21. Zayn
CHAPTER 21
ZAYN
I woke up to the harsh glare of late-morning light slanting through my bedroom window. My shirt was a crumpled mess on the floor, and my pants were just as bad. I’d come home, stripped, and fallen face-first onto my pillow. My clothes and I were a testament to last night’s chaos. I felt hungover as I stumbled to the bathroom, wincing when I saw my bloodshot eyes in the mirror.
“Fuck,” I groaned, rubbing my hands over my face, not able to rub away the images of Isla’s naked body as she moved under me. “ Fuck !” Turning on the shower, I stripped off my boxers and stood under the jet spray until I felt semi-human again.
With a towel wrapped around my waist, I poured a cup of black coffee, the bitter warmth doing little to chase away the lingering taste of Isla on my tongue. Good fucking god, who the hell taught her how to use her mouth like that?
I wanted to punch him.
I wanted to shake his hand.
No…fuck that. I really wanted to kill him.
“Focus,” I scolded myself. I had deals to close, contracts to sign, shipments to verify…Rye to handle. I needed to get dressed and go to work. I knew that, and I didn’t move as I replayed the night’s event over and over.
The game between Isla and me was control. A game that I now knew was a dangerous dance in which I had thought I was in command. I’d expected to toy with her, nothing more.
But when she opened her door in that towel after the way she’d leaned into me in the club, everything unraveled. Isla had come at me with a fire I couldn’t resist. In the quiet moments after she fell asleep, I’d realized I’d allowed a crack in my armor. It was subtle, probably imperceptible to anyone who wasn’t me, but the truth was that I knew it was there.
I wasn’t completely untouchable, not where she was concerned.
It had been one night, and I already knew she made me vulnerable.
I hadn’t been weak since I was seventeen years old.
Fuck .
I forced myself to focus. The hum of Elixir’s operations below me and the steady buzzing of my phone reminded me the world was ignorant of my internal strife. Picking up my phone, I scanned the message from Rye confirming our most recent delivery of speakers had arrived. I sucked my teeth as I checked the paperwork he’d sent for a delivery we never received.
I went to toss the phone when he messaged again.
Are you getting your ass out of bed? Or should I say Wells’ bed?
Jealous?
Of having those legs wrapped around me? Maybe…
Don’t be a dick
I’d sent it before I thought. “Ah fuck.” The phone buzzed, and I ignored it, going to the closet and getting ready for the day.
Black pants, black shirt, black waistcoat. I grabbed the suit jacket, ran my hands through my still damp hair, and headed down to the club. I exhaled, trying to shove her out of my head.
I built my empire from scratch. It depended on precision and discipline, and distractions were a liability. I knew that. What I didn’t seem to be able to stop was seeing her every time I closed my eyes. Those defiant hazel eyes and the way she fought against being controlled. The look in her eye as she sucked my cock, knowing in that moment, she had me in her complete control.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I pushed the office door open and should’ve known my best friend was already at my desk.
“If you’re offering?” Rye piped up as I closed the door behind me. He looked me over once and then went back to the laptop. “You look…messy.”
I felt messy. I felt…uncontrolled.
“I told you that you didn’t want to dip into that,” he murmured, his voice heavy with disapproval.
I took the seat opposite him, saying nothing as I opened the chilled bottle of water he’d left for me. I drank half the bottle down.
“What do we have today?” It was no use hiding anything; he knew me as well as I knew myself.
“We have a meeting with a new vodka rep for the strip club in Chicago,” he told me, saying nothing more about Isla. He’d said his “I told you so,” and we moved on. “Angelo is pressing for the distribution thing we talked about last night?—”
“He only proposed it last night,” I snapped. “Why the fuck is he pushing?”
Rye looked up, grinning. “Why is the pusher pushing?” he mocked lightly. “Gee, I dunno, Zayn, maybe because his boss is a fucking drug dealer.”
