Chapter 7
Dean
Castello di Vetro, a strip club, was under new management, according to the sign outside the front of the entrance.
I joined the others outside the club in Downtown Brooklyn and cast my eyes across the black glass exterior and flashy, oversized neon sign.
Two oversized knuckle-heads stood guard at the doors.
I rolled my shoulders and pocketed my hands. All too aware of the way the microphone wires, taped to my chest and stomach, tickled my skin. The tape itself was one heated room away from unsticking completely.
Roxy stood in front of our small gathering, adjusting her little black dress and her high ponytail as she looked the club over and lifted her chin.
“Alright, boys,” she purred. “Let’s do this.”
Walking towards the doors and the bouncers stationed at them, Roxy dialled up the sway in her hips while we followed loosely. Once she explained who we were here to see, as she felt up their biceps, the bouncers let us in.
The entrance began with a small, dimly lit foyer with a dark red carpet and black walls.
A woman in a tight pink dress with a plunging neckline stood behind a desk that ran along the entire right side of the foyer.
She was there to collect hats and coats, but seemed preoccupied with the white lines on the surface of the desk as we entered.
“This is gonna be interesting,” Seb muttered as we moved to the next door, where music pounded against it.
I hummed in agreement as I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt. It was warmer inside, and the tape was unsticking already. I casually pressed a hand to my chest, as if I was brushing away lint.
The second Roxy pushed open the door, I was hit with the familiar wave of the club scene.
This one was more sophisticated than The Den.
The room was wrapped in black mirrors, from the walls to the ceiling, and cast in a pink and blue haze of light that bounced off the scantily dressed dancers and their little stages and poles around the room.
Businessmen and preppy college boys filled the place, all ogling the women on show or showering them in cash.
Other dancers weaved through the audience, offering lap dances or leading patrons to private rooms for something more.
And then there were the aerial performers on black silk ribbons hanging from the ceiling.
One dropped down right beside Seb as we edged through the club. She was upside down, her bare legs wrapped in the thick silk and spread like a capital T as her mouth came to his ear. Whatever she whispered made his eyes pop.
“I’m good, thanks!” He hastily side-stepped her as we moved forward.
Roxy wouldn’t let us wait or get distracted, simply because she wasn’t stopping. Her eyes were set on the other side of the room. But her determination to meet with Antonio’s kids didn’t stop the other fighters with us from getting distracted.
It was optimistic to think a group of men could make it across a strip club floor without being tempted.
But somehow, we made it.
Barely.
One fighter had groped a dancer in passing, prompting her to backhand him across the face because of the no-touching-the-dancers policy. When he went to go after her, I gripped the back of his neck and shoved him back in line.
At the back of the club, where red velvet sofas lined the black mirror walls, two more bouncers stood by a silver door handle – the only indication that the mirror they guarded was a door.
Roxy spoke with them too, and then we were waved forward.
But not before both bouncers indicated they needed to check us for concealed weapons.
I clenched my jaw as I went after Roxy, hoping that the microphone wasn’t about to get me killed.
The devices whirred as they passed over my chest, back, shoulders, and legs, but neither went off, and I was free to walk through the door and into the top of an all-black stairwell. The only light was the neon blue strip of LEDs along the handrails.
We were all cast in blue as we went, single file, down the narrow stairs.
“There’s nothing more uplifting than a black stairwell, don’t you think?” Seb’s sarcastic tone echoed through the space, joining the sound of our footsteps. “I love the ambience. It’s like going on a leisurely stroll down to a torture room. Or a sex dungeon. Maybe both—"
“Shh!” Roxy hissed over her shoulder. “No talking.”
I didn’t have to listen hard to recognize the sound on the other side of the door at the bottom of the stairs.
I wasn’t even fighting tonight, but my body was already preparing itself. My muscles were tense, and my mind was racing through different fight strategies.
To make it all much worse, I was getting warm.
I pressed my hand to my chest again, reapplying the tape as it threatened to peel off.
Roxy pushed the door open, inviting a wave of cheering to rush into the stairwell, and we stepped into a large concrete basement. But it was more than that. Way more.
“Oooh, shiiit,” Seb said.
We were all thinking it as our eyes landed on the center of the room.
Surrounded by music, lights, large cargo crates that lined the outer walls, and an audience plied with alcohol from an in-basement bar, was a large glass cube on a raised area of the floor. Inside it were two men, beating the ever living shit out of each other.
“Bare knuckle it is then,” Seb muttered.
Roxy led us to the metal staircase on our right. At the top was a mezzanine, where men and women sat at small tables, observing the fight beneath them while they drank and snorted cocaine off tabletops. They were all unbothered by the brutality happening within the cube.
When we reached the back of the mezzanine, where a deep purple, velvet curtain sectioned off a VIP area, Roxy raised her hand, and we slowed to a stop, waiting for further instructions from her.
