Page 16 of Together We Burn
In general, he never bothered me much. He was a business associate, grandfathered into both of the takeovers of our respective companies, and we usually kept a decent working relationship. But watching him pretend to think about the man he’d appointed to Stefany had me using every ounce of strength not to strangle him with his tie.
“Ah, yes, Alessio Nissaney. He was an assignment given to her before you started to repay your debt. Not sure how that’s of any interest to you, though.”
I stood, buttoning my suit jacket as a coy smile crept across my face.
“You better not be sending Stefany after Emilia’s business partners,” I said, looking up to meet Will’s cold, dark eyes. He was the king sitting in his castle and didn’t like to be questioned by his subjects. Placing my palms on his desk, I leaned over, articulating every word in admonition. “Because if something or someone were to hurt her, William…” I trailed off, letting my warning hang silently between us.
“You mean worse than the state you left her in?” he taunted. “The jobs I assign my employees are none of your concern, Mr. Weston.”
I pushed off his desk and straightened my tie.
Yeah, we’ll see about that, asshole.
Chapter six
Stevie
MylittleoutburstwhereI used Jake’s car as an outlet was cathartic. He might have tried to tell me that it wasn’t his, but I’d never forget a thing of beauty like that.
Now I was filled with an excitement I'd not felt in a while. My assignment at the Lion’s Den was the seediest strip club I’d ever been to. Not that I visited them often, but in the past, when my assignment happened to have a dedicated booth or was an exotic male dancer on one occasion, those clubs were typically much nicer than this one.
It wasn’t that the location or décor was awful; it was apparent a lot of money had gone into this place. No, it was the clientele and, sickeningly, the dancers themselves.
Girls, not women, would soon be dancing provocatively on stage in front of leering old men who did not understand the “no hands” rule that was universal in places like this.
Once those doors opened, green and blue strobe lights would litter the main stage as soft yellow downlights shone on six smaller stages lined on either side with poles attached to the ceilings as girls spun, climbed, or slid down them.
These smaller stages were a constant revolving continuation of girls, where their routines only lasted two songs before they moved on to the next stage to dance for a new group of men.
Only two main acts would perform on the main stage, one song each, at thirty-minute intervals. Several private dances followed this until the next time they were due on stage again. It was more exhausting to be a main stage dancer, and the tips were only marginally better, but at least you weren’t expected to prostitute yourself, unlike the poor girls on the poles.
‘Diamond Velvet’was my stripper persona, and compared to the girls I saw as I walked into the Lion’s Den, I was by far the oldest. Girls as young as sixteen held themselves upside down at nearly the top of the fifteen-foot pole.
Their faces were packed with makeup, making them look slightly older than their completely illegal age bracket. Most looked jaded as they stretched or practised the choreographed routines, and if I looked closely under all the layers of foundation and fake eyelashes, I could tell which ones were new.
Nerves, uncertainty, and fear were still fresh in their gazes, unlike the others who had their emotions beaten out of them by the man I was here to see tonight.
Benji Martinez; sex trafficker and owner of the Lion’s Den Strip Club. A club that had been open just shy of six months and had been causing quite a stir in the organised crime world.
Martinez shipped young girls under the guise of a better life and brought them here where they were to dance for or have sex with whoever he directed. Those who couldn’t climb the pole or handle being on the main stage were sold to the highest bidder, for God knows what.
Looking around at the young girls warming up for this evening’s shift made me sick. I wanted to kill Martinez now. Just slit his throat and be done with it, but I couldn’t subject the poor victims to that. They’d already seen too much.
I marched up to the bar where a boy, about eighteen, was slicing fruit. Popping my gum, I twirled my finger in the lilac wig I wore for tonight.
“I’m looking for Martinez,” I said in a high-pitched voice as I chewed incessantly. The bartender glanced up from a lime and grimaced.
“I think you’ve got the wrong place,” he said, after looking at my face. “No offence, lady, but you’re not exactly the rightfitfor here.”
Ouch,cheeky bastard. Twenty-eight wasn’t exactly ancient.
“Listen, honey,” I said with a saccharine smile, “you clearly don’t know who I am, so I’ll let you off this time. But when the guest dancer comes to you and asks for the boss, you nod and move your bitch ass to get him.”
God, this kid was really pushing my bullshit filter.
Martinez wouldn’t be in his club until the doors opened, but I couldn’t exactly walk around without making myself known. One of his lackeys would take a message and tell me to get to work without batting an eye. Better that than risk the wrath of their employer.
The bartender stabbed his knife into the chopping board, leaving it wiggling back and forth as he wiped his hands on a towel and tucked it into his back pocket. With a scowl, he went to a phone on the wall behind the bar and dialled his boss.
