Cheater

4. Derek Steele

Although my eyes are on the security feed, my veins are being flooded by an adrenalin surge.

I track the movement of her hips, then watch the hypnotic sway of the curtain of thick, shiny dark hair that frames her face in fat curls and dances across her shoulders with every movement. My finger flexes, causing the screen to zoom in on her face. Her thick-lashed eyes are closed and it’s as if she’s part of the music as her friends surround her while she moves to the beat.

Everything falls away but her. Sounds. Images. She’s all I see right now.

I want to reach through the monitor and touch her. I want to know the sound of those silver rings looped through the series of straps above her sweet tits on her black dress, as they clang on my bedroom floor.

Something has woken up in me. Something I didn’t know had been there – dormant, perhaps.

I don’t get fixated on females; I get focused on goals. But something about her has me intrigued enough to want to know more. To want to be the one she chooses to use that hall pass on.

I’ve learned quite a few things about her in short order. That conversation I overheard paints a vivid bird’s eye view of who she is. I know why this is the first time in half a year she’s dancing. How this is the first time she’s let her hair down, using her words. And the way she said it, she loves to dance and let loose and has denied herself the pleasure. She announced she’ll dance like nobody’s watching tonight. But I’m watching. And the only reason I’m about to tear my eyes away is because I’ll be going out there and starting something. Starting something I suspect won’t move at the pace I want.

But I’ll do the calculations and decide the best way to get to my end goal. As soon as I know what that goal is. All I know right now is that I’m interested. Very.

Her eyes open. They’re light blue. So light they’re like ice on the monitor. I’m looking forward to gazing directly into them with my dark brown ones. Seeing how she responds to me. My vibe. My voice. My touch. No eye contact from her fiancé? Tired of feeling invisible? Well, I see you, Chloe. And I like what I’m seeing.

I don’t generally fuck around with club patrons. In fact, I haven’t felt the need to fuck around with anyone in a while. I wouldn’t likely linger on her this long and from multiple camera angles if not for the conversation I overheard between her and the blonde who works upstairs.

I’ve long believed things don’t happen by accident. When an opportunity presents itself, I assess moving pieces around me and determine whether they’re true opportunities or warnings. And then I’ll act, depending on the situation.

She’s the reason I’m here tonight, now, watching, readying myself. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’m about to react to this opportunity. To insert myself to become her new reason.

Looks like she’s a reason to stay in Columbus a while.

This club is on the ground floor of one of the larger office buildings in the city. It’s one of the many buildings my family owns. I own nightclubs here in Columbus along with Cincinnati and Cleveland. I divide my time between the three cities, preferring Cleveland as my home base. And that’s mostly because my family leaves me alone there. They insert themselves into my life far more often when I’m here.

My clubs are upscale, trendy. And they stay that way because I’m proactive. I calculate and then I act. I operate in business districts and near the airport of each city and my clubs are also wired for surveillance. Because the conversations picked up in bars in business districts, blue collar areas, as well as airports can be valuable for a variety of reasons, none of those reasons wholesome.

Surveillance is why I know as much as I do about Chloe. It’s not usually me that’s listening and we don’t generally listen live, but tonight was different. A staffing issue required my personal attention, so I tuned in to the bar area in order to pay attention to a bartender who’s been stealing from me and my patrons.

I had grounds to fire him within twenty minutes of paying attention. He’s fucking with the drinks and skimming cash as well as ripping off our customers. Watering down booze for some, switching shelves without charging accordingly, and diluting drinks to grog once he figures a patron is half in the bag while pocketing the difference. I’ve got audio and visual proof the greedy fuck is even screwing some customers for change. Someone half-snapped or distracted hands him a bill and he gives change for a smaller one. Saw him do it twice tonight. Once, it was missed, the second time the customer looked embarrassed when she called him out on it, probably feeling like she appeared cheap. He played it off like an innocent blunder.

I can fire him with cause. When I overheard the accusation from another staff member, I looked over the background check we ran on him when he was hired. He graduated high school in the same class as my brother Ash. This means he would know better than to fuck with anyone in my family. As my father always says, steal from a Steele and you’ll lose much more than you took.

I take theft personally.

I was just about done paying attention to the bar when the conversation happening between the brunette my eyes are on now and her friend piqued my interest. This girl was pouring the depths of her longing out to the busty blonde from upstairs who slipped me her number about a year ago. I tossed the number. A woman making a move on me isn’t something I find sexy, and I prefer not to shit where I eat.

I clued into the conversation by the tragedy and the longing, getting fully snagged when it turned sexual. And now my eyes have been on the brunette, Chloe, on the dancefloor for the length of three songs.

My phone rings, pulling my focus away.

Grace calling.

I reject the call and fire a text off to a guy I use for security and investigation services that need a little extra finesse. For background checks that need a deeper dive. Kenny lacks a typical moral code of conduct and loves money. He comes in useful from time to time.