“Oh, fuck off.” I stood up, turning my attention to the security monitors. I made a “carry on” gesture. “What else?”
“All booths are booked tonight,” he carried on smoothly. “Some big players in three of the booths. We need to be on hand to be seen and to serve.”
I nodded. “Of course.” Checking my watch, I rolled my head. “The lower-level club ready for tonight’s fight?”
“Yeah, the needs-to-know know it’s invite only.”
“Good.” I flicked through my phone, reading a text Rye had sent earlier. I looked up at him, seeing him failing to hide his smile. “No.” I fixed him with a deadly glare, and the bastard started cackling. “Fuck you, I’m not going to have a fucking meeting with Danielle Castor at the strip club she almost burned to the ground!”
“You should have given her a raise,” he told me, leaning back in his chair. “She was very put out.”
“You should have kept your dick in your pants and your nose out of her supplier’s coke.” When I tossed my phone at him, he caught it. “How the hell did she get a brewery rep job?”
“She knows how to sell a product,” he said with a wistful sigh.
“Yeah, you’re three years clean, remember that,” I scolded him. “I’m not going through another rehab shit show with you.” I headed to the door. “Cancel that fucking meeting,” I snapped over my shoulder. “I don’t give a fuck what she offers as an incentive. Tell them to go fuck themselves.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Rye quipped behind me, not in the least put out at my reference to his past drug habits. “Hey, Zayn!”
Halfway out the door, I looked back at him. “What?”
He batted his eyelashes at me. “You know you would go through it with me again.”
“Fuck you.” I closed the door on his gleeful laugh. Truth was, I would. He just didn’t need to rub my face in it. Dick .
Heading down the stairs to the lower club, I steeled myself for the night ahead. Business wasn’t going to wait for me to catch up. Control was my currency, and I controlled everything in the empire I had built.
I grew up in Gracemont, but I left when I was seventeen. I didn’t graduate from high school because I was uninterested in what was taught there. I got my education on the streets, and I got a better offer than clocking in daily to a school that held no appeal for me. My dad left my mom, moved to New York, and took me with him for one reason only; he knew I was making money as a street fighter. He also knew I was good because I always kept a cool head.
I knew when to win and when to take a dive. Illegal fighting didn’t give a shit if you bet on yourself. I always bet on myself, win or lose. When I knew I was to lose the fight, I made sure I didn’t place the bet. They might not care, but they also didn’t want to be insulted. I was careful.
Everything was a game.
The winners were the ones who earned the most. Not every winner was the one who won the fight. Very quickly, I was earning more than my handlers were. I had an eye for a good deal. I didn’t get emotionally involved. Taking a dive didn’t fuck with my pride. My eyes were on the prize, and that prize was the fat envelope of cash at the end of the night.
My dad decided to reinvent himself as a realtor. I watched and learned. He and Mom got back together, and in that time, I learned how to flip houses. I bought shitholes, did a quick renovation, and charged an extortionate rent, and I was making more than I ever did in the fight clubs.
It was where I first started laundering money for people who knew I was good at business.
But money laundering needs a cash business, and nothing was more dependent on cash than bars and clubs. I dipped my toes into the nightlife scene with strip clubs. But they came with too many risks. The girls could bring messy problems, the patrons even worse, and they were watched constantly by the cops.
I recognized Julian purely by chance as he exited a high-rise office in Chicago. After some careful surveillance, I learned he was an architect, and through my own machinations, I set up a “coincidental” run-in with him at an art gallery. The owner “sold” paintings that never existed, but it had receipts and legit paperwork that was hard to disprove.
I also had a few connections at city hall who let me know when buildings were going up for auction. I bought them, flipped them with Julian’s help, and sold or rented them. My connections needed their money cleaned, and it was only in the last three or four years that I turned to nightclubs.
The trick was to make it the best. Make it desirable. Offer what no one else was. Exclusivity always came at a price.
