2. Aus
AUS
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity-fuck fuck.
I’m late.
Again.
I take a deep breath in. Remind myself.
I wanted this. I yearned for it.
To be in charge of the Jade Sanctum, the place I’ve worked the last six years.
Now I’m the boss.
And it’s a bigger pain in the ass than I could have ever imagined.
Before, all I had to do every day was show up and do what I was told. When my boss wasn’t around, I was in charge, but all the big-picture decisions were hers. The pressure was off me.
Now it’s on, and I feel like I’m drowning.
Another deep breath in. Aus Waverly is successful, I tell myself. Aus Waverly has it fucking made.
And I do, for the most part. If you’d told me just a few years ago when I was working as a third-rate magician in Las Vegas that, by my late thirties, I’d be running one of the biggest nightclubs in Chicago, I’d have thought you were high off your damned ass.
And that’s not even the craziest part of the story.
Not by far.
I’m burying the lede leaving out the fact that I was only handed the reins of the club because the woman who used to own it ended up killing herself after her family’s decades-long organ harvesting ring was exposed.
A ring that took the lives of thousands of innocents, including my own best friend, Timothy Mann.
I swallow. Even a year after his death, I still get choked up thinking of poor Tim.
We were inseparable growing up together, but lost touch after I went to Vegas.
He later turned out to have paranoid schizophrenia which, along with a drug problem he developed and an obsessive yet unrequited love for a woman he knew, led to him homeless in an old nature reserve out west. When we reunited, he’d covered his whole body in tinfoil and aluminum cans, thinking the Illuminati and lizard people were listening in on his thoughts.
I owe Rouge Montrose that much. She got him into a rehab facility and then got him a job at the Jade Sanctum.
She had no idea we knew each other. It was the one time in my life I manipulated her into doing something I wanted.
She needed waitstaff who would work cheaply in exchange for room and board, and I suggested she reach out to the homeless population, pointing her in the direction of the reserve where I knew Tim was living.
The plan eventually backfired, of course.
Tim’s head ended up in the bed of one of her subordinates who had dared cross her, and his heart ended up in a cooler at Shinzo Life Center, the front for Rouge’s organ trafficking operation.
A human life snuffed out just like that, all to send a fucking message.
The whole story is insane. A complete and total mindfuck.
And I played a small part in it. When Bianca and Harrison explored Rouge Montrose’s clubs, the Jade Sanctum included, I took a chance. I told them about Tim, and they were able to detect a pattern based on stories they’d gathered from the other clubs. Rouge Montrose was making people disappear.
It wasn’t until later that they figured out why.
I was thrilled when I got the news that they’d taken down Rouge and her Kings—the burly linebackers she kept around to do her dirty work.
One of her right-hand men, Florian Rose, was apprehended at the hospital where he was being treated for some injuries he got on the job.
Another, Chester Tabbit, vanished without a trace after Rouge’s suicide.
I was flabbergasted when I found out what Bianca and Harrison had uncovered. I knew Rouge was trouble, but I had no idea her rot had reached such depraved depths.
I always thought she was bad. Hell, I knew she was bad. From the moment I met her during my time in Vegas, she made that clear.
But terrible people can get away with doing terrible things if they have enough money and influence, and Rouge had both in spades.
No pun intended.
I looked the other way for years. We all did. Everyone associated with her clubs knew she was up to no good. But none of us expected to learn what we did.
It’s all over now. Rouge Montrose and the bulk of her allies are in the ground, and the ownership of all her clubs went to her seconds in command.
Which meant the Jade Sanctum is mine.
It’s been nearly a year since I took over the day-to-day operations, in addition to the responsibilities I already had as the club’s DJ.
Finally, I had the chance to put to the test the theory I’d silently repeated to myself for years, that things would be different if I were in charge.
And they are. I implemented changes on day one. Reduced my staff to a handful of hardworking waiters and waitresses, kept and maintained the décor, and leaned into what made the Jade Sanctum famous in the first place—our handcrafted wine, beer, and spirits.
Now that I’ve done it for the better part of twelve months, I can say with utmost confidence…
I’m bored.
I still enjoy working as the club’s DJ in its centerpiece and namesake—a giant block of jade in the center where I program the music for the evening. My taste in music is second to none, and I’m good at reading the room as I curate the lineup for each evening.
But the new part of my job? The everyday administrative duties that come with the power?
That I could do without.
See, the Jade Sanctum was part of Rouge’s front. Her black market. A lot of the funds required for club upkeep came from the millions of dollars she made from selling nonconsenting hearts, lungs, and livers.
Once all that came to light, it was shut down immediately. But that loss of income hurt. It took a few months of tinkering with our budget before we were on steady ground, and even now we’re at most two unexpected expenses away from bankruptcy.
Luckily, we have a loyal clientele, and Bianca’s outreach efforts to bring in a younger crowd was successful for Aces Underground—Rouge’s original flagship club—and that trickled down to the secondary venues as Aces got more crowded.
Our cover isn’t exactly cheap, and since we brew all our liquor in house, we’re able to mark up our prices for drinks to make a good profit.
But still, we’ve had to tighten our belts.
I had to let go a lot of workers, and now I only have three full-time waitstaff.
There’s room in the budget for a fourth, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to hire someone to take Tim’s place in the West section.
So I didn’t. I have Leo Valori in the South, Scarlet Crowe in the North, and Jackie Carver covering both the East and the West. All three of them work for far less than what the waitstaff made when Rouge was in charge, but I do everything I can to give them enough to live on.
I gave myself a raise with my new responsibilities, but the extra money doesn’t make up for the added work. I should be making twice what I’m giving myself, but I can’t afford it. Especially since each section of the club has its own bartender as well.
I brought on a part-time accountant to help me out with some of the overhead, since—shocker!
—a guy who spent his college years mastering sleight of hand didn’t know the first thing about balancing his books, but she’s become a bit of a hassle herself.
Somehow she always seems to find room in the budget for me to pay her a hefty salary. Funny how that works out.
We’re doing okay, but like I said, we’re just a few strokes of bad luck away from complete ruin.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s even worth it.
I slam the brakes on my car as traffic comes to a complete and sudden stop on Lake Shore Drive. I look ahead. Flashing lights and sirens. An accident, probably.
I look at the time on my car’s dash again.
Fuck.
Now I’m really going to be late.