by Autumn Sand
I know it’s not him talking, it’s the drugs—or the lack of drugs—in his system that has him on edge. Sparing a glance at him, I see the nervous tick in his features, and he rubs his arms constantly for imaginary bugs.
“Bro, you need to calm down.” I try using a calming voice I really don’t have.
“No. You cut me out of everything.” The twitching is getting worse.
I rub my chin, in hopes of giving my hand something to do instead of choking the shit out of my flesh and blood. “I told you that I’m working on bringing him home. We first have to deal with the situation of retaliation from Pedro’s men.”
He throws his hands up in the air. “Yeah, same bullshit answer you always give. How come I can’t talk to him?”
“When the fuck are you ever clean, bro? I don’t …no…I can’t give you his location because you are a risk. When you’re sky high, you don’t know what you’re saying or doing.” My temper explodes in a whirlwind of words I can’t ever take back. Mostly because it’s the truth. My chest rises and falls quickly, not entirely tamping down on my rage.
His face contorts. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt my brother.”
I slap the palm of my hand against my forehead. When did I become the babysitter for my brothers? Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing more harm than good to them. “That’s not what I said. I’m just saying that—”
“Never mind.” He spins around and leaves, slamming my bedroom door behind him.
Fuck! I stare at the space my brother just occupied and debate if I should stay home to make sure he doesn’t go out and get high.
There’s a sharp rap on my door and it suddenly opens without my response. Chicken stands in the doorframe and thumbs behind him. “All good?”
I nod, even though it’s not. “Car ready?” I evade his question because I honestly don’t feel like talking about my family bullshit.
“Yep.” He tilts his head in the direction Kenny stormed off to. “Want someone to watch him?”
Exhaling my frustration, I nod my approval. Chicken, as always, obeys my command and turns around to make shit happen.
With my full security detail in tow, I step into my waiting bulletproof Escalade. When we pull off, we look as if the president has come into town, with a full escort of ten cars behind us. These measures are necessary when you are the most wanted and feared criminal in the world. There is always someone wanting to take control of my empire.
They could try, but they will fail.
“Edge?” Chicken asks if I want to go to the high-end underground fetish club I own.
I lean my head back on the leather seat, closing my eyes momentarily. “No, not tonight. Let’s go to Pulse.”
Leaning in closer over the bar, I try to scream out my drink order over the bass of the music. “Lemon Drop,” I repeat for the third time.
“Lemon Bomb?” one of the new bartenders asks, and I shake my head.
Seriously? Is he now just fucking with me or something? “No, asshole, Lemon Drop.”
“Absolute lemon shot?”
I roll my eyes and tap out a rhythm of my annoyance against the lacquered bar. What was Tick thinking when he hired this one? Then I look at his muscled arms and realize what I’ve known all along—the women. He is attracting the women customers who want to hang out at the bar with the moron.
I open my mouth to scream out my order again, but a weird feeling comes over me, and I sense someone watching me. I turn around and scan the crowded club, spotting no one looking in my general direction, but I still can’t shake the feeling.
“Come on, sweetheart, I don’t have all night,” the handsome, but not so bright, bartender states.
Forgetting about the weird feeling, I turn back around and yell out my order again, and again, he repeats the wrong drink.
“She said, Lemon Drop.” A deep male voice sounds from beside me. I turn around and see another new hire for the club—our bouncer, Naldo.
“Ahh, Lemon Drop.” The apparently not-too-bright bartender smiles. “Coming right up.”
I mouth a thank you to my new savior, Naldo.
“No problem. Besides, Tick sent me to tell you that your break is over, and to…” He pauses for a second, as if he’s searching for the right words, then says, “Get back to your post.”
“Let me guess, he said for me to get my ass back to my post?” I toss my hair back and laugh.
“Ahh, yeah. How’d you know?” He smiles sheepishly.