Which was where Rye came in. He’d been my “on the ground” man for the strip clubs, and despite his kicked coke habit, he knew how to throw a party.
On paper, I was a legitimate businessman with many varied investments.
Luxure was still one of the top-end clubs in Chicago. Elixir was its sister club. Set outside the scrutiny that came with being in the city, Elixir was proving to be everything I knew it could be. My clients had continued service with more freedom.
I just needed to ensure I was controlling the flow. My sideline, for my own entertainment, was being the middleman in negotiations . I was as calm and collected as I always had been, and they all trusted me with their secrets.
Information was right up there with control. You controlled the information, you controlled it all.
In the circles that mattered, I was still as crooked as they were. They knew me. They’d watched me grow. They respected my discretion, and in return, I was granted access to their inner sanctums—the whispered deals in dim back rooms, the unspoken agreements sealed with a nod and a handshake. I was their confidant, their partner in crime, even if they didn’t fully understand it.
Every secret I uncovered and every supposedly silent conversation I overheard only increased my value. In a world where loyalty was as fleeting as the flicker of a streetlamp and truth was often more dangerous than a lie, knowledge was my most potent weapon. I reveled in that power, the delicious irony of being one of them—crooked, cunning, and ruthless—while standing apart because I coordinated it all.
That was my talent: balancing on the razor’s edge between legitimacy and the underworld, a tightrope walk that kept me one step ahead of everyone else.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My phone buzzed as I poured myself a glass of Scotch. My head was fuzzy from the short amount of sleep. I didn’t spend nights fucking women. I rarely had time to indulge, and when I did, it was an hour or two of enjoyment and then back to work. Isla had been different. I wasn’t ready to explore that as memories of her softness threatened to crowd my mind.
I read the message on my phone, scowling as the cold certainty of my empire wrapped around me once more.
Under the counter was a burner phone, and I called Rye. You could never be too careful.
“One of Mercutio’s guys fucked up a delivery,” I told him sharply.
Rye recognized my tone. “What’s needed?”
“Storage.” I waited until he finished cursing. “We need to move now. It’s not fucking with tonight’s event.”
“I’m coming down.”
I downed the Scotch and poured one for Rye. He was down a few minutes later, his temper riding him.
“How the fuck do we move this dead weight in broad daylight in Gracemont?” he hissed as he joined me at the bar, downing his Scotch in one smooth gulp like I had.
“Carefully and with minimal attention.”
He shot me a look. “I filled the freezers with ice.”
“Handy.”
His look turned to a glare. “The ice is for tonight . It’s not for crates of fucking coke or whatever the fuck they need stored.”
“Yeah, well, now it’s for today.” I cursed under my breath as I realized my car keys were still in the apartment upstairs. “I left the keys in the loft.”
“You want to take your sports car?” Rye asked skeptically.
“Yes, because I’m going to meet a new vodka rep,” I replied. We exchanged a look, unspoken understanding passing between us. “I want this done with surgical precision, not careless mistakes,” I growled, locking eyes with Rye as he prepared to leave. “We switch vehicles at the bluff. I don’t want a trace—no witnesses, no extra attention.”
Rye nodded curtly. “Understood.”
As he left, I ran through a mental checklist of how we did this with minimal fuss. The weight of the operation pressed on me, yet I felt the familiar rush of control. Moving shipments in broad daylight wasn’t exactly easy, but it was just another day in Gracemont.
I waited for the adrenaline to subside into a cold, calculated focus. Every detail mattered—every misstep could be disastrous. I was not happy. This kind of shit should be behind me. But I knew this was Angelo’s boss reminding me what he wanted and what happened when he didn’t get it.
I’d played those games when I first started out. Now? I didn’t get pressured. I’d do this out of respect for his position. I’d already decided to let the supply happen in the club, but because of this bullshit, he would wait an extra week before it did.
With a final nod to myself, I picked up my jacket and headed up the stairs to get my keys, ready to execute the plan and prove once again that control was everything.