Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
P erched as inconspicuously as I can on a stool at the bar, I keep the tailored jacket on, straighten the short black leather skirt and snap the cream silk blouse tight before I call the barman over. I chose from my wardrobe carefully, to dress myself like a smart secretary, out for some illicit thrills.
Yes, guys are watching. Yes, a lot of them. Some stare, some watch out of the corners off their eyes. But none of the slinky, glittered-up dancers are going to worry. I won’t compete with them for the attention of this crowd of hard-knuckled men.
So, no, I don’t care about some men’s eyes glinting in my direction.
Red, purple and blue lights sweep and pulse through the smoky air, thick with the waft of beer, sweat, and testosterone. Dirty music, heavy with bass and leer, pumps on the sound system. Girls wearing mostly glitter and sheer nylon grind and shimmy on the bar tops and against the chrome poles.
Some dancers are gymnastic. They scale the poles and spin, gripping on with only their thighs. Hanging upside down, arms spreading, they hump their asses and their pussies on the poles.
Most girls, though, twerk and grind and sling glaring come-on signals around the bikers and truckers in the big, low-ceilinged room. They wag their asses, flick their hips and shake their pussies. It gets the job done.
A girl in a dancer’s costume is almost slumped, sad-eyed on the stool next to mine. She’s obviously not having a great night and she looks like she’s trying to just take a breather.
A shabby biker eyes the girl. She shrinks, dipping her head and angling her shoulder up against him. The biker has a look of menace as he crowds around her. He grunts something and laughs. She shakes her head, hard, like a lost puppy that’s been hosed.
He puts a hand, low down on her back. That’s forbidden. The club has a strict no-touching rule. The biker doesn’t look like he cares too much for rules.
She tries to shrug him off. But he’s not planning on going anywhere.
He leans in and grunts something in her ear. She shrugs and shakes like she’s been attacked by bugs.
“Leave me alone,” she says through her gritted teeth. Her eyes flit around the room.
I recognise that look. She doesn’t want to make a fuss and she doesn’t want any trouble. But she really doesn’t want the biker’s rancid breath in her face or his clammy paws all over her.
She’s a dancer. Maybe turns some tricks, too. I don’t know her story and I’m not going to judge her for any of that. She’s still got a right to her space. She still has the right to say, ‘no.’
He laughs as he stands up.
Without turning or getting up off my stool, I put a hand up and tell him, “She said, ‘No.’ Do you understand?”
He turns. Slow. His eyes rake over my legs and my tight skirt, then up, over the soft white silk blouse.
In a deep drawl, he tells me, “I’ll get to you. Wait your turn.”
He’s starting to turn back and his sloppy grin widens as he raises his hand to the dancer
“English, motherfucker,” I grab his ear lobe. “Do you speak it?”
I twist my grip hard as I stand and move close. Too close for him to get a swing. Pain from his earlobe and surprise will only confuse him for a fraction of a second.
He howls as I wrench his earlobe. Trying to turn, he pivots back. Rage reddens in his eyes as I step closer.
I pull his face near. “Are you deaf?” I snarl at him, “She said ‘no.’ Understand?”
I yank and twist his ear hard. He raises a huge hand to swat me away.
Perfect. I seize his thumb. His hand is about the diameter of my arm. It takes all my strength and focus to turn his thumb back, but I keep my face relaxed as I twist. Twisting his thumb makes his elbow turn across his body.
While his arm turns awkwardly, I use all the weight I can to shove hard into his forearm, stressing all the joints in his arm and wrist the wrong way.
I love this kind of physicality way too much. Using leverage, turning the big biker’s strength and weight against him gives me a buzz. Especially alongside the danger.
There’s a sick part deep down inside of me that would love to be overcome. And all of what would follow that.
But this brute doesn’t stand a chance. He won’t get the better of me. His strength and weight could flatten me like a bug, but his mind is too slow to adapt.