I grab my shot and throw it back quickly. “’Cause I know Tick.” I omit saying because I used to fuck him, so I know everything about him. “Come on. Let’s get back to work.”
Naldo steps aside to let me walk ahead of him. I take care to give an extra wiggle so he can appreciate the view. Do I want Naldo? No, but I do crave the attention. Actually, I thrive off of the sexual attention I receive from men. Why not? I’m fucking hot, or “sex on two legs,” as one man called me. I learned very early how to please a man, and it has gotten me through life.
“Hey, do you want to hang after work?” Naldo asks.
I stop and look at him, debating if I want to or not. “I’ll tell you what, not tonight. Perhaps another time.”
“Yeah, I get it. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” He laughs.
“You never know, I just might call. Just not tonight.” I wink and start walking again.
We head towards the front of the club, passing Tick along the way. He averts his eyes and pretends not to see me. It’s like a punch in my stomach. I pause and turn to look at him, hoping, praying, he at least gives me a glance of want, but nothing. Something else has caught his attention, and I’m not it. Who am I kidding anyway? He only has eyes for his wife, Cyma. I was just that distraction he needed before he met her. He discarded me like the trash I am.
Standing at my station as head hostess of the club, I have the power to allow people admittance into the hottest club in Manhattan or send them home, back to their pitiful lives. I move around some items on the podium more to my liking when I hear a large number of footsteps walking towards me.
With a smile already in place, I lift my head to greet the new customers.
I look at these men in their expensive suits and quickly surmise they are killers. When you’ve worked around Tony Delaney long enough, you learn some things, and one of the things I’ve learned for self-preservation is spotting a killer.
“Good evening, gentlemen. How many are in your party?”
A tall man with thinning hair steps in front of my podium. “Twenty in all.”
I turn my head to the club’s door that leads to the dance floor. We are just about at full capacity, but I don’t think I should turn them away. Fear bubbles at the surface of my stomach.
As if making the decision for me, a group of people exits the club, laughing and clearly either high, drunk, or most likely, both. With a toss of my hair behind my shoulders, I nod and smile. Most men fall over themselves when I smile, but this tall, wiry man doesn’t even acknowledge me.
“Of course. Will that be cash or credit?”
“Cash, and we’ll need a VIP room to ourselves.” He tosses five thousand dollars on the table, like it’s the morning newspaper.
“Umm, that’s more than the price of admission.”
“Consider it a tip.” The way he says this makes me feel cheap. Fuck him, I’ve been bought enough in my life. This doesn’t cover the half of it.
“We don’t have any rooms available.” I flip my hair over my shoulder and watch his expression melt into irritability.
His eyes narrow and this man I would’ve thought was sickly suddenly appears menacing. “Then make one available,” he sneers.
I bristle at the way he speaks to me and try desperately to keep my temper in check.
“Chicken, it’s all right. We’ll take a table near the dance floor.” I can’t see who spoke because he is flanked by the enormous bodyguards, but his voice is smooth, with a hint of an accent. Spanish, perhaps?
Chicken all but falls over himself and nods. “Fine, a table. Preferably in a corner.”
I quickly scan my chart and see that we do in fact have a table for him. The party that reserved it never showed up. “Sure thing.”
I mark the table and pick up my telephone to dial the staff, alerting them that the table will be filled after all and to have the server go over immediately. I count out the money and hand him the balance.
He holds his hand up. “Keep it.”
I know better than to force the issue, so I place it in the register. Let Tony figure out what to do with it, but I’m not keeping it. My days of being bought are over.
I turn to look at Naldo. “Can you escort them to the table?”
As if the Red Sea had parted for Moses, the guards open up a path and there stands a man about six two, with piercing black eyes. I always heard the eyes are the windows to the soul, but if that’s the case, then his soul has been damned to hell because his eyes show death and destruction. I flinch and look away, almost as if someone wrapped their hands around my neck and was slowly squeezing the life out of me. I steady myself and hold on to the podium. I spare yet another glance at him—his face looks familiar, yet I know for a fact we’ve never met. I would remember eyes like his.
