CHAPTER TWO #3
Axel: Collectively, you and your sidekicks accomplish one person’s job. Ryker and I do the rest.
As the slight appears on my phone, I stroll into The Corpse Reviver Cabaret.
The lights are up for rehearsal, but the smoky jazz-club feel is ever present.
Velvet booths and table lamps. Historical photographs, detailing our nostalgia—music legends and covert meetings.
The grandeur and depravity we were founded on.
My Noire domain is entertainment and employee satisfaction, though I focus on the former, and Maddox handles the bulk of the latter.
Maddox: Scorned! That is a gross exaggeration, Papa Axe.
Axel: What is the last work-related task you did today, Mad?
A chuckle escapes me as I sidle up to the manager to knock out a business matter, despite the suggestion that I don’t work. “Are the understudies good to go?”
“Yeah.” He sighs, clearly exhausted. “We’re managing. I still have a handful out sick, but I shifted a few numbers around to accommodate.”
“We aren’t full this week. Cut a couple of shows, have the front desk alert the changes to the guests, and give your crew time to rest and rehearse.”
His relief is immediate, and that’s what makes Axel’s dig true.
Our staff frets far more about letting us and the guests down than I do, so my job is easy.
That’s primarily because we’ve worked hard to create that employee culture.
Even so, we’re all hands-on owners, but Axel and Ryker deal with members’ drama.
Since our clientele is Mafias, dirty politicians, assassins, and secret societies, that drama is plentiful.
Maddox, Jax, and I recognize that, but fucking with them is too satisfying.
I make myself comfortable at the owners’ table to enjoy the show—onstage and via text.
Maddox: Today is not the best example because Cash has us on this horse chase. I’m trying to hold the reins and impregnate my wife. Multitasking in the saddle is a tight fit this morning, if you know what I mean. *eggplant emoji*
Tessa: That is exactly how I planned to share that news with the fam.
Maddox: I got you, baby girl.
Axel: Was the emoji necessary for that explanation?
Jax: Some people are visual learners, Papa Axe.
Mercy: Ooh, Zara and Axel need to try. We can all have babies the same age.
Maddox: What will we tell the children? Grandpa Axe and his wife, Granny Zara (who is younger than Daddy but also his stepmom and his sister-in-law) had a baby, so you should call their kid … sister, cousin, auntie? I’m at a loss.
Axel: I think we’ll tell the children that Uncle Maddox moved.
Zara: Let’s retire the stepmom joke and refrain from calling me Granny. But you see Axe and me having a girl?
Tessa: I picked up on that too.
Jax: Sounds chaotic. I thrive in the uncle role though. The more, the merrier.
As much as I relish their mayhem, I really did have a point to make.
Me: No one is thriving at anything in this chat. None of you will shut up long enough for me to tell you what I’m trying to tell you.
Zara: You love her.
Me: Exaggerating is apparently a theme today.
She’s gorgeous and as feisty as a firecracker, but I spent half an hour with her.
I’m eager to collect a finder’s fee and I’d like to see more of her …
from every angle. A multitasking tight fit, if you know what I mean.
And then we’ll call it a win. No emoji needed.
Even as I boil it down to my insane attraction, there’s a protest brewing inside me. But that makes less sense than the horse chase. I open the email from Knox again to find pictures and information about the stunning thief, and I’m instantly transported to that night.
Sylvie Palmer was fascinating—sharp and witty, talented and gorgeous. Icy and audacious. She likes to have the upper hand. I can’t wait to blow her mind when she realizes she didn’t get the last word.
Zara: But she robbed you blind.
Me: We’ve been over this. I have full control over my sight, and I left her presence with everything I’d arrived with. Don’t embellish my story because you were hired to off your husband.
When sleight of hand is not an option to throw people off, deflection works wonders.
Zara: That’s not exactly how our story goes.
Me: Did you or did you not kick his ass?
Zara: I did.
She’s undoubtedly beaming with that response.
Axel: That’s not exactly how the story goes either, darling.
Me: That darling was venomous. Watch your tone, old man.
Maddox: I bore witness and have footage of the ass-kicking, if we need to revisit it.
Jax: You didn’t leave with everything, Cash. No name. No number. And a big fat goose.
Jax: She took your balls.
This motherfucker. I’d volley his smart-ass quip, but if I go toe to toe with him now, this conversation will never end. And I have my sights set on a more exciting destination.
Me: My balls are doing just fine. They’re elated to go to San Francisco tomorrow. She’s got dinner reservations at 9:30. Who’s joining me?
Axel: Will she be on a date?
Me: Not for long.
Maddox: Stalker-style. I’m in.
And just like that, six more confirmations ping through.