His imagination and his frail, macho ego can’t cope with a woman dominating him physically. He has no responses for it.
His eyes flicker, baffled as they bulge from the pain as I bend his thumb back harder. He would be ready for my metal barstool across his ribs, or w whiskey bottle to his temples. Even a kick in the balls. But a twisted thumb is like he’s being insulted in a foreign language.
It’s outside his repertoire. Speed and surprise, and the unexpected are what I’m using to compensate for his strength and bulk. There’s nothing I can do about my size and weight, but I train in the skills the Israeli IDF and Mossad use and Brazilian martial arts, as well as all-out street fighting.
His wrist is strong. I whack the soft pressure point in the vulnerable part of his forearm to make it give. The wet crunch inside gives me a thrill that I should not enjoy. But I do.
Quickly, I yank his arm upward and behind his back, turning his wrist, hard.
With a yelp, he bends forward, howling as I stretch his hand up, high in the air. He lumbers, awkward like a stiff-legged bull.
Poor man lacks flexibility. He could obviously benefit from doing some yoga.
Erin, the huge security guard in a uniform black tux, comes barging through the swelling crowd of onlookers. He appears with a burly colleague, Joel, in his wake.
The biker lets out a rasping snarl as I haul his arm higher.
I snap my fingers high above my head as I tell him, “I hope you have good medical insurance.”
Passing the hand toward Erin, I tell him, “Here. Take out the trash.”
The three men as they rumble through the crowd. Noise and commotion follow them into the shadows and out the back. A few faces turn to stare at me. And the girl is staring.
She’s beautiful, in a lost-waif kind of a way. If I was into women, would she be my type?
The barman finally slides across to pour his lip-smacking gaze over me.
I tell him, “Cognac. Napoleon five star, not the stuff you have on the back shelf.”
He smirks. “What you see is what we have, ma’am.” His nostrils flare as he tilts his chin up.
He doesn’t know who I am.
I shake my head before I grab his neck through his collar and drag his head toward me. His eyes flash and burn. A sneer twists his top lip and his nostrils flare wide. With my other hand, I surprise him with a sharp whack on the back of his head. His face slams down into the bar, nose first.
“Do not try to fuck with me.” I yank his head up by his hair. He’s heavy. And strong.
And, yes, everybody’s still watching. And, no, I still don’t give a fuck. As soon as I let go of the barman, he hurries to fetch the bottle.
I tell him, “Pour it in a sparkling clean snifter.”
He reaches up for a big brandy balloon and he gives it a fast but thorough polish before he pours a large measure for me. While he does, I look across to see Erin nod to me as he returns, dusting his sleeves.
I beckon him. Erin gives me a slight grin that rekindles a small fire in my core as he arrives in a smart, no-nonsense rush. At least he still knows who I am.
“Erin,” I tell him, “Help this sorry excuse for a hospitality worker up to Stephano’s office.” I point at a leather shoulder bag on the shelf under the register. “And bring his satchel.”
While Erin steps behind the bar and noisily collects the barman, using a little more force than is absolutely necessary, I turn back to the girl.
She’s staring, wide-eyed with her chin almost on her heaving and very inviting chest. “Watch my drink and wait for me here,” I tell her. She nods. “I won’t be long.”
Erin has the barman held by the back off his neck, so his feet are pattering, barely on the floor. I follow them up the narrow stairs, at Stephano’s office door, I tell Erin, “Don’t knock. Just stand aside.”
I burst the door open.
Stephano’s voice roars out. “What the…”
He’s a big man, and hot-tempered. A bobble-haired dancer is on her knees, sucking on his cock like there might be gold up his ass. His fingers and tongue are dripping with the juice of a brunette who’s leaned back against his desk. In his free hand, he’s waving a fat cigar.
He’s spitting with rage. Until he recognizes me. Then he turns his usual shit-eating grin back on, as he slides back into his regular role as the ever-dependable, loyal-to-the-end candidate for team player of the year.
