She’d come to me too young and too broken. I don’t know if she found me because I was the lesser of two evils or because I felt familiar. There were a lot of different ethnicities and cultures at work in the Point. A lot of different voices and accents, a lot of variations of skin color, but we were all hiding and looking for something more than we had, wherever it was we originated from, so I always wondered if Bayla sought me out because I felt like a piece of home.
Prostitution was technically legal where I was from, as legal as the sex trade can ever be. However, vices and carnal desire always make man more monster than anything else, and in a place that was always in need of more money to fund a war and feed more terror, something as simple as selling sex legally turns ugly really fast. Bad men buy young girls and force them to work. That money then ends up in the hands of extremists, and girls too young to know what is happening to them are ruined forever.
Bayla suffered in silence as she was sold to a human trafficker and eventually landed on the streets of the Point. She was still in the hands of bad men and still having to do horrible things at an age when most girls are just learning to drive, but she survived. She made it, and when Novak finally went down and I moved in to take over all of his girls, she came to me first. My plan was to let them all go out on their own and be able to handle their money, but much to my surprise, they needed me. They needed the threat of my name and reputation to keep them safe out there on the streets, and Bayla was the first young woman to sign herself up for the partnership.
I never wanted to be responsible for the well-being of anyone else, never wanted that kind of responsibility, but the old adage that sex sells is very true, and ultimately I couldn’t walk away from that kind of money. It was shocking how much it mattered to me that girls got taken care of, that they got paid for services rendered, that they had the final say in what they would or wouldn’t do. I wanted them safe regardless of where their paychecks came from, so when any of them came to me after being knocked around or with a complaint about an uncooperative client, it made me furious. Far more furious than any of the men that tried to screw me over or take me down on any given day.
Grumbling under my breath about how complicated every single situation I got myself into always seemed to be, whether it was by my own making or someone else’s, I pulled my phone out of my pocket as it started to vibrate.
Chuck’s number flashed across the screen and I swiped to answer it while climbing up the stairs in the opposite direction of where everything inside me wanted to go. She was here. She was in my home. I had finally tasted her, inhaled her, and welcomed her. I felt like I could breathe again after suffocating for months without her.
“You have a name for me?” Forgetting to put champagne on the shelf might seem like such a simple, insignificant screw-up to most. To me it was almost unforgivable.
When someone was offered a chance, given the opportunity to be part of my business, they needed to shine. I was not a second-chance kind of man.
“Yeah. I looked at the tapes. It was a kid. One of the new barbacks. Took the cases in the cooler and got distracted by a pretty girl. You have a bunch of them wandering around that club and they aren’t wearing very much.”
“That’s no excuse.” I pushed my hand through my hair and headed off toward the bathroom attached to the master.
Chuck laughed drily. “I kind of figured you would say that, boss.”
“Have him in my office in the morning.”
“He’s really just a kid, Nassir. The punishment needs to fit the crime.”
I popped the button on my pants and reached in to crank the shower on as hot as it would go. Sometimes I thought if the water was hot enough, it would finally make me clean. So far there had never been enough heat. I was still just as dirty and tainted as I had always been.
“You suddenly questioning my methods?”
It was really, really quiet for a long time. So long I thought that maybe Chuck had hung up on me. I knew sometimes what I did was too extreme for him, that sometimes I reminded him of Novak, and it turned his stomach. To stay on top in a place like the Point, you had to leave an impression, even if it was just on a silly kid that got distracted by a nice ass in a short skirt. That was the next generation coming up to run these streets, and I would be damned if they weren’t molded by my own hand and my experience.
I wouldn’t force my vision on them. I would never ask them to fight my fight. I would never ask them to believe in anything that didn’t matter to them, but I would teach them to be careful. I would teach them to watch themselves. I would teach them to identify a threat and to react accordingly. I would teach them how to survive the same way I had learned to survive.
“I might’ve questioned you before your girl came back, but now that she’s here, I doubt you’ll be as fucking unhinged as you’ve been. I had no idea Key was your own personal Jiminy Cricket.”
I had no clue what he was talking about and I told him as much. He laughed again and filled me in over his chuckling.
“It’s an old cartoon about a boy that isn’t real but is given life because his creator loves him. He has a magical cricket that is his conscience and tries to show the boy right from wrong, guides him into making good choices. I had no idea that all these years Keelyn was the thing that was keeping you tethered to being a real boy. Without her around, you became something else, wooden and inhuman.”
Even with her around I was something else. I had never been given a chance at being a real anything other than a killer, but with Key in my life, I could at least fake it, temper it down and pretend to be more man than monster wearing a muzzle and a leash.
“It’s good for everyone that she’s back, but I still want the kid in my office in the morning.”
“I’ll have him there. By the way, I went into the cooler because I know those shelves were installed right.”
