Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Pfeiffer
A week has passed and every single night of that has been owned by Velvet.
By day, I make sure my father is up and about, eating, showering, working his part time job at the hardware store.
By night, I belong to an exclusive member’s club.
Vivienne has been assigning me host duties every shift, which is one source of relief.
I’m not a natural service provider, so it’s taken me a while to pick it up.
Everything I’ve learned since high school has equipped me to assess a person’s physical and mental form before inserting a needle into their skin, not to carry out dark web background checks before offering champagne.
The other source of relief comes from having not seen Il Diavolo since that first night.
Hallie said it’s normal to not see him for days at a time, but that doesn’t completely sedate the butterflies fluttering deep in my stomach at the prospect of him walking through the curtain. Especially since they’re not the kind of butterflies I like—they’re borne of fear, not excitement.
Unfortunately, I still feel as though I’m being watched—every second of every shift. The gazes trail after me, weighing heavily when my back is turned.
Some look away quickly, but others don’t try to hide the fact they’re staring. They don’t seem to care that it makes the hairs on my arms rise and my stomach turn. It’s like they all know who I am, and their curiosity has zapped them of common decency.
While I’ve taken over the hosting duties this past week, Hallie has been serving customers elsewhere in the club. I don’t know exactly where ‘elsewhere’ is but it sounds even more exclusive than the main lounge, and now that I’ve gotten over my initial nerves, I’m curious.
Two more couples enter and I sit them at tables then arrange drinks before returning to the podium, just as Hallie emerges from a heavy curtain with a tray of empty glasses. She sees me smile and heads over after setting the tray down on the bar.
“Where are you working tonight?” I ask.
She glances side to side discreetly then leans in. “I’m serving drinks in the VIP lounge out back.”
“There’s a VIP lounge? I thought this whole place was one giant VIP lounge.”
“Well…” she says, quietly. “It’s for a different kind of VIP.”
I reduce my words to a whisper. “What kind of VIP?”
Hallie lifts her mouth toward my ear. “Remember when I told you the brothers have other… jobs?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well… The VIP lounge is for business meetings.”
I draw back slowly, a small frown dipping my brow. By ‘business,’ I’m guessing she means ‘criminal.’
“What else goes on here?” I ask, slightly afraid of the answer. “Masked rendezvous, business meetings… What is this place? Really?”
“All kinds of stuff,” she says with a shrug. “It’s a mafia-owned club, Fi, you knew that. This room…” she gestures toward the lounge we’re standing in,” is probably the most conventional part of Velvet.”
My eyes widen as I take in the scant outfits and masks again. “Really?”
“Yeah,” she says, breezily. “This is just a small part of the club. There’s the VIP lounge, another floor above this where private shows take place…”
“Private shows?” My voice climbs a little higher with each new revelation.
“Yeah, dancing, burlesque, sex shows, peep shows, voyeurism stuff.”
She lists them off as though she’s checking items off a grocery list while I’m pretty sure my appetite has taken a leave of absence.
“There’s a basement where the gambling takes place, there’s a whole ton of suites on the eighteenth floor where guests go, to… well, enjoy each other.”
She winks conspiratorially while I focus on not choking.
“And Il Diavolo and Remo live on the twentieth floor—the penthouses.”
“Right.” I file the information away in a mental box labelled ‘None Of My Business,’ which, judging by the way my pulse jumps, is exactly where my brain stores the things it's most interested in.
“What about the other two brothers?”
She arches a brow. “They’re in Hunts Point. They’re way too cool for Manhattan.”
I chew the side of my lip, trying to take it all in.
“Right. So, the mafia thing… Are they Di Santo’s?”
She blinks once. “No. They work with the Di Santo’s. They’re pretty tight too.”
“Wait. If they’re not Di Santo’s, what are they?”
“Bellucci’s,” she says simply.
“Bellucci’s?”
Why does that name make the hairs on the back of my neck bristle?
“Do you…” I swallow, nervously. “Do you know Il Diavolo’s real name?”