“Tals? You okay?” Naldo asks, a look of concern crossing his face.
I swallow hard and nod, licking my lips, and I smile. “Yes. Nothing to worry about.”
As soon as the words leave my lips, I know it’s a lie. There is something to worry about because a feeling like someone walking over my grave has passed over me.
“I’ll bring you gentlemen to your table.” Naldo walks towards the door masking the thumping beats of the music.
The man with the piercing eyes leans in and says something to Chicken, who nods while looking at me. I try to busy myself and not notice this conversation is clearly about me.
“You. We want you to escort us to the table.” Chicken stands in front of me and barks out the order he is obviously expecting to be obeyed immediately.
I open my mouth to protest, but the man who is in charge speaks.
“Please, it would be my pleasure if you would escort us to our table.” He says the word please as if it’s a foreign word to him.
Men like him are a dime a dozen. Steering clear of him would be the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. But who said I was a person who makes the right decisions? Fine, I’ll escort him to his table. What harm can come out of this?
I smile pleasantly and walk from around the podium, making sure to smooth down my dress that is hugging my hips. My courage grows in strength, knowing the effect I have on men, and I know the effect I have on this man. Even with my back to him, I can feel his eyes boring into me, searing my skin. I walk past Naldo and open the door for them.
He steps in front and holds the door for me, gesturing for me to walk ahead of him. “Ladies first.”
His accent isn’t thick; it sounds almost like it is just a whisper of his previous life.
“Thank you.” I purr like a kitten as I step inside and am instantly hit by the bass of a song. I love music and how the beats can carry you away. I find myself often listening to my music on the highest decibel when I’m home, helping me to drown out my thoughts, my fears, or just the recognition of who I’ve become.
He cups my elbow as I guide him to the table. “Isn’t that what you wanted?” he says into my ear as we maneuver through the dancing patrons.
“What? What did I want?” I blink rapidly, genuinely confused.
“For me to look at your ass. That’s the reason why you smoothed down your dress, and your hands lingered on that tight ass of yours. You wanted me to look at it, appreciate it, and picture myself slamming my dick into you from behind. Maybe if you’re a good girl, I might even slap it while I fuck you.”
For a moment, I’m shocked by what he said. Not the words necessarily but because it was the truth. I wanted him to have the illusion in his head, it is the only power I ever wielded over men. I learned from a very early age men take and they take, and then they fucking take some more. But if you learn to master them in the bedroom or even the lust, they feel for you, and then you can control them. I could even get them to sit up and beg if I wanted to.
But this, he just unnerved me as if he saw through me and tossed everything I’m good at in my face like ice-cold water, sobering and chilly. There wasn’t lust in his voice, it was boredom.
I snatch my arm from him. “I believe this is your table. Your hostess will be with you shortly. If there is anything else, I can do, please don’t hesitate to ask,” I say through clenched teeth, knowing this isn’t how to talk to a customer. This just might’ve cost me my job, and honestly, it was so fucking worth it. I turn to leave, sashaying my magnificent ass away from him.
“Stay.” Every fiber in my being commands me to keep walking, but something in his voice—or the darkness that surrounds him—compels me to turn around. As if by magnetic pull, I turn to face him. His gaze catches hold of my own, never letting go. Unbuttoning the bottom button on his suit jacket, he sits, gesturing for me to sit next to him.
“I have to get back to work.” Long gone is the venomous bite in my tone, which has been replaced with confusion.
His men take their seats in the adjacent sections near him while others stand to look around the crowded room. My eyes flit around to see if I can spot Tony, Tick, or Magnum. Manny is still in hiding with his new wife.
“Didn’t you say, if there was anything else you could do for me? Well, there is, but I need you to sit, so I can tell you.” He grins playfully.
