3. Pearce
PEARCE
“What up, Dro?” I nodded at the bouncer standing at the door of my father’s strip club.
“What up, homie?” we smacked palms, and he moved his large frame to the side, so I could enter.
When it came to my father’s establishment, I never had to pay a cover charge, and I never got searched.
I had to hand it to my father. He had some of the baddest chicks in the state working at his club.
Women traveled from all kinds of places for a chance to have a spot at his club.
Even on slower nights when it wasn’t packed, most of the dancers could walk away with a decent amount of money because the men that frequented the club weren’t broke ass corner boys.
The cover charge alone was enough to make cheap men or broke ones turn around at the door.
I headed straight for the bar while nodding at every stripper that greeted me.
I was one of the ones that didn’t stalk or harass them.
None of the women had to worry about me touching them or trying to have sex with them even though a lot of them wanted to take it there with me.
A nigga was handsome, and not only did I have money, but my father did too.
It wasn’t my character to judge a woman because she chose to dance, but I had a lady, and I wasn’t on that type of time.
I visited the club no more than once a week.
Seeing topless women was so normal for me, it didn’t even make my dick hard anymore, unless there was a particularly bad one that I watched do her thing.
Every employee there knew me. The bartenders made my drinks strong, and the cooks always piled extra food on my takeout tray.
The wings at the club were top-tier, and so were the shrimp, and the chicken sandwiches.
At that point, I damn near went to the club for the food more than I went to see the women.
“Hey, Pearce.” The bartender, Rajel smiled at me.
She was engaged to a heavy hitter in the drug game, so she was polite but never flirtatious or thirsty.
Her man was heavily connected, and she respected him at all times while she was at work.
He came in so often, that most of the regular patrons knew to leave her ass alone because even when they didn’t see him, that nigga was liable to pop out like Candyman.
“What’s up? Let me get Azul. A double shot.”
“Coming right up.”
If I ordered a double shot, she was going to give me at least three.
I didn’t plan on staying long, so when I finished my drink, I was going to order my food.
While I waited on my drink, I turned on the barstool and observed my surroundings.
A stripper that went by the stage name, Adore was getting ready to grace the stage.
She was sexy as hell and though she wasn’t overly thick, her body was tone and littered with colorful tattoos which looked like works of art on her body.
Maybe it was because she was fairly new, but she was one of the ones that if I watched for too long, my mans would definitely stand at attention.
Even though I knew that, I still watched.
The way she rolled her body before squatting with her hands on her knees and moved her body to the rhythm of the song playing had me in a trance.
Standing, she turned her back to the crowd and sauntered to the pole on the stage.
Adore wrapped one hand around the pole and circled it slowly before placing her other hand on the pole and climbing to the top.
She wrapped her legs around it and let her upper body fall back, so she was pretty much upside down.
When Adore grabbed the pole with both hands and slid down landing on the stage in a full split, I removed a bank roll from my pocket. One thing I respected was the hustle.
Shorty did more than twerk and gyrate on the pole, she put in effort while putting on a show.
Standing, I peeled off two ten-dollar bills and twenty singles.
While she performed, I tossed the bills onto the stage.
I was contemplating throwing more when the song ended.
One of the bouncers collected her money off the stage while I watched her hips sway as she walked away.
“You looking real good tonight, daddy,” one of the strippers whose name I didn’t remember touched my arm and gave me a seductive glance.
“I appreciate that.” My eyes roamed the length of her frame. Her body was right and tight for sure.
“I see you in here quite a bit. Yet, you always leave alone. Maybe we can fix that tonight.”
I was used to bold women. That comment may have shocked anyone else, but she was actually a little soft with it. I’d had other women tell me exactly what they would do to me if we did leave together.
“I always leave alone because I go home to my shorty,” I told her with a small smirk. “I’m sure you understand that.”
Shorty’s brows hiked a bit, and I could tell she didn’t know if she was impressed or offended. “Sure,’ she stated slowly like she wasn’t sure at all.