I shucked my pants off as the room got steamy and flattened my hand across the bruise that Key had touched. I could feel that touch like it was branded into my skin. That was what happened when I had to earn something instead of just taking it and possessing it: the reward lingered. The payoff was so much bigger. The victory hard won and ultimately that much more satisfying.
“What was wrong with them?”
“The top braces were unscrewed from the front section. They have these rubber stoppers on them to keep them from sliding across the metal of the walk-in, and those were missing. When you set the second case on the shelf, the weight was too much and it tipped the entire rack forward. You’re really lucky you didn’t get crushed. Those bitches are heavy.”
I frowned into the mirror. “How does something like that happen?”
Chuck cleared his throat. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t happen by accident but there were too many people in and out of that cooler to tell if one person was in there longer than another.”
I frowned, not liking the implication he was laying out for me. “You think someone deliberately took the stoppers and wanted the shelves to fall?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“But how would they know I was the one that would walk into the cooler to move the champagne from the floor?”
“What if it wasn’t meant for you, boss?”
“Someone messing with the club?” I swore and let my head fall forward so that I could rub the suddenly tense muscles at the back of my neck.
“It wouldn’t be the first time, now, would it?” Chuck’s voice was laced with sarcasm. My last club had been burned to a crisp, taking several customers with it, because a madman was hell-bent on destroying the Point and had known exactly where to hit. My clubs were the heartbeat of this city and the way I gave the masses the ability to chase all their dirty dragons was the lifeblood.
“Have your security guys keep an eye out. Let them know everyone is to be on high alert as we head into opening day.”
“You got it. How did things go with having your girl home?”
“Fine, but I don’t
think Bayla is a fan of the current situation. She questioned me and she knows better.”
He let out a low whistle. “That might get interesting.”
I grunted. “It will not. Bayla works for me, nothing more. Keelyn is everything, so there will be no reason for anything to get interesting.”
“We’ll see about that. I’ll see ya in the a.m., boss.”
I hung up the phone and tossed it on the vanity so I could climb under the blistering spray of the shower. Since I was going to bed alone, I figured I might as well take care of the still-throbbing erection I had courtesy of that frantic make-out session in the kitchen. The only thing that was going to get interesting was all the different ways I was going to take Key when she finally came around.
He really was just a kid. Probably no older than twenty or twenty-one, but he walked into my office with enough swagger and self-assurance to choke a horse. He was chatting with Chuck about some game that had been on TV last night and didn’t seem to pick up on the tension wafting off the big man or the irritation that I was sure was leaking from me.
He caught sight of me watching him from behind my desk and his friendly grin kicked up a notch as he moved toward me like an eager puppy. This was a kid that was used to getting by in life on his looks and his affable personality, and if he had been smarter he would’ve reminded me of Race. As it was, he had no clue what he was doing in my office or why I had summoned him.
He reached out a hand as he approached, his words coming out too fast as he moved.
“Hey, it’s nice to finally meet you, man, I’m Tyler. I’m so stoked that I passed the background check and got the job. This club is so dope and the girls!” His eyes got huge as I reached for his outstretched hand. “The talent is off the charts.”
I leaned forward and pulled on his hand a little so that he had to come closer to the edge of the desk. He gasped out a shocked little noise as I started to squeeze the palm clasped in my own.
“Tyler, is it?” He nodded jerkily as I continued to squeeze. He tried to subtly pull away from me, but I just hauled him closer, making him hit the edge of the desk until he grunted in pain. He put his free hand on the glass surface and tried to tug backward, but I had him and I wasn’t letting go. “Did you leave two cases of very expensive champagne on the cooler floor yesterday during your shift?”
His eyes got even wider in his now flushed face and he was panting in earnest. He shook his head back and forth in the negative almost comically. He was panicking for real and I couldn’t blame him.
I knew if I applied just a little bit more pressure, bones would start to snap. I squeezed just a fraction tighter until I heard a distinct pop as bone dislocated.
“Funny because I have video footage of you doing exactly that because you were distracted by—what did you call it, the talent? Do you think I keep people around that don’t respect my business or my money, Tyler?”
I squeezed again and another knuckle slid out of place. The kid was straight up crying and turning purple. If it was up to me I would keep going. I would break all his fingers and kick his sloppy, snotty ass out to the curb, but Chuck was watching me carefully, so I stopped. I let go of the kid’s hand and sat back in my chair while he fell to his knees on the other side of my desk.
“I should fire you, but my associate seems to think you can learn from your mistake. What do you say, Tyler, are you ever going to be so careless with my product again?”
The kid cradled his hand against his chest and behind his watery gaze I saw a flash of something that looked oddly familiar. Hatred.
He was humiliated and furious about it.
“No. No, I won’t make that kind of mistake again, sir.”
I nodded and indicated his hand with a wave of my own. “I don’t have to tell you that a handshake is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how I handle disappointment with my employees.”
The kid gulped. “No, sir.”
