Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
The flashing sign of the woman taking a turn on the stripper pole shines red over my face as I approach the doors. The security guards outside rise from their stools. One looks me over, then glances at his partner. I’m dressed a little differently than the usual clientele in my formal suit that costs more than they’ll earn this month.
“No guns,” he says.
I open my jacket. “No guns.”
He pats me down anyway, then gestures for me to enter. I pull the wooden door open, and the familiar stench of the place washes over me: sweat, sex, and greed. I’d forgotten it, but damn how a scent can carry you back.
It takes me a moment, but I stand in the entrance and force myself to breathe it in.
To remember.
I look around the large space, which is lit dimly but for the spotlights shining on the strippers on stage. A bar I know is sticky to the touch stretches the length of one wall. Tables and booths dot the space, leaving just enough room for the women to work lap dances. Through the curtain at the back are the private rooms. Nothing is off limits there as long as you pay. Two men as big as the ones at the front doors guard that curtained entrance.
I’m not interested in that, though. I never was. The Commander would send me gifts after a particularly well-executed job. Women. A lot of women. I’d preferred the reprieve of a night in my own home, my own bed. Caius would often meet me, though, when the reward was women. Why waste a night, he’d say. I’d let him have them and walk away.
I didn’t care. Fucking was the last thing I wanted to do after those nights. Contrary to what the Commander may have believed, killing, especially killing innocents, didn’t make my dick hard. It made me sick. So instead, I’d done what I always had. I carved the marks into my skin. I felt their pain. I remembered their names… and the name of the man who held my life in his hands.
An older woman with an empty tray at her side approaches. I smile when I see her. It takes her a minute, but as soon as she recognizes me, her face breaks out into a wide smile.
“Well, I don’t believe my eyes! Two in one night! Santos Augustine, what the hell are you doing back in this shithole?” We hug, and it’s somehow more comforting than I imagined it would be.
“Addy, how are you doing, sweetheart?” Addy used to dance here, but that was before my time. She’s in her late forties and has become a sort of mother hen to the younger women over the years. With a loan from myself and Thiago that she repays at a rate of a single dollar a month, she now owns fifty-one percent of the club.
“Doing all right. Let me get a look at you.” She stands back, looks me over, then frowns. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. You know I always land on my feet.” She has seen me when I was at my lowest and has helped bring me back from the brink on more than one occasion.
“You do,” she says, although she’s scrutinizing me. “He looks worse,” she says, gesturing to a booth at the back corner.
So he’s here. Good.
I nod because there’s not much to say about that. Someone calls her, and she tells them she’ll be right there.
“It’s good to see you, Santos.”
“Same.”
I walk toward the back booth. It’s our usual, though it’s been more than five years. But there in that last booth with its high-backed benches that offer privacy sits Thiago Avery, a bottle of whiskey in front of him. In his hand is a glass he tips in greeting before he swallows the contents. I slide into the opposite seat.
He pushes the second glass toward me. It’s what we used to do. Down a bottle—two, some nights, when they’d been especially bad.
I go to lift the glass to set it aside. It sticks.
“Nothing has changed here,” Thiago says with an attempt at a smile.
“Part of its charm,” I say, the comment out of place.
Thiago snorts.
There’s nothing to laugh at here though. We’re not friends, he and I. We could never be that. But we have an old and ugly history. We both belonged to the Commander. Me for a time, him for most of his life.
But that’s the past, and the future is why I’m here.
I face the Commander’s first-born son. His successor. My enemy.
“It’s time we talked.”
25
Madelena
I get out of bed when Santos is gone and slip on the shirt he’d discarded earlier when he’d changed into his more formal suit. It smells like him. Why do I feel so attached to that smell? Why does its familiarity feel so warm?