Prologue

Maxine

Past – Aged Twelve

“How about this show, honey?”

I glance up at the television to see if the movie that uncle Simon has selected is something that I want to watch. It’s just another B-list slasher movie – they are all the same. Some girl is shown on the cover with her breasts shoved up against the killer’s chest as she poses in an attempt to get away from him. This is the fourth movie he asks me to watch, and I’ve already shaken my head to all of the others. I know that if I tell him no again, he’s going to get angry. I nod, even though it’s not something that I want to see. I don’t like horror movies. I don’t like the creepy things and I really hate that he always insists on having the lights off for the duration. I would rather be up in my room reading, but he never lets me leave his sight when he’s babysitting.

Personally, I just want to close my eyes and wait for my parents to return home. I don’t see why I can’t just go up to my room and read.

I don’t like it when he puts his arm around me.

“See? I knew that we would find something that we both liked!” Uncle Simon leans back into the couch and puts his arm out around the back expectantly. He turns the movie on and soon the only illumination left is the glow from the screen, but even that quickly fades. The screen is dark and there is already some girl screaming and running across the screen. I pull my oversized sweatshirt over my knees and attempt to close my eyes, and start counting inside of my head. Maybe, this way I can just zone out hard enough.

“Ahem,” Uncle Simon clears his throat and I look up to him. He pats the side of the couch and then looks down at the seat expectantly with a nod of his head in the direction of the seat that I’m supposed to be taking. “Come on, honey, it’s tradition!” He says and taps the space again. I tuck my hands inside of my sweatshirt and shake my head.

I know it’s a mistake.

I know that I’m not supposed to tell him no.

I know this even as I do it.

I know he’s going to be angry with me…and his expression darkens instantly. He looks like the villain out of one of my books. Uncle Simon makes my skin crawl. “Come on now, you’re acting like you don’t want to see me!”

Not a single part of me moves other than the way my heart is racing inside of my chest. I wish I could close my eyes and make myself smaller, to travel somewhere far, far away from this living room and the stale, beer-soaked breath of my uncle.

My father never understands when I tell him that I don’t want to be alone with his brother. Of course, I don’t have any proof. It’s not like he’s ever actually done anything. At least nothing other than making me deeply uncomfortable.

I know that they deserve to get out of the house if they want…but then they could just leave me here alone. They don’t need to call him. This is exactly the argument I tried to use with my mother tonight before uncle Simon arrived. She told me to stop imagining things, that uncle Simon has helped our family in more ways than I can ever understand. They just don’t get it.

I unfold my legs one at a time, and I wear loose jeans, my sweatshirt is huge because he always…looks at me. I can feel those yellow eyes on me right now as I cross over to the couch and sit down next to him. I sit on the furthest edge, and the girl on the television is naked now…why do they always have to be naked when they run like that? It’s not practical even in a horror movie. It’s because of men like my uncle, I think. It’s because men like him like to look at naked women in a bad way.

Uncle Simon’s hands close around my hips, pull me back further onto the couch, and wrap his arm around my shoulders. “What? You’re twelve now, and so you can’t hang out with your Uncle?” he says while looking at me up and down, making me want to curl up into a ball and hide forever.

I want to scream that I’m not supposed to watch movies like this, that I don’t like it…but then he gets angry and threatens me with bad things If I can’t keep his secrets. He says he is just trying to treat me like an adult.

I don’t answer him. I cover my hands with my sweatshirt and wrap them awkwardly around myself, trying to keep from touching him in any way.

“I get it. I’m just an old man to you now, right? Well, that’s alright…I’ve noticed that you’re turning into a rather attractive young woman, so you need to get used to adult things. That sweatshirt doesn’t fool me one bit.”

My stomach flips. I think I’m going to be sick.

“It’s alright, I won’t tell that you still need to hide behind your hands when you’re scared! Come here, baby,” Uncle Simon teases in a sickly sweet voice, and grabs my shoulder, and pulls me back into his side, and this time when he lets me go…his hand is on my breast.

Does he know that his hand is there?

Did he do that on purpose?

Alarm bells, sirens, red flashing lights, flares of distress start to go off inside of my head, and I attempt to roll my shoulder backward to dislodge his hand, but he squeezes…and he starts to massage the skin of my breast painfully, pulling and groping. I don’t like this. I don’t want this. Get off of me. “Stop,” I mutter in a small voice.

