Chapter Two - Ryurik
Where are you hiding? Scanning my eyes over the bar from the VIP section, I look down below to the sweaty writhing bodies on the dance floor, but I can’t spot the snake. Cracking my knuckles, I step back from the railing for a second to regroup.
No matter what, William Dee is a fucking dead man walking. My informant told me the man was here, but right now I feel as if I’m on some wild goose chase to find him. He’s not a hard man to recognize. He wears his hair in a slicked back ponytail, has shoulders like a linebacker, but his Play-Doh muscles built from the gym, don’t scare me. Mine are built from being a hard-core street thief along with my cousins. That’s precisely why I’m the head of all the street operations out of Chicago’s heartland. Nothing street- or narcotics-related goes unchecked by me.
“Anything?” one of my associates asks me as I oversee the next level of the club below. It’s not going to be an easy task to find him in my own club, even with security cameras, but one of my guys has already found him before me, so all I have to do is rein him in.
I crack my neck, shaking out my shaggy hair, and sucking in a deep breath, the pulse of the trance music trebling through the tight drum of my chest. “No. But I can’t have a fucking rat running around my club. I’ve got product on the floor, and if he’s here, that’s a problem I don’t care for,” I say in a soft, violent tone.
“No. The sooner you find him the better. Next level down?” my associate suggests as I nod letting my eyes cruise over the clubgoers. Thankfully, Blindside is never empty, and that’s largely because of the trade I’m in. We’re known for our premium supply of pills and coke should any of our guests want to have themselves a good time and blow off steam.
It’s a testament to how tightly I keep the Blindside ship running, vetting every single one of my staff, and taking note of all their family members right down to their dog for collateral damage purposes if need be. So far, so good. I haven’t needed to fire, warn, or lose any of them. All of them know the drill, and most of them come from a hustling background, which makes them pliable and easy to manipulate. A coup for me. Ah, I’m damn proud of the criminal family I’ve hand-picked and nurtured.
“Right. Next step,” I reply curtly, hating that this douche bag is causing a rift in my smoothly run operations.
Blindside Metro is one of Chicago’s premier super clubs with three different levels, and it’s high octane. Each level has its own DJ and genre, but apparently, judging from my target’s lack of presence, he’s not into house or trance music. I hustle down the stairs greeting my club’s drug mules—staff, delivering product all night into the VIP sections and setting up product deals for repeat customers from out of state. I’m not about to let William Dee, a bloodhound and senior Chicago detective, come in here—to my club—and steal all my snow-kissed power and thunder. Besides, he spent years soaking up kickbacks from me when it suited. Don’t bite the motherfucking hand that feeds you….
Where is the prick? I move through the throngs of people dancing with their drinks on the RnB level, keeping my eyes peeled in the process. Grim-faced, I pierce through the crowd, looking for any man over six feet tall with a long ponytail, a few leads catching my glimpse, but when I see their faces, it’s a letdown. None of them resemble William Dee.
If worst comes to worst, I can return to the security room out back and have my team visibly pick him out. One way or the other William—or Willy, as I affectionately know him—doesn’t stand a chance. My eyes are getting a workout, and I’m sick of the strain.
No need to rush. He’s not going to be leaving in a hurry. And there’s the added benefit of knowing my doormen are on the lookout and all have his description on hand in their phones. Willy Dee isn’t leaving Blindside without me knowing all about it.
Stopping at the bar, I nod at the busy bartender, and he grins, shaking a canister in his hand. “Aye, Boss. Usual?”
“Yes. Make it quick. I’m on a mission.”
The bartender slams down the canister spilling the contents out into a concave glass with a rim of salt around it. “I gotcha. Anyone I should keep a look out for?”
“Nope. I’ve got everything in hand. You just keep serving up drinks.” I smile briefly, until a mane of coffee-colored hair grabs my attention, but it’s her plentiful curves that hold my gaze in place. Not more than ten feet away from me, a group of girls are dancing, and grooving their hips in a sensual way to the soulful beats. But only this one has my eye.
Smirking, I watch as the bartender slides me my White Russian. Normally, I would take one of Ruslan’s vodka premixes, which we stock, from upstairs in my office above the club, but when I’m on the floor, and feel like it, I indulge. Besides the rich, indulgent drink matches the creamy color of the woman’s skin I’m ogling. Her skin glistens with a sheen of dance floor sweat as I prop up the bar, her ass big enough to grab a nice healthy handful of.
God, what I could do with that…. Her hair moves with her, and she’s got plenty of it, I note, her hips swaying from side to side with the beat as she bends over shaking her ass and laughing. My eyes divert to the crowd around her, and obviously they’re as obsessed as I am with watching the little show she’s putting on.
Fuck me. I want that. I take a quick sip of my White Russian as I watch the young woman in the little black lace dress talented enough to halt my search.
She’s all curves, and her heart-shaped face and full, plump mouth give me all sorts of ideas for later. Pity I’m going to have to shelve them for now as my focus drifts back to work. A flash of a ponytail catches my eye, off in the distance, behind the lady. William Dee is slipping off the dance floor to the bathroom, and being that I’m a hot-blooded man, I’m pretty sure I know an easy trap to lure him in. I’ve got all the information on Willy’s favorite type of women.
Sergei, one of my associates is in the vicinity of Willy, and I wave at him, his eyes connecting with mine like a laser from across the floor. Pulling out my phone, I send him a text.
ME: That’s him. Send Sarah with him to the velvet room. I’ll take it from there.