I chuckled as she walked off, and I went back to the bar.
With the way she looked, I was sure she wasn’t used to rejection.
I could tell her full lips weren’t natural because they had a rubbery look to them like they hurt, and I hated that shit.
Despite all the makeup caked on her face, I could tell she had very light skin.
Her nose was sharp, and she had straight stark white teeth.
Her D cups sat up perfectly, and that ass was sitting right.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she could have her way with most men. However, I wasn’t most men.
I opened my eyes as Tasha entered the bedroom dressed in denim jeans, a fitted black tee, and black sneakers.
Her work outfits were always simple. Tasha’s uncle had five daughters, and he realized just how expensive it was for women to keep themselves up.
He dead ass invested in a beauty supply store and an all-black nail salon.
Women spent a fortune on hair, nails, and makeup, and he wanted in on the industry.
Dude was a straight up millionaire. A pocket watcher might see Tasha working behind the counter at the store and assume she was broke, but her uncle paid her a nice ass salary.
His oldest daughter ran the beauty supply store, and his youngest daughter ran the nail shop.
He was working with another one of his daughters to open a spa.
Tasha saw that I was awake, and she smiled at me. “I almost woke you up to get a quickie before I left.”
Sucking my teeth I narrowed my eyes at her. “You be on straight bullshit. You could have done that for sure. You ain’t talking ‘bout nothing.” My dick was brick, and the idea of her bouncing on it before she left for work sounded amazing.
With a laugh, she turned toward the mirror and inspected herself. “I’m for real, but I hit the snooze button one too many times. We know that even your quickies aren’t quick,” she winked at me which I saw in the mirror.
“You ain’t gotta gas me shorty,” I stood up and stretched.
Hungrily, Tasha eyed me through the glass and licked her lips. “Damn. He is standing at attention though.”
“Fuck outta here,” I chuckled walking toward the bathroom. “Let my joint go down in peace.”
After asking Tasha to move in with me, I began to get cold feet just a bit, but sharing a home with a woman hadn’t been bad at all.
She worked, and she had a social life. It wasn’t like she was always at home or always in my space.
We meshed well together. When Tasha was done in the bedroom, she walked into the bathroom and kissed my cheek as I brushed my teeth.
“I get off at five. I’ll see you whenever you get in.”
“Good shit,” I gave a curt nod.
When I was done in the bathroom, I heard a buzzing sound coming from inside the nightstand.
I had placed the burner phone inside. As I predicted, going to places that Pauly’s son frequented and giving women free samples of heroin had been genius.
In less than thirty minutes, Dominick was approaching me and asking me to cop some.
I gave him a decent amount and the number to the burner phone.
As pure and uncut as the heroin was, he called hours later wanting more.
That nigga was a certified dog food shooter for real.
I didn’t want to keep going back and forth, so I added a little rat poison to the next batch.
It was kind of cruel, but I didn’t become a hit man by being a law-abiding citizen who possessed a conscience.
Sliding the drawer out, I grabbed the phone and flipped it open. I saw one word: Done.
Staring at the message, I sighed. It had been ten hours since I gave Dominick the doctored heroin.
I wondered how long he’d been dead and how long it took someone to find him.
He lived in a nice area. He drove a nice car.
He was the son of a mob affiliate, and he had died shooting heroin into his veins.
That was proof that addiction didn’t discriminate.
For some reason, Dominick’s death was bothering me.
A minute later, I was still holding the phone staring at the screen.
Fuck. Maybe it was because his father had been the one to order the hit.
That made me think of my own father. I had to go meet his ass at his office in two hours.
We saw one another maybe three times a month.
When I was younger, I thought my father was addicted to making money and while that was true, he didn’t spend as much time working as I thought he did.
He had been in the drug game for so long that he didn’t have to touch any of the product.
He had people in place that ran his empire like a well-oiled machine.
The businesses that he did run was something he started to launder his drug money through.
Even with the legal businesses, my father spent more time chasing pussy and enjoying the fruits of his labor than he did actually working.