Chapter 36
Damien
“Say it,” Diego says the moment I get off the elevator.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snap.
“Since when do you get your own coffee?” he asks, nodding down at the steaming cup in my hand.
“Since I decided my personal assistant isn’t my servant,” I answer as we make our way to my office. Well, I am going to my office; he is following me as he does.
“And I repeat, go ahead and say it,” he grins. “You’re spending time with her outside of the office. You’ve hung out with the kid. You’re going on coffee dates with her in the morning instead of having her bring your coffee to the office.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I ask. “Maybe I like the walk. I own the fucking place, so I should probably be a little more present.”
“You pay people to be fucking present,” he scoffs. “Just say it.”
I never tell people when they’re right. For one, they’re not usually right, so I don’t have to worry about it. But I’d be lying through my teeth if I said I’m not getting soft over here. And Diego can always tell when I’m lying. The bastard.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, rounding my desk to sit down. “She’s different.”
“There it is,” he grins. “Dalton owes me so much money.”
“Tell me you’re not betting money on my personal life, Diego,” I mutter.
“Oh, we so fucking are. Nobody believed me when I said you were catching feelings. It’s unheard of. But I know you. And you, my man, caught it and bad.” Diego claps his hands together in satisfaction. I’m about to clap a hand across his face.
“Is there a reason you’re in my office other than to give me shit and maybe get your ass kicked?” I snap.
“Sadly, yes,” he sighs, sitting down in the chair across from me. He smirks as he shoots a text, to Dalton no doubt, and then tucks his phone away before losing the cocky smile. That would be both a good and a bad thing. “We lost another dancer,” he says, and I nearly flip the table over.
“The fuck?! When? To who?” But it’s not like I need to ask. Dylan is obviously behind it. Though he knows better than to come around my club again. Which means he has an inside source. Fuck.
“The Diamond Back,” he says and then he nods at my phone. I look it up, and sure enough, it’s a place. “It opens in a week from my understanding. Fucking walking distance from the Opal Room.”
“This isn’t a bar crawl,” I growl. “Gentlemen’s clubs aren’t for the college kids and the tourists.”
“No, but people also don’t hate having two options.”
I scroll through the website. The interior is similar to the Opal Room but flashier. Cheaper. Very Dylan Decker.
“The only question now is how is he snaking the girls out? I doubt he can pay more than us. And our high rollers are going to betray us,” I say as I click my fingers on the desktop.
“I mean, my first thought is word of mouth. All these girls, regardless of where they work, know each other. Maybe they’re talking each other into it,” he suggests.
“Still. Without regulars, there’s no way they’ll make the same out of the gate as they do here. Some of these girls bank close to a thousand a night.”
“Sign on bonus?” he asks, and I shake my head. Then it hits me, and it hits him too at the same time because Diego says it out loud.
“Blackmail.”
Fuck. That has to be it. And it would go for our top clients too.
Someone is frequenting the Opal Room, someone with access to the Velvet Lounge, who is threatening to exploit them.
One of the girls who left is a preschool teacher.
Another is a therapist. Two of the clients who left are married, and their wives think they’re at a steakhouse watching the Raiders games.
If they knew where they really were…their lives would be dust.
“So all we need to do,” I say. “Is figure out who is blackmailing them and forcing them out.”
“Oh, is that all?” he asks sarcastically, and I scowl.
I know most of the people who go in and out of my hotels and the Opal Room, but I can’t vet everyone.
That would be impossible. And knowing Decker, he’s got some low crawling connections.
It could literally be a rando off the street that he offered a nice chunk of change to and then threatened to get lost.
Diego’s phone buzzes again, and he stands up. “Well, I gotta run, but if you think of anyone or anything, let me know. It can’t last. He can’t win.”
No, he cannot. Still. I’m irritated that I am no closer to the solution than I was before.
“Somebody looks like they need a drink,” Jocelyn’s voice pours into the room the moment Diego steps out.
“It’s eight in the morning,” I say.
“And that’s stopped you when?” she asks.
“Fair,” I walk over to the cabinet and pull out a bottle of whiskey. Then I pour a shot into two glasses.
“You got any good news for me?” I ask. “About Decker.”
“Yes and no,” she answers.
“How can it be yes and no?” I ask, popping a couple of ice cubes in her glass.
“I have news. But I don’t think it’s news you want to hear.”
I turn around with narrowed eyes and hold the glass in her direction. “Try me.”
She takes the glass from me and swirls it in her hand. “I didn’t find anyone specifically working for Decker in an attempt to dethrone you.”
Okay, well the no part of that answer is definitely disappointing.
“But?” I ask.
“But…I did unveil an interesting little piece of information you might be concerned about.” I want her to go on, and because Jocelyn is Jocelyn, she draws it out. “Dylan Decker…is Ellie’s ex-boyfriend.”
At first, the words don’t quite register. Because what the fuck?
“Where the hell did you hear that?”
“Everywhere,” she says. “He used to work with her at the Suerte. That is until he derailed her career by cheating on her with the secretary and basically gaslighting her out of her position.”
I struggle at first to wrap my brain around it.
But unfortunately, the dots connect. The night we hooked up six years ago, it was Decker she was talking to at the bar.
I told Decker to leave. Decker that caused the spilled drink and her tears.
She even said it herself. She was fresh out of a relationship gone wrong.
A relationship that cost her her career. Her career at Suerte.
“Fuck,” I mutter as Jocelyn sips on her drink.
“Yeah. You know…it almost makes me wonder…” she goes on, slowly pacing the floor like a caged tiger. “Do you think…? Well, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here.”
“Think what?” I demand.
Jocelyn is quiet, then she clicks her tongue. “Do you think it’s possible…that she’s working for him?”
“What the fuck do you mean?” I shout.
“Maybe…she’s the snake.”
“Impossible,” I say.
“Is it though? I mean…Ellie has access to all of your hotels. She talks to security every morning. The baristas, every morning. And when you take her to the Opal Room–”
“She stays within an arm’s reach of me at all times, per the contract,” I cut her off.
“Except when she’s in the bathroom. The same bathroom the girls use.”
I still haven’t taken a sip of my whiskey yet. I’m too busy wrapping my brain around it all.
“Listen,” she says, dragging a hand from my biceps down to my elbow. “I’m not saying she is, but…it makes sense. Doesn’t it? It would be a pretty wild coincidence.”
She’s not wrong. But at the same time, I don’t want to believe it.
And yet the walls of my heart know better. My rationality knows better. I’ve never been one to romanticize anything. I’ve never given anyone the benefit of the doubt. Nothing else makes sense. It tracks perfectly.
I toss back the whiskey neat and slam the glass on the counter. Meanwhile, Jocelyn knows well enough to see herself out. It’s a miracle I didn’t chuck the glass at the fucking wall.
I don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to think it. But it makes sense. In fact, it’s the only fucking thing that makes any goddamned sense.
Ellie is the snake.
And what’s worse? She snaked her way into my heart too.