SERGEI: Say no more.
I finish off my White Russian, letting the coffee liqueur rest on my tongue as I wink at the girl on the dance floor. I’m going to circle back if I get a chance. This might take a long time or a short time, depending on how frisky Willy Dee’s feeling. If I were him, I’d say my prayers.
Watching carefully from the sidelines, I see one of my cage dancers, who’s been hired as entertainment, waggling her finger at William, stroking under his chin, and laughing with him for a minute. He laughs right back at her, his eyes automatically deviating to the breast implants I paid for her to get. I want all my entertainers to set the bar, and she’s not complaining. I pay her double what she’d receive anywhere else. Perfect. He’s engaged.
Snickering, I nod my head from the shadows, because I knew it. I often use Candice to lure victims should I need to. She’s fit and athletic, with thighs strengthened from pole dancing that could crush a man. She’s the perfect decoy to lure Willy Dee into his own trap, because most men can’t resist a beautiful woman, myself included.
Waiting a beat, I watch as Candice takes Willy by the arm leading him down back to one of the private rooms. She finds the split second to look over her shoulder and wink giving Sergei the go-ahead to shift through the crowd, making his way over to me.
“Hey, you ready?” he asks professionally, and I clap Sergei on the back, the bass making the floor rock as people enjoy themselves.
“I’ve never been more ready in my life. Quick, we need to make it there before she does. Come through the side.”
Walking in stride with Sergei, I tap the inside of my jacket, locating my gun, as I take a short cut to the back door of the private rooms, knowing Candice will take her time. That’s the directive we’ve given her anyway.
She follows it well, and when we enter through the back with Candice caressing Willy’s balls against the back door of the room—we have the fucker ambushed.
“William Dee. I’m so glad you could join us tonight and that you’re happy with the entertainment,” I drone, cracking my knuckles as Candice slips out from under him.
William’s jaw slackens, his eyes widening like dinner plates as Sergei backs me up, nodding his head and flashing his gun.
“Ah, aye, this doesn’t need to turn into a bad situation. I just came here to enjoy the club like everybody else.”
A dark cloud eclipses my face, the side I barely keep hidden emerging to the surface.
“The fuck you did. You didn’t come here for that, Willy. You came here to spy. Admit it,” I spit out, calling his bluff.
“Candice, you’re good—thanks,” Sergei says as I stare Willy down, coming closer to him.
Candice provides Willy with a kiss of death on his cheek and leaves. “See ya, Willy, wouldn’t wanna be ya,” she taunts with a grin, winking on the way out. Candice knows how to keep a secret, and she’ll keep all of mine, otherwise I’ll kill her too.
Cocking an eyebrow, the pressure mounts, the room temperature reaching a boiling point as we close in on Willy. Pulling my gun out, I screw on the silencer cap, Willy’s eyes growing bigger.
“No, no, you don’t want to do that. You’re going to shoot a detective in cold blood, that’s not—”
I feel the cool clarity of death run through my veins as I cock my gun. “You’ve been sniffing around for too long Willy. You should have taken the bribe I offered you a while back. We could have had a good thing going.” I snicker, looking at a scared man who’s about to meet his maker.
“That was you that sent me the bag of money?” he shrieks, his hands up in defeat as I stop. No amount of reasoning from Willy is going to do anything. I’ve already got the cleanup crew waiting on standby to take him to his grave.
“Yeah, who else did you think it would be from?” I ask him, Sergei crossing his arms as Willy turns to the door attempting to run out of it. Sergei beats him to it, using his foot as a door stopper. Me dropping the narcotics division a bag of cash every month usually shuts them up, but there always has to be some rogue-justice-seeking vigilante who wants to be seen as the one to be cleaning up the streets of Chicago.
“Where are you going so fast?” Sergei asks Willy in a low tone.
“I’m telling you; you’re not going to get away with this—” Willy Dee doesn’t get the chance to finish his last sentence. Instead, I shoot him right between the eyes. A nice clean bullet, a tiny pop, courtesy of the silencer and a click of the fingers in order for Sergei to execute the next part of the plan.
Sliding the gun back in my holster, I pivot, leaving Sergei to clean up the mess. It’s guaranteed that in the next two to three hours, a man will be sitting on the black leather couch getting his dick sucked by one of the cage girls. If they want to make extra coins outside of dancing, they can, who am I to stop them?
Now. Back to my prior plans…. I head to the washroom on the floor first making sure nobody’s in there, cleaning up the tiny speckles of blood on my jacket and off my hands before returning to the RnB floor.
Okay, the smoking hot brunette is still there, and probably looking even better under the glare of the strobe lights than before. But this time, she’s seen me. Her magnetic light caramel eyes seem to shimmer, and her captivating smile only adds to her allure. Sucking in a sharp breath, I smile back.
You might be the perfect escape for the night. Losing myself in an orgasm or five with her wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Not that I need an escape from killing Willy Dee. Some men need to die. Others, I regret killing for one reason or another. My temper can get the best of me at times, and really, I should think some things through a little more I admit, but this thick, sexy woman on the dance floor might be just the thing.
I watch her body groove like water, her hair swaying to the dirty beats of an illicit song. My dick swells inside my slacks as I stand near the railing in the same spot as before. Her girlfriends are dancing all around her, but they don’t have the same glistening halo that she does.
She’s the perfect no-strings mistake for me to bury myself in. No emotions. No harm. Just a good time for both of us, if she’s up for it.