“What was that, baby?” He leans into my air, and I feel like all of the oxygen in the room is being sucked out of the ceiling. He kisses me on the neck and makes a noise. “I know you’re scared, but you don’t have to pretend, I know exactly what you want…why you chose this movie…why you just wriggled your pert little ass against me…I’m only too happy to be your first baby.”

No.

No.

That’s not what I want at all. I didn’t do the things that he says that I did. I want to be in my room, locked behind my bedroom door, and safe. I didn’t even want this movie. He’s lying.

“No!” I push against his chest, hoping that I can break free, but he only tightens his grip around me.

“It’s okay, I won’t tell your father, I swear, baby.” Uncle Simon mutters and bites me on my neck, and I scream. “Oh yeah baby, I like that…struggle more, I know you want this.” He grabs the collar of my sweatshirt and pulls so hard the neck of the fabric rips, and it nearly chokes me, cutting off the sound. I’m struggling, but he’s got me trapped between the arm of the couch and his body…he’s so much larger than me. What do I do?

“Get off me!” I say, but my voice sounds so weak…strangled, he can’t do this. His hand is up to my sweater now…and I can feel him fumbling with the button on my jeans…and I manage to push myself up and off of the side of the couch, but he holds my pants that they scrape down my hips. Now that he has them,bare-legged and holding my sweatshirt to my body, I take off running across the room, tears are blurring my eyes as I run across the house to the front door, yet he’s laughing at me. I can hear his large footsteps thundering after me, mocking me with his slow pace as he follows.

I’m shaking so bad, I can’t stop…my hands almost can’t close over the locks on the door. I throw them open one after the other. I don’t even know where I’m going. I just know that I have to get out of here. I have to get as far away from here as I possibly can. “Stop! Please!” I cry, and throw the last lock open and grab the handle, but it’s locked, and the key is gone.

My stomach drops out of my ass as Uncle Simon grabs me by my hair and hauls me backward. I fall to the ground, and he follows right after, dropping himself on top of me heavily. “That’s my girl, oh your heart is racing…you want me really bad, don’t you, baby? Do you want my thick cock filling you? Ripping you open for the very first time? I’ve waited months to be alone with you again, baby.” His hand is between my legs – cupping my privates, and I’m sobbing, heavily sobbing, and I can’t breathe…I think he’s going to crush me to death. I think I’m going to die…if he does what he says….I’m going to die. I’m so scared that I think that I’ve pissed myself. I don’t want this.

I don’t want this.

“What the fuck are you doing to my daughter?!” Daddy suddenly screams and grabs uncle Simon by the back of his shirt and throws him off of me, and I swear that he throws him halfway across the room. I don’t know when he got in the house, but I’m thankful for it. Uncle Simon is no longer a scary man, he’s a terrifying man – he’s a beast, a wild animal, and I swear he looks like he’s made up of shadow and nightmare. I’ve never been more terrified of anything in my entire life. There’s murder in his eyes as he moves towards Daddy. Each step is steady, too even. It feels like he grows another three feet in every direction as his aura fills the entryway.

“Daddy!” I scream, reaching for my father and struggling to stand. I’m shaking so much it’s hard to keep upright.

“Baby, run…go out to the car, the driver is in the driveway…go…”

“No! Don’t make me go! He will get me!” I wail, but Daddy shoves me toward the door. uncle Simon is laughing and advancing on his brother – then they are fighting…they are fighting and somebody is bleeding. I don’t understand. Why are they fighting? I know that I’m screaming. I’m screaming for him to leave Daddy alone, but they don’t stop.

And then Uncle Simon has a gun…he has a gun and he fires…

Daddy falls to the floor.

There’s so much blood.

He shot Daddy. He shot him and he’s not moving. He’s kicking Daddy on the ground, and blood is slowly pouring out of him, and I don’t understand that I’m seeing the life leaving my father’s body. Where did the gun come from?

There’s so much blood on the floor and I’m panicking. When I find my legs, I start running and scream at the top of my lungs as I dash out of the house and to the driver waiting in the driveway as Daddy said. I barely throw myself into the car and shout for the driver to go to wherever mommy is. Yet, my uncle doesn’t let me go that easily, because I can see him running toward the car.