“Lucia,” he tilts his head as he stretches his lips back over his big teeth. “Awkward moment,” he flutters, trying to stuff his pathetic birthday-cake-candle cock back into his pants as I hustle Erin and the barman inside. “It’s always a pleasure, to receive you, though.”
I show the girls a thumb and flick my chin.
Both of the girls slink quickly out and away with flutters of admiration fangirling at me as they go. They slam the door shut behind them. A sparkling cloud of giggles follows them as they flit back down the stairs. Their heels click, hurrying down the steps.
I look in Stephano’s eyes as I take the barkeeper from Erin, grabbing him by the long hair on the back of the head. I slam his forehead into the big desk. It leaves blood on Stephano’s paperwork. The mark that was already red above his eyebrows is a bleeding gravestone now.
I tell Stephano, “I watched this preening scrotum chisel two of the girls.”
Stephano says nothing. He keeps his face still. “Presumably he’s been doing it to all of them.” Stephano still doesn’t react. Even when I say, “He’s been filching the good spirits, too.”
In the big chair behind the desk, Stephano’s look is more puzzled than anything else. Seeing men confused when I take command of them is nothing new.
That’s something I love about my three princes. We play at the jostle of command between us, and we play hard. But outside the bedroom, or wherever the arena for fucking happens to be, I’m in charge and they all know it.
Already bored, I tell the barman, “Get out. Run. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.” He reaches to Erin for his satchel. I raise a finger.
“No. What’s in there is what you squeezed from the girls. Probably some more besides that doesn’t belong to you.” But then I move to stand in front of the door. “Erin, what does this streak of snot and piss know about security and protocol here?”
“Nothing, Donna.”
Yeah. Erin is a good guy. A pro. I can almost feel him tense up, though.
“Still,” I look into the yawning terror behind the barman’s face. “Putting the arm on the girls. I wonder what else you forced out of them.” His lip quivers. “Or into them.”
I step to one side as I pull the short bladed knife from behind my hip and swing it fast into the side of his neck.
I pull the blade out and stand back from the dark red gush that arcs high and sprays wide.
His eyes stretch wide as I tell him, “Must have forgot who you were working for.”
He crumples to the side into a twitching pile like a sack of dirty laundry. My eyes are on Stephano.
“He didn’t recognize me downstairs.” I tilt my head, “That seemed odd.”
A flush of alarm rims his eyes and he looks more baffled than ever.
“So. Either you had no clue what he was getting up to, or he kicked up to you, and you swallowed what he gave you.”
His eyes dart around the room.
“Because none of it reached us, did it, Stephano?” I look deep into his eyes. He’s trying to figure out which lie to tell me. What line he thinks I would be most likely to fall for.
“Which is the better option, Stephano?” I lean over the desk at him. “Either you’re no good at your job, or you were shafting us. Which would you have me believe?”
While he thinks it over, I wipe my blade on the barman and inspect the edge before I sheath it.
“Erin, I didn’t bring you in here to watch the show, either.“His eyes shut briefly as he makes a small nod.
Flat-handed, I drive a side punch into Erin’s kidney. It’s fast and deep. I know it will hurt like hell. Almost any other man would have buckled. Erin does not let out a sound. You can hardly even see it in his face.
“You’ve been taking from drug dealers and letting them pitch in here.”
He looks down.
“You need to bring me an envelope, Erin. Personally.” He doesn’t move or make a sound. “Twenty-five. I’ll give you til Friday.”
He nods. A little line of sweat beads at his hairline. The pain must be excruciating. My guess is that he was working under Stephano’s instructions.
“Friday,” I repeat as I stand aside from the door.
He hands me the barman’s satchel and presses his lips together. Then he looks quickly in my eye. Erin leaves without a word. I know he’ll seek me out with an envelope, and he’ll bring at least thirty.
A good man, and a pro.
I close the door. Now it’s just me and Stephano.