“Good. Now get out of my office.” He clambered to his feet and rushed away from me, toward Chuck, and disappeared into the elevator.
Chuck shook his head at me and turned to follow the kid out. “You’ll never be a real boy.”
I rolled my eyes at him. Of course I wouldn’t.
Chapter 7
Keelyn
“You need to give it life.”
I had no idea what Nassir meant by those words until the club opened its doors a day after I returned to the Point. I thought I was going to throw on something outrageously sexy, slick down my newly unmistakable hair, gloss on some ruby-red lipstick, wear the highest heels I could find, and mingle with the crowd. I was sadly mistaken.
I was used to selling sex to customers that knew they were going home alone. It was an entirely different ball game when the customers knew that every fantasy, every desire they had, was within reach. The air vibrated with anticipation and the waves of excitement that poured off the eager men and women as they entered the club were enough to drown in. I still had my doubts about Nassir’s system of locks and keys, but he had a small army of security staff mingling unobtrusively among the clubgoers and the hired help. It was an anything-goes atmosphere, but the men in black suits wired up with headsets and sporting sharp-eyed stares reminded even the most outrageous customer that there were still rules that needed to be obeyed.
For the first hour I was unsure what to do with myself. I was stunned by how normal and how average most of the people that had forked over so much money to be a member of this exclusive club appeared to be. I was equally stunned by the number of couples that were milling about in the crowd. I threaded my way around the bodies, some dressed like they had just come from the office and some dressed a hundred times more scandalously than I was. I stopped to talk to a few young men that recognized me from my stripping days, told them no when they asked if I would be available for any “extra services” the club offered, and said a quick hello to a couple of girls I recognized from Spanky’s that were now working here. I stopped to ask them how it all came about and was surprised when they told me Nassir made it happen. They didn’t want to strip anymore, didn’t want to be naked onstage, so he set them up in the lavish bar and told them they had a place in his juggernaut of sex and industry as long as they wanted one.
Pondering this new insight into the man who was forever surprising me, I made my way to the bar and asked the very cute bartender to pour me a shot of tequila. Drinking at the old Spanky’s had been a terrible idea. The customers there were already handsy and grabby, so keeping your wits about you was a must. Here everyone seemed relatively well behaved and so excited to finally be inside the doors that no one was even really paying attention to me, so I figured a little liquid fortification wouldn’t hurt anybody. I tossed the liquor back and hissed out a breath around the burn. I caught the eye of a pretty young woman standing next to me at the bar who was watching me closely. I lifted an eyebrow at her and signaled for another shot.
“Can I help you?”
She was attractive in a really unassuming way. Her blond hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, her eyes covered in chic and stylish eyeglass frames, and her outfit was obviously expensive, though it looked like it would be more appropriate in a five-star restaurant than a sex club, but her shoes—oh, I’d recognize those shiny black stilettos with their unmistakable red soles anywhere. The lady had excellent taste in footwear.
She lowered her eyes behind her glasses and I saw her blush. She lifted her fingers and fidgeted with the gold key that was hanging from her neck. She looked about as uncomfortable as any woman alone in this kind of establishment could look.
“No. I don’t think anyone can help me. I’m not even really sure what I’m doing here.” She lifted her gaze back up to me and shrugged.
I frowned a little and pushed the shot that was in front of me down to her. “Try that. It might help.”
She looked at the shot glass then up to me. A half grin pulled at her lips. “Thanks, but I would choke on it and look ri
diculous. That’s why I was watching you. I was in awe of how effortlessly sexy you seem to be. You look like you were made to be part of this place. I feel so out of my element.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment, but considering I stood to make a lot of money off of this club, money that I was determined to put back into the community in some way, I was going to choose to take it as one.
“What are you doing here, then? I know how much it costs to get your hand on that little key hanging around your neck, so obviously you want to be here.”
She picked up the shot and tossed it back. It did make her cough and turn red. I bit back a laugh as I reached out to pat her on the back. Once she got some air back in her lungs, she looked at me through watery eyes and explained, “I have a very high-stress job and I work a million hours a week. I’m not really looking for a relationship or anything serious. I just wanted to go somewhere I could have fun, let go of the control a little. I thought this place was the perfect fit, but once I got here, the idea of forking over hard-earned cash for someone to put me over their knee and spank me seemed so cheap and silly.” She sighed. “It’s just ridiculous.”
I let my gaze slide down from the top of her head to the tips of those fabulous shoes. If ever there was a lesson to be learned about not judging a book by its cover, this was it. I clicked my tongue at her and leaned a little closer so that I could lower my voice when I talked into her ear.
“You should never feel cheap or guilty for wanting what you want. You should be proud and not afraid to ask for it. Look around you.” I indicated the packed club. “All these people are here for the same reason as you. And who says you have to pay for it? You’re cute, you have great taste in shoes, and I bet we can find you a guy that would be more than happy to give you what you need at no extra cost.”