I slam my hand down on the door locks so hard it feels like I’ve broken something in my hand…but he can’t get in. Uncle Simon bashes against the window – he’s hitting the car with something – then bullets fly and I scream and duck as the window of the car shatters. The car swerves violently to the side at the break. I can hear the driver swear loudly from the front seat but my brain will not register what words he actually used. My breath is coming in rapid, short bursts. I can’t make it stop.

What if he drags me out of the window? What if he gets me again? I just keep screaming…and the car goes faster and faster until I can no longer see the blur that became my neighborhood out of the window.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to stop crying.

Chapter One

Maxine

Present Day

-I’m locking up now, I’ll be home soon.-

Laura hasn’t been answering my texts for a few hours now. Which usually just means that she’s allowed her boyfriend into our dorm again and she’s otherwise occupied…but that’s just another thing that the text messages are supposed to be for. They are supposed to be enough of a warning for her to stop boning her boyfriend, and then at least have the decency to stuff him under the bed or into her closet…not that they have to hide. I think that Laura just makes him hide out of reflex more than anything else.

At least this boyfriend is nice, and sometimes he even makes up those little toaster waffles in the morning. He says he would be only too happy to make some of the regular stuff, but we broke girls living that college life never can afford eggs regularly, let alone all of the stuff needed for real waffles, let alone real plates to eat them. Glassware is a luxury – which is exactly what I told Laura this year when we were shopping for dorm decor and she wanted to get a whole serving set – which meant that we would have to buy second-hand sheets again this year…and I was absolutely, absolutely, not going to be doing that for the second year in a row. I draw the line at used sheets.

While the campus bookstore tends to be a little bit too pricey for most of the students, we have this lovely back half of the store that serves as a real little bookshop and not just a place to buy used textbooks. Another one across campus sells all of the campus merch and the new books, but I like my little bookshop better. It’s cozy and has that rich old book smell that I never can get enough of. Plus, it pays decently enough to have us well-stocked in the name-brand toaster waffles, so I’m not complaining.

Still.

I’m a safe girl, and I ping her my location attached to the text anyway because you just never know when walking across campus this late in the afternoon. I would much rather be safe than sorry.

I drape my rape whistle around my neck. I keep my keys in between my fingers like I’m supposed to. I have a reflective strip on my messenger bag and I only walk on the well-lit paths. I don’t stop, I’m not wearing anything form-fitting, and I read somewhere once that you shouldn’t ever wear your hair in a ponytail because that makes it easier for bad guys to grab it, so I never wear my hair up either. Least of all when I’m out in public. I don’t think that I look like a person who would be enticing to predators…but I will take each and every precaution possible. I even switched to those slide-on trainers for shoes because I saw a story in the news that a girl tripped over her own laces and was kidnapped, raped, and murdered. One close call was enough for me – and I refuse ever to fall prey to something like that again.

As it usually does, my walk goes easily, and I don’t see another soul. I chose this campus because of the safety rating after all, and I love being able to walk home without having to keep watching over my shoulder. I do look over my shoulder anyway, but I like that I don’t have to.

I half expect to hear sex sounds when I unlock my dormitory door…but instead, I’m greeted with the strong scent of Vicks vapor rub and the lavender oil that Laura pumps into her humidifier. The lights are dimmed, and it feels like a sick person sauna in here. Coughing softly, I shut and lock the door behind me, step out of my shoes, take my backpack off, and drop it to the ground.

“Laura?” I ask, and move for the light. Laura flinches when I flip the thing on, and she pulls her fluffy robe higher up on her shoulders. She’s laying on the bed like she stumbled and fell there. I can see the fishnet stockings of her work outfit covering the leg that’s exposed and just the hint of the red lace of her garter, so I know that she’s wearing that new corseted thing that she came home with last week. “Laura, are you okay?”

My best friend attempts to smile at me, but her lips look chapped even with the face full of makeup that she’s wearing. Even the soft movement causes a nasty wet cough to rattle through her, and she lifts a tissue she holds clenched tightly in her fist. “I’m golden, Maxine, really,” she sputters between coughs and finally manages to grin at me properly. Laura wipes her nose, attempts to sit up, and falls back down.

“You’re not okay, you’re clearly really super-duper sick. What happened?! You were fine this morning!” I chastise and move to the bed, I attempt to wiggle her bedding out from underneath her body so that I can cover her in it, but she shakes her head.

“What time is it?”

“It’s Laura’s sleep time, that’s what time it is.” I shake my head and swat away the hands that she’s attempting to stop me with,

“I have to be at work at ten…is it ten?”

