“Looks like it’s your lucky night. You’ve got me all to yourself!”
I can’t help but laugh as I walk through the club, heading to the upstairs office. Levi is a fierce fighter, a brilliant tactician, a shrewd businessman, but he is as susceptible to the temptations of the club as anybody. He is crazy if he thinks a bottle girl would make a good fake wife, though. Pliable: yes, by definition. But fierce? Even able to pretend they’re fierce? Not a fucking chance.
They’re already in the life, too, which is a problem. For this job, we need somebody who knows nothing about the Family, somebody who won’t get any ideas about blackmailing us.
Somebody innocent. Somebody pure.
As I grab a beer from the fridge and stroll over to the window that looks down at the dance floor, I hear Dani’s voice calling me playboy. It was not that long ago I’d have been down there with Levi, taking everything the bottle girls could give. But I’m tired of just being able to take. I want to earn.
Earn Dani’s smirk. Earn her quivering orgasm. Earn the searing wetness of her…
I shake my head, annoyed with myself. I need to stop letting that happen. I have more important things to think about than a woman I barely know. But the truth is I’m not down there with the bottle girls right now because they are pale shadows compared with her. Transient pleasures. There is no substance to them.
I sip my beer. That talk about a power play against Father was just that: talk. Whatever else is true about us, Father is a good man and he was a fine role model growing up. In many ways, I guess I would like to emulate him, though I could never tell the proud old bastard that. He’d never let me live it down.
But I am not him. The stories of old about Father—the ones of violence, bold territory grabs, devious outmaneuvering of his enemies? The man who did those things doesn’t exist anymore. Since I can remember, Father has preached patience, diplomacy, discipline.
Those lessons don’t resonate with me. I can’t shift this cauldron of rage inside my chest, no matter how hard I try. And I don’t care to try, either. It drives me. It directs me. My anger is what makes me worthy of the throne.
Because the Albanians disrespected us, and if we’re not careful, it will happen again and again. And then word will get out. We’ll lose control. Everything Father spent years building will crumble. He became a violent, capable man to make the Family what it is today, but what he doesn’t seem to understand is that the need for those sort of men doesn’t just disappear because you’ve made it out of the gutter. The gutter is always reaching out, trying to drag you back down.
The more I ponder, the hotter my rage grows. So when the asshole at the bar who starts getting handsy with an innocent woman, it is clear that he has picked the worst possible time to do it. I’m not some white knight and I sure as hell don’t trust any woman in Sole Nero. But at the very least they deserve a modicum of respect. This bastard has clearly missed that memo.
The man is a tall guy, college-aged, who must clock in at two-fifty of muscle. He’s wearing a fucking football jersey beneath his blazer. Whichever bouncer let him in is going to feel my wrath once he’s done.
He’s pawing at the girl’s leg as she tries to move away, but she’s trapped by the crowd.
I stride down the stairs with this inferno accumulating in me. Everybody on the dance floor moves out of my way. Maybe they can sense my rage. Maybe they know who I am. Smart decision either way.
The people waiting for the bar part like the fucking Red Sea and then I’m standing next to my targets. The woman turns at my approach, but the jersey bastard is too busy groping to realize what is about to happen to him.
“Come on, babe,” he’s whining. “Don’t be like that. Don’t—”
I put my hand on his shoulder, lightly, mostly because if I grabbed him with full force, I don’t trust myself not to squeeze until I hear the bone crack. Until I snap tendon and blood vessels and he is reduced to a quivering puddle of douche on the sticky floor.
I hear my father’s voice in my head. A leader must know