Go deep. Subjects: Adam in Columbus. In a car accident seven months ago that resulted in paralysis. He’s in journalism. Writes for a local magazine and news website. I want a dossier on him and his fiancée. Chloe. Deep on both. Chloe: close friends with a blonde named Alannah who works somewhere in the offices above the Downtown club. Give me the basic rundown on Alannah too. Priority 1 on Chloe. P2 on Adam. P3 on Alannah. Photos coming.

He responds about two minutes later, despite the fact it’s 10:30 on a Friday night.

Deadline? More info?

I reply.

Whatever you can get in one hour via text on Chloe. The rest, by the end of tomorrow in a file. I’ll be at Downtown tomorrow night, too. Bring me dossiers directly. Contact Shep for surveillance as Chloe and Alannah are here now. Gimme five mins to give him a heads up.

I take a few snapshots of the monitor in front of me and forward them to him. One is of her dancing. One of her laughing. The third, she’s twirling.

He responds.

1 hr without a last name?

Yeah, I’m a demanding client. But I pay well.

I write back.

I’ll get you a last name. Hang tight.

As I ponder my actions and my upcoming few moves, my phone alerts me to a voicemail message.

Grace can wait.

I eyeball the monitor again and see a guy touch Chloe’s shoulder. Something foreign invades my system and I’m immediately craving violence, bolting to standing.

I forcefully shove the sensations away as I grab my handset and press the digits for my head of security, who answers on the first ring.

“Shep,” I clip into the phone.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Dance floor. Dark hair, strappy black dress dancing with that blonde from upstairs who comes here regularly. See?”

”I see them.”

“The goof talking to her in the red shirt? Show her he’s a goof who’s been hittin’ on women all night.”

“Has he?”

“Shouldn’t you know the answer to that?” I fire back.

“Don’t think he has. Think he just got here.”

“You have your orders,” I advise.

The phone is silent for a beat before Shep asks, “Reason I should know about?”

“My private eye is gonna get ahold of you for surveillance on them. Particularly the brunette, Chloe. I’m coming up behind you. Wait thirty seconds before you approach.”

“Ah,” he replies knowingly, despite the fact that this is the first time we’ve ever done this. “On it,” Shep says and hangs up.

I put the phone down and pull air into my lungs before releasing it slowly, rolling my shoulders, flexing my jaw. I tip my head to the left until my neck cracks, pocket my phone and a business card, and make my way out of the office, into the club.

I’m this pretty thing’s hall pass. No way is that honor going to the schmuck in the red shirt.

Her words, how much it sounds like she gives a shit about this guy. And more than that, the sound of the utter and complete longing in her voice? It’s lit a match in me.

Tired of boring and repetitive sex but wanting even that after not being touched in seven months? Spends all her time looking after a guy who can’t even bother to get her off when she’s spent seven months loyally looking after him? Didn’t feast on her offered pussy when it would’ve cost him just minutes of his time to keep the girl who was standing by him feeling desirable, wanted?

He doesn’t deserve it. I don’t know him, but I know if he did deserve it, he wouldn’t leave a question in her mind about how much he wants her. About how much he appreciates that she’s sticking by him.

People who don’t know me well think I’m ice-cold and unshakable.

People who know me well know I’ve got a few screws loose. I hide it pretty well otherwise. Yeah, takes a bit to rattle me but once you do… results aren’t pretty.

Me and most of my siblings are a little damaged. Rich and powerful prick of a father who clawed his way to the top through a blood bath, getting organized crime hooks embedded deep with an unstable drama queen retired supermodel of a mother who requires a whole lot of attention to keep her out of emotional spirals. My father sees what he wants, and he takes it. In life, in love. Flat out. Anyone who’s tried to steal from him has paid the price, either dished out by him or one of his kids.

We were raised by nannies under the critical eyes of busy parents who are fully focused on one another. They’ve got high standards and rules for their offspring that results in frustration from my siblings. I’m handled differently. Probably because I’m more damaged than most of my siblings. Thad excepted, though Thad is no longer anyone’s problem.

I’m probably as twisted as I am because of being abducted and held for ransom for two weeks by my child psychologist who played mind games with me as he spiraled even deeper into madness.

It was mere minutes before the deadline. No one was coming for me. He was melting down. I got my hands on his gun.

Though not sure that was all that cracked me, because why send a kid to a psychologist if he’s well-adjusted? They all say Thad was the psycho. Nobody says anything about me. They pretend everything is all right with me, except Grace, who is the youngest of the seven of us but who tries to mother us all.

I don’t trust people. I keep hookups unemotional. I don’t do emotions in general, because my default emotion is best served to make shitheads pay for their sins.

Tonight… after being a fly on the wall for that conversation and now watching this girl dance, foreign sensations have woken in me. Maybe they’re emotions.

I want to give this tight little brunette the hottest night of her life. What I’ll want after I give her that remains to be seen.

I get to the dance floor just as Shep is ready to walk the dick who’s got the nerve to touch her out of my club.