“You can’t be serious! You cannot work like this…you’ll be throwing snot all over your johns, that’s really sexy.”

“Johns? What is this? The thirties? No, they are clients or douchebag supremes and very little in-between.” Laura pauses to cough. “Besides, I have to go. I already paid for the stage tonight, we can’t afford that loss of money…not with tuition due in two weeks, Maxine, you know that.”

I do.

I pause for a moment, attempting to do mental math to calculate everything in my mind because I know how much money she needs to compensate for how far behind she is. “I’m sure your boyfriend will help you out again, it’s not like you can control that you got sick!”

“No, he won’t, he’s fighting with his parents right now, and they have frozen all his cards…really, what’s the point in dating a trust fund baby if I don’t get the sugar treatment.”

I roll my eyes. “Because you love him, that’s why.”

Laura shrugs as if that’s a silly reason. “Yeah, true. But mostly the money.”

“Yeah, yeah.” There is no point in arguing with her, my best friend hates talking about money if she doesn’t have to. “Anyway, this is just how I get sick. I’ll get up there on stage, sweat out my fever and then I will be right as rain, you will see. Don’t even think about it. Then there will be no money – cough- problems.” Laura nodded to herself. “I just need like…ten minutes to sit here in my snot. Okay?”

“No. Not okay,” I insist and bend to start unhooking the buckle on her giant plastic stripper heels and pulling them from her feet. I know that my choice is right because she’s not even fighting me on it, and she has leg muscles for days.

“We can’t lose the money, Max, it’s not like you can go and do it for me.” A lightbulb illuminates above her head, bright and shining as she seems to get an idea, and props herself up onto her elbows. “Unless…you’ll go for me?”

I snort, “Yeah, right.” I brandish the massive high heel in my hand at her as if that alone is proof enough to her that there is no way that I could ever fumble my way through one of her sets. “I would snap my ankle clear off of my leg in one of these!” I shake my head and move to unbuckle the second one with a forced laugh. Sweat is already dotting my palms and my chest is starting to feel tight. There is no way that I can do what she’s suggesting. “Me? A stripper? Hah, that’s a good one. I’ll make a list of unsexual things for three hundred, Alex.” I mock her, but she’s just staring at me. “Absolutely not.” I shake my head. We’ve been friends for more than long enough now for her to know that I would never debase myself in this way. I could never get up there and shake my stuff for the gawking masses. “You know how I feel about your career choice as it is!”

I keep waiting for her to laugh, or to say that she was only joking, or offer me an exit of any kind to this insane line of suggestion.

“It’s just for one night though, Max, you can do just one itty bitty night, can’t you?”

“I would kill myself, or puke from the stress…or…or…I can’t even move like that!

“I mean, you are always watching me practice. You’ve even joined me a couple of times.” Laura sniffles and wipes at her nose again.

“Yeah, I know but that’s just playing around in our sweatpants to kill the rest of your studio time.” I shrug.

“Well yeah, but you know all of my routines. You’ve got the best rack that I’ve ever seen, Max, so my costumes will be a bit tight on you, sure, but you can totally pull it off.” She’s looking at me as if she’s trying to picture me naked – bile rises in my throat, and I lift my hand to the collar of my shirt and pull it closed. It’s not that I don’t want her looking at me. The real issue is that I don’t want anybody looking at me in the kind of place she works, for any reason. Walking into a group of lustful men in almost nothing is my actual nightmare. It’s the furthest thing from anything I would willingly allow myself to do.

“No. It’s impossible.” I say firmly, and the words come out almost angry even though I don’t mean for them to.

Laura nods. “Okay, I’m not going to force you to do something that you’re not comfortable with, babe, really.”

I know she won’t, but now I can’t get the image out of my head. Nearly naked and having men leering at me with all of their perverted thoughts floating in the air between us, I can’t do that. I would faint…or worse.

“I guess I can ask for another extension,” Laura looked at me out of the side of her eye. I knew that wouldn’t work because she had already been late too many times and the admissions office no longer trusted that she was capable of paying. If I did not do this for her, there is a very good chance that she will either have to drop out of school or do something really illegal to get the money, and I don’t want to put her in that position.

“Just, as an aside…something totally unrelated here, but ah-” Laura pauses to cough, I’m almost tempted to drag her down to the nurse’s station. “On a typical Saturday night like this? I can make like three or four grand. Just saying.”