My eyes, however, were on the two men guarding the curtain.
Antonio’s kids wanted to make themselves known to their father, but they sure as hell were scared if they required this much protection.
In the crowd below, I spotted several guys in black suits weaving through the throng.
Their eyes were on the exit and every corner of the room.
“Wait here.” Roxy sauntered over to the guards and the curtain. Within seconds, she was in, disappearing behind the curtain. As our representative, she had to convince Antonio’s kids to let us fight here.
I hoped they declined as I looked at the fighters in that box again, and braced my arms on the mezzanine banister.
Seb joined my side and followed my line of sight. “That’s going to be hell…”
“Uh-huh.”
“Since when did Antonio start making you wear a wire?”
My head snapped in his direction. “What?”
Seb was frowning at the front of my shirt, and I glanced down quickly. The wire was partially hanging down.
“Fuck,” I hissed, trying to reapply the tape only for it to come loose again. I tugged it off instead, unplugging the mic and making sure no one but Seb witnessed when I shoved the wire and microphone into my pants.
Seb raised his eyebrows. “That’s one way to do it.”
“It’s not for Antonio,” I murmured.
Seb’s eyes popped when he realized who else it would be for. “What?”
I nodded, combing a hand through my hair as I went back to leaning against the banister. “I’ll explain later.”
“Fuck, man—”
The velvet curtain was pulled back again, and Roxy peered out to let us know it was time to meet the owners.
Seb and I were the last to step into the VIP area. Like the club upstairs, everything had a mirrored surface — the coffee table, the couch legs, the fucking ceiling.
Sitting directly across from us, on a dark green sofa and surrounded by bodyguards, were Antonio’s triplets.
Lucia Gimello was perched on the arm of the sofa in a black dress, twirling a thick and long lock of auburn hair around her finger as her brown eyes swept over us.
Her eyes stopped on me, and she winked. She was the more aloof and carefree of the siblings.
Her sister, on the other hand — completely identical but with a harder, more cunning expression — was standing to the side of the sofa.
Her brow was set in an arch as she scrutinized us like prey.
Her name was Beatrice. She liked to cut off fingers with a cigar cutter for fun, according to Vince’s stories.
She wore a black tailored suit without a dress shirt beneath.
And then there was Gabriele. He looked exactly like Antonio, just younger, without the stark white hair, and oozing bucket loads of arrogance and pain-in-the-ass.
He was reclined in the middle of the sofa. There was a twisted smirk on his face as he tilted his head. Dark circles clung to his eyes, and a cigar hung from his lips. He too wore a black suit without a shirt beneath. When the suit caught the light, there was a faint purple shine to it.
My attention on the details of the suit was brief. Especially since Lucia casually flipped out a knife and was trailing a finger along the silver blade as she watched me, smiling.
Roxy introduced us by nickname as the triplets listened and considered. We didn’t have to talk. Only wait for them to decide if we were worthy of fighting in their club. It wasn’t until Roxy had introduced me as Romeo that Gabriele’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He combed a hand through the longer section of auburn hair on his head, brushing the cheekbone-length, oily strands back into place. The sides of his hair were buzz-cut short.
He then sat forward, nodding slowly as Roxy finished. The gold bracelet on his wrist and the matching rings on his fingers glinted in the light.
Gabriele may have hated his father but fuck they were similar with their taste of decoration and attire.
Continuing a conversation they had had before the rest of us walked in, Beatrice said with a thick Italian accent, “How do we know this isn’t our father’s way of planting spies? You all worked for him, no? Why not prove your loyalty to us and fight under our name instead?”
“Tempting as that is,” Roxy said. “I like the idea of being the boss for a change. You can surely understand that.”
Gabriele hummed in agreement, eyeing Roxy as she continued.
“Anyway, how do you know none of his ex-fighters who joined you aren’t already spying on you?”
“We already told them what would happen if they did,” Lucia smirked. “We took a finger for their loyalty, and promised to take much more if they betrayed us.”
“Maybe I should do something similar,” Roxy said, looking to us for a moment before she smiled sweetly. Mostly at Gabriele. “So? What do you think of my fighters? Can they fight here?”
Before he could respond, Lucia leaned forward and muttered into Gabriele’s ear with her eyes on me, speaking only Italian. “Make an offer on that one.”
I pretended I didn’t understand and kept my face blank.
Making offers wasn’t part of the plan. We were meant to fight against their men, not for them. And I sure as shit wasn’t about to do whatever else Lucia had planned. It didn’t help that Lucia’s suggestion piqued Beatrice’s interest too.
From the stories I heard of these three, I knew anything could change in a second.
They were unpredictable — they had gutted a personal driver once simply because he didn’t show Lucia the attention she wanted.
They were callous, murderous psychopaths who dealt in drug trafficking and weapons as they fought desperately to get back into the Mafia crowd.
And each of them was looking at me like I was a prize.