She leans in and keeps her voice down. “Yes. It’s Fiero. But don’t let anyone ever hear you say it.”
Fiero Bellucci.
A strange chill ghosts across my shoulders. My body recognizes something, even if my mind doesn’t.
“Yeah. Came up from Jersey,” Hallie continues. “But they’re tight with the Di Santo’s. And more ruthless by all accounts.”
New Jersey? My pulse softens. I don’t know anyone from New Jersey, I reassure myself. The name just sounds familiar, that’s all.
“More ruthless? What do you mean? How can anyone be more ruthless than the Di Santo’s?”
I still shudder at some of the stories my father told me growing up.
It wasn’t the Mayor who cleaned up New York City—it was Gianni Di Santo and his men.
They mowed every other criminal organization to the ground—every fall adding a brick to their Long Island castle.
Now, even the Feds are on their payroll.
Furthermore, when the Di Santo’s razed the city, a lot of the gangs were pushed south, into New Jersey and Philadelphia, where they continued to wreak havoc on the cold, gray streets. Were the Bellucci’s one of those gangs?
“The Di Santo’s rule New York,” Hallie says, like it’s something I don’t know. “But with that responsibility comes reputation. There’s only so much blood they want to spill in public. The Bellucci’s on the other hand…”
She bends even closer to my ear.
“They’re low profile, and they use it to their advantage.”
My eyes narrow as I face her again.
“Put it this way,” she whispers. “I wouldn’t stick around if anyone were to dig up the parking lot.”
“Wh-what?”
Hallie doesn’t respond with anything but an arched brow, but she doesn’t need to.
“For real?”
“You didn’t hear it from me.” She turns to leave but I stop her again.
“Can I ask you one more thing?”
“Sure, but quick. I need to get back.”
I swallow, nerves crawling up my throat. “Am I ever going to get out of here?”
She tips her head slightly. “What do you mean?”
“I’m here because my uncle owes the Di Santo’s. I’m paying off his debt.”
“How much?”
“A hundred thousand dollars.”
She sucks a breath in through her teeth, then releases it with a tight sigh.
“You want to know how long you’ll have to work here for?”
I bite my bottom lip and nod.
“Let’s see…” she taps her fingers against her chin. “A typical shift pays about a hundred bucks. You can probably earn up to four hundred bucks a night tips. So, say you made five hundred a night, one hundred thousand divided by five hundred…”
She lowers her hand, looking pleased with herself.
“Two hundred.”
I stare at her dumbly. “Two hundred what?”
“Nights,” she shrugs. “Shifts. Two hundred shifts.”
I swallow a sob before it can work its way out of my throat.
“But… not considering the one or two nights off each week I’ve been promised, that’s basically a year.”
“I guess.”
“But… I’m a nurse. I’m not a good host, or waitress, or bar maid. I’m just not cut out for it.”
Her eyes widen in alarm. “You’re doing great! And Il Diavolo wouldn’t have hired you if he didn’t think you’d be good at the job.”
“He didn’t exactly ‘hire’ me,” I mumble.
“Whatever you think he did or didn’t do, no one steps foot in this place unless they’re the best. You were lucky. Most of us have to go through rigorous interviews, auditions, you name it.”
She gives me an exaggerated wink then returns to the VIP suite leaving my brain to whir in her wake.
I don’t care what she says. I am not lucky. I didn’t choose this job, and I’m only stuck here doing it because my uncle is a complete idiot.
I hate that I’m here because of him when I should be at home caring for my father—the entire reason I gave up a career doing what I loved.
Then again, I should have expected this.
This is just how my life goes. Whenever something good is about to happen for me, even if that’s having the opportunity to spend time with my father while we can still make memories together, a metaphorical sledgehammer always drops into my plans and shatters them to pieces.
Growing up without a mom always made me feel…
different. I was literally the only person I knew who’d never had that mother figure in their life.
Dad did the best he could but he stayed resolutely single, so I had to teach myself a lot of the things that teenage girls needed to know.
Thankfully, I had some sympathetic teachers, so when I got my first period, I at least knew what it was.