“What?!” I exclaim and fall over backward. It seems like an impossible amount of money for me to fathom, and I know how much that would help her. That would cover the rest of her tuition for the semester and feed us for weeks.

Laura nods. “You can probably make even more since you’re a new face and men love seeing a new face. Though, I do think that we will need to get you a fake name to use while you’re in there for safety reasons. Then you can just pretend that you’re somebody else and not have a single thing to worry about!”

“Just this one time, right? Like I can do your shift and then leave?”

“Yes,” Laura confirms. “Just this one night, you get the money and run unless you choose to go back.”         We both know that’s not very likely.

“What about that man who runs the club?”

“Constantino?”

I nod. I might be more on the innocent side than most girls my age, but even I have heard about him and the sorts of things that he tends to get into.

Laura waves off my concerns like they are nothing. “Constantino Negrini is a very busy man, he would never have the time to bother with something like a dancer replacement. I promise you he has much bigger stuff to worry about, a man as important as he is.”

I know his reputation, and I don’t even want to be in the same room as somebody that scary.  “I don’t think that I will be able to even walk in those massive shoes, let alone dance in them.”

“They are easier than you think that they are once you get the hang of them, I promise. I would say that you could go barefoot to appeal to the whole innocent thing you have going on without even thinking about it, but I wouldn’t walk on that floor without shoes on. You just have to make it to the stage, and they are really grippy, so that helps.”

“This is my nightmare,” I confess.

Laura sits up and pats my arm. “Look, I know that you don’t approve of what I do  and that this is going to be really hard for you, but think of all of the food that we can buy…milk in a jug and not powdered, babe, we can be real people.”

My grin is forced. My lips pull into a tight line of discomfort at the idea. It would be nice to be able to put actual creamer into my coffee for the next week. Really nice. Things tend to get really sparse here right before tuition is due, which is soon, so we have been going without a lot of things until after the tuition payments clear. She is right in saying that I never approved of her work, and that’s not because of her. All that Laura does is dance, she doesn’t partake in any of the other things that I’m always hearing about as going on inside of that place, and I know that she’s not even getting fully naked most nights. It’s the men. It’s the creepy jerks who go there to stare at her, knowing how they are all there just thinking about all of the things that they would do to her if they could. Just another reason why I like her boyfriend so much. While he never goes inside of the Leonessa club, he’s always there waiting just outside of the door for her to get off work so that he can walk her home. I really appreciate that about him.

It’s not like I hate all men.

I just don’t trust them.

“I know…I already said I would do it.”

Laura grins and holds her hand out for me to help her up, and when I pull her to her feet, my friend sways just slightly before settling. “Whoa,” she teases. “I swear, every time that I get sick it always comes on out of nowhere and kicks my whole ass for a couple of days or a few hours, and then it’s just gone. Just like that,” Laura snaps her fingers for emphasis. “Over and done.” She rolls her shoulder and points for her closet, and I help her walk over there.

“Okay so the heels there, the olive green ones are a little bit shorter so you should wear those. Man, we’re really lucky that we are basically the same size. Though, I wish that I was built like you. Yes, okay – grab that there, the little army uniform. They will eat that right up for your theme.”

I look at her like she’s insane. “This isn’t a uniform…this is floss…” I protest and she holds it up to my chest, pushing my breasts together and then frowning.

“Well, it’s either this or the tall glitter heels. My other ones haven’t been broken in yet so those won’t work for you since you don’t know what you’re doing.”

I sigh. “Okay….”

“Okay. Now off with the clothes.”

I blanch and stare at her.

“Well, I can’t help you get into the outfit if you can’t put it on, and it would really suck if you got there and then it didn’t fit, you know?”

I know that she has a point, so I head over behind the partition that separates her bed from mine and take off my work clothes quickly.

“You’ve shaved, right?”

“Yeah…I shaved my legs this morning.”

Laura laughs, “Oh you little lamb, no, I mean your kitty – have you shaved your vag recently?”

I blush, even though I get how it’s a relevant question. “Um…yeah…a little…um..”

“It’s okay Max, you don’t have to tell me the specifics. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t going to be a Wookie attempting to escape out of the sides of my booty shorts.”

