Chapter 3—Tommy #2
“Your table?” I don’t let his words slide, raising a single eyebrow.
He winces slightly, noting his mistake, before he shrugs it off. “Easier around here if the VIPs think they’re sitting at my table.”
“Wouldn’t the family name be enough to make them happy?” Dante grins, but there’s an edge to it. Another thing Carl shrugs off.
“Boys, the family ain’t down here. It’s me. People used to come for the family, but now they come for me. They know my name, and I just figured it was easier to get them in what I’d call an ‘investing mindset’ if they think they’re sitting at a table fit for a king.”
“And how are the investors?” There’s a bite to my words. We brought him in because the last manager got himself killed. Carl was just another name on the list, not someone special. But he’s been around and knows how we run things. And investors? Not his territory.
He tosses his hand in the air as if swatting at the heat. “Don’t get all focused on the words. I know you’re here because your brother worries, but there’s no need. I already made changes to this place to get us back on top.”
Dante glances at me out of the side of his eye, but I ignore it.
I never expected Carl to cop to the issues we came for, especially in front of an employee—and Dante.
Carl’s getting sloppy. Another thing to hang him for.
No one needs to know if business is bad.
We don’t talk about it, ever, but everyone knows that the Leone family doesn’t take to failure very well.
If a business starts to falter, we step in, either to tear it apart or build it back up.
This place is bleeding dry. Not much pulls the eye.
Gentlemen’s clubs are well-known in Brooklyn, so trying to make this more exclusive, beyond the fact that we own it, doesn’t seem like a possibility at the moment.
I need more time to look around and see if there’s anything here that’s enough of a spark to build upon.
Carl, unlike Dante, doesn’t seem to notice me stiffen at his words. And also unlike Dante, he keeps talking, whereas my cousin knows to ask his questions when we’re in private.
“But don’t worry, I got plans. Big ones. Great night for you to come in. We got something really special planned.”
I hold his stare for a second before I nod. The wide grin he tosses at me isn’t fooling anyone. I know he thinks he won something just now, but he just made a misstep. Majorly.
“Mallory?” Dante gestures for her to lead us to the “manager’s” table.
Carl lets her ass go after sending her off with a smack that has her jumping and her smile wobbling. “Go ahead and get started, boys. I got a few things to wrap up, and then I’ll be over to join you. You’re just in time for the main show as it is.”
I give him a chin lift, hoping he misses my clenched jaw at the way he treats his employees. I let him pass in front of me to scurry away to whatever dark corner he came from and walk to the table Dante is taking a seat at.
A table I know is meant for only Leone family. Not managers, no matter how trusted. We have one at each place we own. If they go empty, they go empty. Untouched, but for family. They are meant for us and us alone. Something Carl must have been misinformed about.
“What can I get you, sir?” Mallory asks with her smile firmly back on her face.
“I’ll take a Manhattan, and he’ll have a Boulevardier.” Dante slides a hundred-dollar bill toward her. “Keep the change, sweetie,” he says with a wink that has her all flustered. Maybe the old-lady love stories really are working for him.
“Oh, but Mr. Carl said it was on his tab.”
“Then keep it all.” Dante sits back in his seat, his wallet firmly away and the hundred resting on the table.
She bites her lip for half a second before taking the bill and doing a dip of her head before running off.
“Cute kid,” Dante mutters.
“‘Kid’ is right.” She can’t be more than eighteen, even if her makeup tries to help her appear older.
I’m not against people working; I’ve just never seen the need for a young face to be close to some of the things we do.
This might seem tame compared to other avenues we have, but with each passing glance around, I get a feeling this place ain’t all that clean.
And I’m not just talking about the sticky floors.
As we wait for whatever show Carl is talking about, we sit and watch. We sip our drinks when they come and then watch some more.
The drinks are watered down as hell, and the ingredients are wrong in both.
We say nothing.
The customers are very handsy with the staff, and not a single worker steps in to tell them off.
We say nothing.
When new girls come on the stage, there’re no stripteases, just naked girls dancing and crawling for money, doing whatever is catcalled out to them.
I note all of it.
We watch more and more people go down a dark hall and never come back. We see things being passed between open palms from one person to another after a wad of cash is exchanged. We notice Carl’s wandering eyes and hands with each girl who passes close—and very few do.
We still say nothing.
When the lights dim, the atmosphere changes. An electric charge seems to come over everyone, even Carl as he sits down at our side.
“You’re going to love this.” He nudges me, and I take that moment to scoot my chair just a hairbreadth away.
I don’t miss Dante’s smirk before my attention is pulled to the lights that flicker to illuminate the ceiling.
A single maroon silk cloth drops halfway to the ground in a flourish of red. At first, I notice nothing. Then the last ends unravel and a woman appears.
“What the…?” Dante murmurs as he strains to look closer but doesn’t move more than an inch.
Carl’s raspy chuckle filters through the silent room beyond the sensual notes that float from the speakers above. “What’d I tell ya? Something else, right?”
“Who is it?” he asks as I watch her weave up and down the silk rope in a dance without touching the ground.
Her movements are sensual, and the silk around her is seductive, but nothing beyond a leg or an arm is seen.
A flash of stomach maybe, but she’s completely covered compared to what the other performers were wearing, all of whom are no longer onstage but watching like the rest of the place. One show that draws all eyes.
“We call her the Crown Jewel.”
“Why?” Dante asks, pulling his attention from her. Something I haven’t been able to do yet.
“Because she’s the pinnacle of what you desire but can’t have.”
I nod in understanding. She is by far the best thing I’ve seen since I got here.
“Not without a price, of course.” Carl snickers, and now it’s my turn to clench my fists to keep from harming him.
Something about what he just said makes me think he offers more than a traditional lap dance.
And while the famiglia doesn’t stick to just legit shit, the idea of her, someone so clearly innocent that you can see it in one glance, being involved in something like that makes me want to burn the place to the ground just to keep her from doing anything Carl is thinking right now.
As her music fades and she does a simple move to curl herself back up into the scaffolding above that I didn’t notice till now, I ask a simple question.
“How much?”