It happened late. In high school. I’d barely had time to master the art of using tampons when my uncle—
The memory floods me with ice.
I was thirteen when he first put his hands on me.
Each time he did, he spread them further.
He took everything from me—my pride, my dignity, my safety. He never took it all the way, but he broke into my personal space and violated me repeatedly, over years.
And so I blocked it all out. I barely remember anything.
I’ve read that therapy can help to bring some of it back, but I don’t want to go down that road. I don’t want to remember any of the things my uncle did to me or the life that fit around it, forever tainted by what I now know was abuse.
Just the thought of it makes me want to shrink into the carpet.
It didn’t stop me from dating men when I moved to Boston, but my relationships never lasted. I’ve been accused of being frigid and closed off, which I guess I am. I can’t help it. I just wish someone would take a chance on me, give me time to warm up to them and be gentle.
I’m checking through what’s clearly an illegal database of information about one particular customer when I hear my name being called from behind the bar.
I close the screen and walk over to where José, the bartender, is shaking a cocktail mixer with one hand while steadily pouring a double measure of something amber with the other.
“Hey.” He jerks his chin. “Would you mind taking this to table nine? Kirsten’s gone to the restroom and Hallie’s out back.”
“Sure.” I look around to locate table nine but it’s empty. “But, there’s no one sitting there.”
José arches a brow. “He’s on his way. And if his whiskey isn’t there before him, there’s a chance I might lose my job, so…”
“Okay,” I rush out. “No problem.”
He places the whiskey and two beers on a tray and jerks his head again, signaling the urgency.
I carry the tray of drinks to the back of the room and place them on the table.
While I’m hinged at the hips, carefully placing the glasses on black coasters, a hot current winds down my spine.
My breath stills and I straighten as gracefully as I can before turning around to see the source of the heat on my back.
Il Diavolo is standing so close to me I have to bend backward to take in his face. Not that there’s much point to it—all I see is the horned mask with a pair of blown pupils beneath it.
I can’t help letting my gaze slide lower, over a clenched jaw, shaved skin, broad unapologetic shoulders and a chest hardened with tension beneath a custom-fitted suit.
A throat clears making my gaze ping back to the mask, and I realize I’ve been doing exactly what Hallie told me not to do. I’ve been staring. Again.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Glancing away, I step to the side to let him pass.
He pulls out a chair and sits, then two other men appear, each watching me through their masks with an air of amusement on their lips. When I turn back to the table, his mask tilts up slightly until I’m sure he’s looking directly at me, and I can’t stop myself from peering back.
His hand moves, wrapping around the glass. He doesn’t break eye contact as he lifts it. Full lips touch the tumbler and the heavy crystal glistens in the low light, amber swirling as he takes a deep pull. Still watching me.
Heat flares low in my stomach and I grip the tray to stop my fingers shaking.
Silence lingers all around us—even the lounge seems to have quietened. But the silence isn’t empty. It’s heavy and charged, vibrating with tension.
I give my head a small shake to rid it of illusion.
Of course the place is charged tonight. Il Diavolo himself is gracing the club with his presence.
And that’s exactly how it feels. Groups seem to part for him, eyes are drawn his way from every corner of the room, women’s laughter grows more musical, bartenders tremble over getting the right drink on the right table at the right time.
My chest tightens and I take a step back.
His eyes follow me.
I wish I could see them properly, as colors and expressions, and not as darkened orbs beneath a film of decadence. Then, in contrast to the depth and intensity of his stare, he turns his head, dismissing me without a word. Not even a thank you.
Feeling dejected, I turn, gripping the tray, and walk back to the bar. I don’t stop until I’ve reached it and have something to hold onto. It’s only then I realize I’m breathing too fast and too hard, like I’ve been running.
I press a hand briefly to my chest, trying to calm down.
I don’t feel the heat on my back anymore and my heart sinks, not because he’s no longer watching me, but because I have a feeling he’s seen everything he needed to.
And he doesn’t like what he’s found.