“N-no…nothing like that,” I murmur and pull on the booty shorts in question, black glittery fabric that is so impossibly soft. However, it rides halfway up my ass and leaves very little to the imagination. I undo my bra and pull the top on. It’s army printed with tiny sleeves that just barely cover my shoulders, and the whole thing is attached by laces that criss-cross over my boobs to hold the thing together. If I lift my arms at all, my breasts threaten to spill under the shirt, and when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I don’t recognize myself at all. I look like somebody else. The person in the mirror is attractive, there is no denying that. It’s just not me that is attractive. It’s some alternate reality version of myself. It’s the version that never learned any lessons the hard way…maybe the version of myself that will embrace her sexuality. Certainly won’t ever be the real me. I hate it. I tear my eyes away and don’t give the image another thought.

“Come on! Let me see, Max!” Laura wheezes and I wrap my arms around my belly and head out to let her see. “Damn,” Laura mutters and looks me over in a way that has my whole chest flushing red.

“I can’t do this,” Every single part of me wants to pull the sheets from my bed and wrap them around myself.

“You’re already doing it. You’ve already got the thing on…here, sit here and I’ll do your makeup.”

“I don’t normally wear…” I begin to try to keep the shake out of my voice, but I’m failing.

Laura gives me a stern look. She isn’t the sort of woman that likes to hear the word ‘no’.

“Okay,” I surrender to the stern look on her face and sit on the bed in front of her. I’m fairly certain that the shorts are attempting to crawl inside of my body for how tiny they are. I don’t even know half of Laura’s products are piling on my skin. At most, I wear just the basics of makeup: tinted sunscreen, mascara, and maybe some pink lip gloss.

When she’s finished, she bends over the end of her bed, pulls out a large box filled with smaller wig boxes, and starts checking them until she finds a black wig cut into a severe bob. “Now you can make them all call you commander,” she teases and starts to tuck all of my long blonde waves into a wig cap, and then covers the whole thing with the wig that she’s selected. “You look like a whole new person,so just pretend to be the commander tonight and you will be okay. Maxine who? You don’t know her. I’m going to call the club and let them know that commander girl will be filling in for me.”

“I don’t think that I can be a commander. Nobody will buy that for a second.”

“Yeah, no you’re all too sweet for such a thing, hm, well then we can’t call you Maxine, or Max, though I suppose that we could call you Heavenly…that suits you really well. Plus, it’s really super catchy.”

“That’s just my last name.” I object, but Laura shrugs.

“It’s perfect. Now go make that money, Heavenly.”

Chapter Two

Dalton

The man in front of me is not quite dead.

I cannot say for certain that he will live after what I have done to him. He will receive medical treatment, but I doubt the prognosis will be good. Either way, his heart is still beating, and he is alive for now.  I cannot say that I even feel any remorse for what I have done to this man. Perhaps I could even say that I feel it as a sense of justice for the poor choices he has already made in his life. What is left of this man has aligned himself with all of the wrong people. I might have been able to excuse that choice alone, perhaps even be so lenient as to think that he simply had been roped into a lifestyle that he did not understand at a too young age like most of us have. Still, he also made the conscious decision to betray the Negrini family, which is wholly unacceptable to me. I am not a man of many morals, but disloyalty is not something I can abide by.

I grab a clean cloth from the metal tray of instruments beside me. It is the only clean thing left. Everything else is dirtied in bits of blood or viscera, but none so dirtied as my hands. Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe that an old school beat down is one of the most effective ways to get information out of a person.

It adds that little personal flair.

I don’t get many opportunities these days to enjoy a bit of torture, but it makes something in my blood sing when I do. I am the sort of man that is good at my job, very much so. The only downside to being a great enforcer and right-hand man to one of the most powerful mafia families that is so excellent at their job is that not many people act against us. Therefore the opportunities are less and less.

It was an entirely lucky thing that this offense was great enough and my bloodlust might even be sated for a good while. Now I just need to handle the other issues that my bloodlust has as a side effect. It’s truly a fortunate evening since I only have to head upstairs to see any debaucherous act that my black heart truly desires.

I clean the blood from my knuckles and wipe my face clean.

“Boss?” The large man on the other side of the door calls to me. It’s been quiet in here for a while. Killian knows me well enough by now to know that I like a period of reflection before I enter society again. Before, I have to contain myself and pretend that I am simply a man, instead of every bit the bloodthirsty monster I have been for the better part of the evening.

