding, of course, but that's whole 'nother thing entirely. Danny Blue could brood for days and wouldn't get a single rise out of me. It's what he does, normally. Locks it all up inside. All that rage, all that heartbreak, all that feeling. Even when I deserve a good kick in the jollies, Danny Blue doesn't oblige. He just clenches up his heart like a fist. But that's Danny for you. Never wanting to give anyone else the satisfaction of seeing Danny Blue lose control. But not this time. That much, at least, I'm certain of. Danny's coming close – thisclose – to losing it all. His mind, his heart, his temper. And I'm enjoying the heck out of it.
All my life, Danny's been the good boy. The favored son. The one born to the only woman Clarence Blue ever really loved. Not like my mother. That good-for-nothing trash whore – that's how Daddy dearest used to refer to her. A pin-up model who had the audacity to age out of my dad's preferred age bracket, just when he moved up a tax bracket or two. How dare she, right? And my daddy never forgave her for it, nor for the millions she took with her when she finally upped and left one morning over the morning papers. We all saw the front page headlines: Clarence Blue – spotted with starlet. But that was many moons ago – and many wives ago.
Not that it mattered when it came to Danny and me. Our relationship was always that of the Cain and the Abel, the beloved and the despised. Clarence may have pretended to be disappointed in Danny Boy, may have pretended he couldn't stand the sight of that dark rosebud mouth of his – his mother's mouth – but deep down he loved the boy, loved him like he loved the woman he'd lost, like he loved his own flesh. Danny Blue was sired by the man my father was once, once upon a time. The man that knew how to love. The rest of us – we were all bastards. Illegitimate children. Sure, we were Clarence Blue's kids – at least the DNA tests said so, when they came back – and you've got another thing coming if Clarence Blue didn't insist on a DNA test for every potential progeny that came out of every starlet's belly – but not in reality. None of us were born to the Clarence Blue back when he was a real person, a person in love, a real man: not an ice-cold statue, a shadow of his former self. Luckily, most of us – I assumed – were born to cocktail waitresses, strippers, people who wouldn't make a fuss. Not one of his wives – or concubines, I should say. Just me. But that didn't make me Clarence Blue's legitimate son. I certainly wasn't the son he wanted. The flesh of his flesh. The bone of his bone. And so my father never loved me.
But Danny – oh, boy, that's another story. Danny was the apple of my father's eye. But for all that, he didn't have what it took. The Blues Empire was h
anded to him on a silver bloody platter – but Danny was too squeaky-clean to grease the wheel. He's an innocent, you see. Likes to eat oysters and drink champagne, but doesn't want to know how the sausage gets made. Doesn't know that the big business comes not from our shiny luxury hotels or the deals made in the boardroom over skyscrapers and nightclubs, but here. In the bedroom. Reeking, filthy, smelling of sex. Here, where the businessmen make the real deals – over the naked buttocks of a stripper, dusted with blow. Here, where you could get blackmailed into signing away your fortune to my father – just by being caught with the wrong lips thrusting against your groin. Here, where desire made you lose your mind, your marbles, your millions. I knew how the game worked. And I knew how to play it. Fortunes aren't made on oil or steel. They're made on flesh. All the oil in the world can't make up for the scent of a woman's sweat.
Danny never understood a word of that. He always held himself as so much better than the rest of us, so much purer, so much more deserving of affection and love. But when he's got the rage in his eyes and the rumbling of thunder, that blazing in his belly – then you know the truth. He's no better than I am. Not a single solitary fucking whit. I guess that's why I love making him as angry as I do. I guess that's why I love goading him on. Because it's proof: hard, solid, eye-bulging proof, that Danny Blue is no better than I am. No more deserving. And if Daddy Dearest loves him more, that's nobody's fault but his own. That's the sickening chance in the universe. That you can be loved so much – and not even deserve it.
Everyone loves Danny, after all. Like Neve. That sweet little number. It's not just that she's pretty – you can get a dozen dimes for a dime a dozen, if you know what I'm saying – this is Hollywood, after all. She's got something else. Some inner strength. A sharpness. I think if you showed her this business, let her get her hands dirty, she'd run it well. She knows what it takes to survive in this town. Which really means: to thrive, because only the lion, the tiger, the king of the jungle is the winner. Everyone else, even just half-a-rung lower on the ladder to success, is a loser. And you know what that means, don't you? They get eaten alive.