Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72895 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
He was right. I knew it even if everything within me fought against it. “I know.”
“Okay.” He finished his glass and stood, opening the sliding doors to let the family back inside.
“We’re ready for dinner,” he called to one of the waiting housekeepers and dropped back down into his seat, stamping out his smoke in the crystal ashtray. The weight of the world on his broad shoulders.
As I looked at Jasper, the weight he carried, the pain, sorrow, and anger in his eyes, I hated Colm even more. I hated him for forcing me to show my children a side of me they never, ever needed to fucking see.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sadie
“This place is shit.” The words came out slurred and to no one in particular, mostly because there was no one inside the VIP room with me to hear them. It was Saturday night, and Lucky Lopez was—finally—open again. The place was packed. All the headlining acts showed up begging for the main stage slots now that the doors were open again, and all the bars were three people deep. I could practically see the dollar signs floating in the air.
Bass thumped from the speakers.
Red lights gave the whole place a sexy glow.
Skin. Flesh. Hot bodies ground on poles, the stage floor, each other. Whatever was required to get more bills in their pockets. Or thongs.
Everything was exactly as it was before.
Before Brendan Rhymer got his brains splattered all over this room.
Before Tits had been carved up and murdered in the back alley.
Before Mueller.
Before Bonnie.
It was exactly the same, but to me, it was wrong. All wrong.
The door opened, and Jasper entered first, but I saw a group of men behind him. He stopped abruptly when he saw me and frowned. “What are you doing in here?”
“Observing. Problem?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “This room has been rented,” he said, indicating the clients following behind him.
“It’s in use,” I growled in response.
He rolled his eyes and shook his head, but the fact that he said nothing to me told me he was pissed. Beyond pissed.
“Looks like this room is taken, boys. I’ll have to give you the bigger one so you can see the stage head-on.”
A round of cheering and clapping sounded just outside the door before it closed. I sighed my frustration. Everything was all fucking wrong. The music didn’t feel right, neither did the girls shaking their asses or the men waving dollar bills in front of them. The whole scene felt off, and I had no idea why.
This place needed a change. A cleaner image.
Something.
The door opened again, and Jasper appeared, closing the door behind him with a scowl on his face. “What the fuck is going on with you?”
“I’m here to watch, to observe, just like I told you.”
“Well, I just had to comp those fucking idiots a five-hundred-dollar room because you took the two-fifty room they paid for. Why?”
“Jesus Christ, Jasper. Calm down. It’s not like we’re broke. This place needs a makeover. A complete overhaul.”
“What? This place makes plenty of money, even though that’s not why it exists. It cleans the money, remember?”
“It was my idea. Of course, I remember.”
Titty bars were so nineteen eighties, but the cash nature of the business made it a good way to clean some of our dirty money. “What’s your point?”
“My point is this place is fine. It’s perfect, in fact.”
“Bullshit. Look around, Jasper. This place is crawling with exactly the wrong kind of people. Thugs and gangsters, dealers, pimps, and worse, frat boys.”
He scoffed. “We’re in the goddamn Green Zone. What do you expect? And those thugs and gangsters are the reason this place operates in the black. Deep in the black, I might remind you.”
I shook my head. “I’m going to make some changes around here. You’re not doing your job.”
He barked out a laugh. “You’re drunk and not making any sense. Go home, Sadie.” With a shake of his head, Jasper left me alone with my thoughts, the last fucking place I wanted to be.
His words pissed me off. No one talked to me that way, no one but him. And now that he knew Colm and I were behind the misery he was forced to endure, I couldn’t blame him. I’d hate me too.
God, I was a weak woman back then.
“Fuck!” I tossed the crystal tumbler across the room, and it shattered against the wall, sending drops of whiskey and shards of glass flying everywhere. “It’s all wrong. All. Fucking. Wrong.”
The door opened again, and I sucked in a breath, ready to lash into Jasper with all the drunken words I could muster, but it wasn’t one of my sons this time. It was another man who had always been my protector and who also offered unwanted, unsolicited advice.
“Come to ruin my fun, Thomas?”
He flashed a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and stepped inside, eyeing the shattered glass wreckage, the drops of liquid still sliding down the wall.