I roll my head from one side to the other, listening to the satisfying cracks that relieve me of my tension, and roll my shoulders back. I pulled on the clean shirt that was waiting for me on the hook on the back of the door. I pull on my tailored jacket and take my time in doing up the buttons before I unlock the door and allow the thing to slide open. “Send word to Constantino,” I say without looking up. I can feel the way that Killian’s eyes widen at the sight behind me. Though to his credit, the moment I lift my head he schools his face into a mask of impassivity. “Actually, I will contact him myself to tell him that the little rat has confessed everything.” I glance over my shoulder to the lump of a man in the chair. “Then send Ernie to go and collect the little rat’s family.”

That stirred life back into the man, he groaned in fear and attempted to lift his head as if his pleas would stop anything now.

“You got it, boss,” Killian said and started inside of the room.

“Possibly call and have the cleaners on standby,” I add as an afterthought and give the rat one last lingering look to admire my handiwork before I turn and head down the long hallway that will lead me up and out of the dungeons. Really, it was a great idea to have them placed underneath a strip club. The loud music from upstairs, the pulsating light, and the gyrating distractions are all perfect to keep any stray noises that might filter up from my dungeons into the main part of the club.

Club Leonessa has become more or less an office to me in the recent few weeks. It’s comfortable, familiar. With Constantino away on his honeymoon, I would not contact him for anything less than what I have just learned. I cannot imagine that whatever paltry monetary sum that the rat sold his soul for was in any way worth it. However, selling Negrini business to the Russians? That is the sort of thing that Constantino needs to be aware of, provided he can pull himself out of Clelia long enough to answer the phone. That’s just another reason that I know I need to be the one to call him: he will answer for me.

There is a drink waiting for me the moment that I hit the top of the stairs. My favorite whiskey is set on the rocks beside a cigar, but I do not want this at the moment. I take the drink, breathe deeply, and then step into the Leonessa club. I nod to the man standing guard beside the entrance to the dungeons. Another benefit of the women who staff the Leonessa being so beautiful is that I can come and go as I please. Very few clients here are willing to turn their gaze from the stages. I slowly take a sip of my drink and square my weight between the pair.

“You look like you feel better,” Austin says to me softly, his deep voice intended to be heard over the loud music but only just for my ears to hear. I think out of all of my men, I am the most myself around Austin. I’ve worked with him longer than the others, we have seen more than our share of shit together.

“I like working with my hands,” I grin to myself.

Austin gives me a knowing look and then rolls his eyes at me. “Here I was, thinking that today might be the day that I finally convinced you to dip into the company honeypot.”

I shake my head. “Today is not that day, Austin, and it will never be that day.” I do not sleep with the women employed here. I don’t like to mix business with pleasure outside of the dungeons if I can help it. “I see that Ismenia is working today,” I comment over the brim of my glass.

Austin flicks his brown eyes over to the woman taking the stage, her golden-brown skin coated in glitter that makes her seem to glow under the stage lights. Even in the dim lighting I can see the embarrassed blush coloring the back of his neck. It’s cruel to tease him, but he has been obsessed with Ismenia for the last two years that she has worked here. Out of that entire time, I think that he has perhaps spoken to her directly only twice. Even if I were to try to tell him about how she watches him while she dances, I don’t think he would believe me.

I clap Austin on the thickly muscled shoulder with a smirk. “Tell you what, how about the day that you get the balls to actually go over and speak to her and ask her on a date will be the day that I consider sticking my dick into one of these dancers.”

Austin scowls. We both know that he is unlikely ever to take that step, that he will content himself to pine over her from afar.

“I’ll leave you to your stalking if you need me – I will be at the bar.”

Before I leave, something dawns on Austin, and he slaps himself in the forehead. “Boss, there is a guy there, he was asking questions, I had him wait for you in the booth over in the corner of the bar, good view of the stage – I knew that you were not in a position to be interrupted.”

“Name?” I sigh, I cannot afford to be sidetracked.

“Called himself Simon Hellbound,” Austin answers and then stops before he adds anything else, he’s listening to his earpiece. I extend my thumb in the direction of the bar and leave Austin to his business.

It’s not that the women here are not attractive to tempt me, it’s nothing so vain as that. I just know the particular tastes that I enjoy and these women, they are not it.

“Mr. Hellbound,” I greet the older gentleman at his booth, and he rises to shake my hand.

“Please, join me, have a seat and let me buy you a drink.”

