40. Let’s bring nightmares to the monster
Sultry music vibrates against the black and red applique walls and faint light shimmers from the gilded rococo sconces. The atmosphere is relaxed yet an illicit aftertaste hangs in the air, excitement so high I could almost taste it.
We’ve been open for only two hours and all the private booths are occupied. A beautiful crowd of neatly—yet slutty—dressed people writhes in time with the rhythm on the open dancefloor, and the bar hasn’t stopped serving the sophisticated cocktails we selected for tonight.
Rouge opening night is starting with a bang.
“How is everything going?” I ask Jennie, who accepted to become the operations manager at Rouge, and supervises the bar and main floor, making sure everything runs smoothly while Andrea, Nico and I look out for Addams. He should be here any minute now.
“I couldn’t locate the metal straws we ordered, so I told the staff to not serve straws at all. One of the guests is already drunk out of his ass so he’s being served flavoured water. He was about to make a fuss, but Marco threatened to have him kicked out, and he settled.”
Jennie speaks a mile a minute, energy buzzing around her with both nervousness and trepidation. She keeps moving from foot to foot, eyes wide yet frowning when something isn’t going according to her plan.
I let her go, and smile to myself. Convincing her to join Rouge was one of the best decisions I made. She’s fierce, eager to make a name for herself and dedicated. Andrea and I were both too concerned about Misha finding out about her. If she’s part of our inner circle, we can give her better protection. She agreed to disappear into my office as soon as Addams shows up. Even if the chances of him recognising her are low, we don’t want to risk it.
I climb up to my office, finding Andrea and Nico looking out through the one-way window towards the dancefloor underneath. From here, the music is barely a whisper.
Nico turns around first, his gaze assessing, moving from head to toe. He gives me a nod once his study is done, and he finds me all in one piece, and turns back to observe the crowd underneath. He hasn’t said much since our ordeal, but despite the two bullets he took for me, he still thinks himself a failure. Since coming out of the hospital, he’s poured himself into protecting Rouge’s workers with all he has, and made it his mission to punish Addams. The doctor cleared him last week to resume his workout regimen, but he’s pushing himself even more than before.
As I observe him now, shoulders tense and body ready to strike, I hope the rumours we spread were enough to draw our target here. And I hope it’ll mean he can finally get some sleep and rest when all is said and done.
I join them and link my hand to Andrea’s.
All of West Hill congregated tonight to worship sin, and we’re the shepherds looking over them.
I spot Mayor Lewis and Jane seated at a booth with Teresa, one of our workers, in deep conversation. Teresa is a gorgeous curvy woman with cropped blonde hair, dressed tonight in the Rouge uniform, a white bustier dress falling mid-thigh, encrusted with red gems in an eccentric pattern. When a couple exits from the corridor leading to the private booths area, the three stand and enter the vault of debauchery in their stead. Andrea and I exchange a surprised and amused look.
Councillor Lenning and her girlfriend Michelle are at the bar with Councillor Evans and his wife Piper, enjoying a cocktail while swaying to the music. I doubt they’ll make full use of our facilities but they showed up, both councillors probably here only because their partner dragged them.
The show of support makes my heart skip a beat. I have found genuine friendship with the three women, Michelle, Piper and Jane. They don’t know what I went through, but after what happened with Louis, and with Andrea still battling the press to save his reputation, I shied away from the public eye. We didn’t attend any more functions. Yet, they showed up at Rouge unexpectedly, day after day, and dragged me out of the shell I built around me to go to silly brunches and sillier shopping trips.
They never pried, but they showed up.
“He’s here.” Andrea’s deathly cold voice rings like a sentence in the office room. “Show time.”
We make our way downstairs, Nico disappearing to wait for our prey in booth 13.
I’m all sweetness and ease as I shake Addams’s hand, my public persona taking over though my insides burn with hatred and a need for violence almost as deep and red as the one I felt for Louis. His casual black dress shirt and chino black pants add to the austere appearance he always sports. He looks like a blond grim reaper, but the gods of death have already sealed his fate and they’re hungrier than he is.
“Parker, it’s such a pleasure to have you here with us tonight. Came to see what our temple of iniquity is all about?” I joke, seductive and misleading.
His laugh booms between the three of us and melts into the music. “I was indeed curious, Giulia.”
He turns to my husband. His easy smile doesn’t fool anyone, the arrogance pouring out of him in waves so powerful they’d choke us if they were scented.
“Capaldi. Such a misfortunate turn of events. You were a brilliant opponent. I never believed anything the press said about you.” He doesn’t say if he’s talking about the murder charges or the reputation work we’ve been doing since.
“Indeed. I’d congratulate you already, Addams, but I’ll wait for your big night in a couple of months.”
“No hard feelings?” Addams asks with a thousand watts smile, his straight white teeth gleaming in the low light, giving him a sinister aura.
“No hard feelings.” Andrea’s smirk is darker, a promise of retribution and pain, but Addams, in his hubris, doesn’t notice.
“Wonderful. So, why don’t you take me through it, Giulia?”
Andrea’s not even on his radar anymore, discarded as unimportant.
I take him by the elbow, linking my arm through his as I show him around the main floor, from the dancefloor, to the small open booths on the walls, and the wide open bar set against a floor to ceiling mirror illuminated with red lights.
“And behind that curtain are private rooms, where anything can happen,” I say with a flutter of my lashes. I purposefully don’t say another word, hoping he will bite. “You can always ask Maggie, the woman in the white dress over there, if you have any special interests. She’s sworn to secrecy and is the only one who has the key to our guests’ desires.”
“West Hill was missing a place like this, Giulia. I’m so glad you opened one.”
Addams bends down to kiss my cheeks, his hand coming down from my elbow to my waist until it dives down to my ass in what I’m sure he intends to be a sensual caress.
It takes everything in me to control the full body shudder and knee-jerk reaction of pushing him away and beating him to death with my heels.
When I turn my head to where Andrea stands in the crowd, his darkened eyes are focused where Addams’s hands linger. His clenched fists are the only visible hint to the violence coursing through his veins.
I relax and smile at Addams before joining the love of my life and kissing him, passionately. He immediately opens for me, groaning into my mouth as our tongues tangle for dominance. With a firm hand at my throat that makes my limbs go liquid, Andrea takes over our kiss, biting my lower lip before licking the sting away.
“Don’t force me to teach you a lesson in front of everyone, guerrieritta.”
My pussy clenches around nothing at the vile promise. Maybe not on opening night but the perspective of being owned by this man in front of an audience makes me wet and compliant. His dark chuckle glides on my skin, eliciting goosebumps to rise on my flesh. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart? Such a perfect slut for your husband. But I’m not sure I could share you with so many eyes.”
I want to drag him to a dark corner and fuck his brains out, but from my peripheral, I see Addams in hushed conversation with Maggie.
He fucking took the bait.
“As much as I’d love to bounce on your cock right now, marito, we have a monster to slay first.”
“And he’ll lose the fucking hand he touched you with before the night is through,” Andrea punctuates the threat with a kiss and groping my ass in a harsh grip that has me moaning in his mouth.
“Let’s bring nightmares to the monster.”