He has some fucking nerve. I really want to lay into him. Probably not the smartest thing that has ever crossed my mind, but then I see Tick dancing with his wife, Cyma, and my heart sinks to the pits of despair. A lump forms in my throat as tears threaten to ruin my makeup.
As if being pushed forward, I sit next to him and watch the man I love dance with his wife in the tenderest of ways I could only ever imagine. Does he even remember I’m alive? Does he ever think about me? Does he recall how good the sex was between us? I figured if I didn’t put restrictions on him, he would be mine, but that didn’t work. He used me. No, that isn’t right. He told me from the beginning that sex was all he was offering, and I willingly accepted it.
My heart is bleeding for a man who cut me open and left me in shambles.
“Who is he to you?”
Startled, I blink away the memories and slowly turn to look at the handsome stranger with the soulless eyes. His sharp features give him the look of being chiseled by an artist, his days-old stubble like a shadow on his face. He looks menacing yet appetizing, all at the same time.
“He’s my boss,” I try to say nonchalantly, but I can’t entirely mask the hurt in my voice.
He sits back and laughs.
Cheryl, one of the hostesses, comes over. A look of confusion crosses her face when she sees me sitting. I nod my head at her. “Hi, I’m Cheryl, and I’ll be your personal hostess for the evening. What can I get for you?”
“Bring me the bottle of your most expensive cognac.” He doesn’t look at her because his eyes are now piercing my soul. A cold shudder goes through me, again.
“Umm, sir. That bottle is twenty thousand dollars.” Cheryl is hesitant when she says it.
Chicken stands and hands her a black card. “Yes, we know.”
She holds the black card in her hand for a moment, and I nod at her to take it and go. Even though we cater to mostly celebrities and sports figures in our club, people who order twenty-thousand-dollar bottles are in the VIP rooms, not downstairs mingling with the “common folk.”
“So, tell me, who is he to you?” he presses with a smug look on his face.
I’ve seen that look before on countless men. Men who thought they had all the answers.
“He’s my boss,” I repeat, as I straighten in my seat and cross my long legs. A man who is facing in my direction
from the bar gives me a nod. I nod back, licking my lips tantalizingly at him.
“You fucked him, didn’t you? You fucked him, and he didn’t want you. He fucked you good, in more ways than one, and then kicked you out of his bed, just like the whore that you are.”
My head spins around as if I were Linda Blair from The Exorcist—all I need is the pea soup.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I’m immediately out of my chair, standing with my hands on my hips.
He laughs at me as if I was a child misbehaving. “Sit. I have the utmost respect for you. You know what you are, not many people know who they really are. For that, I commend you. So, sit.”
“I’m not a whore, you goddamn bastard,” I snarl.
He tilts his head to the side. “Oh? You sit and look at him like you’re a wounded puppy. But just as quickly, you flirt with that man.” He tips his chin in the direction of the man I licked my lips at a few moments ago. “Now, stop the nonsense. I happen to like whores; my mother was one.”
What the hell is with this man? How am I no longer insulted by him calling me a whore? I should run, as far and as fast as my legs can carry me, away from him. But as if I was a moth being drawn to a flame, I take a seat again.
“Since we’re in the name calling business, shouldn’t I know what to call you?”
“Hmm, let’s see. Not sure if you have earned it,” he muses.
I cross my arms over my breasts and bite the bottom of my lip. I practiced biting my lip in the mirror when I was younger, long ago figuring out just the thing to make men putty in my hands. “Hmm, well, let me see. Since I haven’t earned your name, I will just call you… Bastard.”
He throws his head back in laughter. “Well, that wouldn’t be the first or the last time someone has called me that. Besides, I am a bastard in so many different ways that you would never know. But out of all the names I’ve been called, this one seems the most, yet the least, appropriate.”
“Huh?” What the hell kind of riddle is he talking? This man is all over the place with conversation, and I just can’t keep up.