I lift a hand and shake my head politely, “I’ll pass, thank you – doesn’t seem right to allow one of our newest business partners to spend his money in my club. Unless, of course, it’s in the back rooms. There you pay for how you play.” I do not smile, I rarely do, but Simon chuckles in a darkly perverse way as if he is imagining exactly what I’m suggesting. If he took an interest in one of the girls, I could send a lap dance or two his way but the back rooms? Those there are no discounts for. Business partner or not.

I do not join him at his table and angle myself away in order to watch the girl on the center stage finish out her set. Tiny little thing, all pale skin, and too many curves to naturally fit onto a body her size.

“I do not have the luxury of lingering tonight, unfortunately, Mr. Hellbound, but if you should need anything just ask my men, and they will do their best to accommodate.”

“Oh, please, I’m just here as a patron tonight. I just wanted to see all of the things that the infamous Leonessa club has to offer as we are in business together now, see how things are run – get the lay of the land and everything.” Simon smiles at me, and I nod.

“Of course, anything that you might need.” It is not my job to place judgment on people. Especially on people that Constantino has chosen to go into business with. However, if it were, I am not entirely certain that Simon is a man that I would have chosen. His accomplishments speak for himself. He has more business holdings in recent collections than nearly anything that I have seen. However, there is a reason that those things are left to Constantino and not to myself.

Schmoozing his business contacts while he is out of town does fall on me, and not even I would want to endure the man’s wrath if something were mishandled because then he finally took a much-deserved break. I can distinctly remember assuring him that everything would be alright in my hands. I can remember Constantino staring at me in challenge even as I said it. He is far better with these sorts of interactions than I am. I prefer to be the muscle, standing right behind him.

I turn from Simon, and my attention catches on the dancer’s change on the main stage, a girl that I have never seen before is taking her place in an army-themed outfit. I don’t mind that it is too small on her, it accentuates her full chest and her full hips but it’s abundantly obvious that the creature has no experience walking in heels that high. She does not move with the same grace that some of the other dancers in this club do. She does not sway her hips, and it appears that she is doing everything in her power to avoid looking directly at the men seated on the ground level. They are already whispering behind their hands.

Normally, our girls are better chosen than this. She seems to have the same sex appeal as an orange peel.

“Now on the main stage, a soldier discharged from sleeping her way through the barracks and discharged for being too sexy for the military – Heavenly!”  The music that Heavenly chose for her set starts, and it is quickly followed by a series of disjointed, stiff movements that I could tell are planned…but the lamb seems too nervous to remember what she is doing.

A sheen of nervous sweat already beaded her forehead, a trail of perspiration trailed between the valley of her breasts as she artlessly turned herself around the pole available to her. Somehow, her performance is disjointed and charming – wholly unappealing and yet alluring. She seems to be at internal war with herself, and all I can see is a woman who has not yet discovered her sexuality. Fascinating. Fish out of water.

My feet carry me toward the stage as I finish my drink and leave it on a random surface to be collected. As I grow closer, my hands slide into my pockets, close enough to hear the snide comments mocking the girl on the stage. I cannot assume just why she would be here, doing this, but I know that the Leonessa club has a hell of a lot more earning potential than a lot of the surrounding clubs. If the girl is brave enough to get up there, she deserves the chance to try.

“She could at least take her top off,” One man laughs as he twirls his thick mustache around his index finger. “Make it worth our while a little. I can’t even get a chubby one with her terrible dancing…if we could see her tits, then I don’t think I would care much.”

The other laughed at his friend’s comment, wadded up a dollar bill in his palm, and then pelt it at my dancer. The lamb flinches, and I can see something sad flicker across her eyes – to her credit, she tries to appear strong, but in the end, she flinches.

“Get out,” I say firmly. Both men look up at me with amused expressions.

“Who the hell are you, buddy?”

Buddy? The muscle in my jaw feathers. My posture shifts from borderline polite to downright hostile.  My tongue runs across my teeth, and the men turn back to their drinks – a drink that I lift from the closest one’s hand. “There is a zero bullying policy for my girls here at Leonessa, and perhaps you ought to consider that when the only thing that the lady has to look at is you two lepers, then it would be hard to wish to entice you as well.” Austin has seen the altercation and is now standing behind me. It does not take much further encouragement to have the two forcibly removed from their seats.

A seat that I wipe clean and occupy at the end of Heavenly’s stage.

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