“Good luck. Don’t do anything you might regret. If you need me, I’ll be right out here.” His voice was low but steady, and I could tell he wanted to stop me from going in, but he also knew he couldn’t. He knew this was my decision, and he was letting me make it.
Even though he worked for my father, I found I was growing some respect for him.
“I’ll see you later.” And with that, I got out of the car. My back straight, I eyed up the Playground’s neon sign. Inhaling deeply, I knew this was it. This was the first chapter of the next part in my life. I was going to start taking back my life, my choices, one step at a time. If that meant going against my father behind his back, well… then I guess that’s what it meant.
Oh, I’d do what he wanted me to, if only to keep up appearances, but deep down, I’d be planning. I didn’t give a shit if he got the position on the Black Hand; I sure as hell didn’t want to be a Black Hand heir.
The nighttime wind tousled my hair, and I walked to the door, holding my head high. Stepping inside the front lobby area of the Playground felt different tonight; without Zander here with me, it was more real. Which was silly, because it had been just as real before, but tonight was different. Tonight was the night.
The woman working behind the desk gave me a smile. “Ah, I was wondering when you’d come back. Are you here to stay tonight? I see you’re alone.”
I walked up to her desk and gave her a smile. “It’s just me tonight.”
“Wonderful. Which mask would you like?”
I didn’t answer her right away. I suppose I could watch tonight, but a part of me worried that if I watched, I’d chicken out and not want to do this. I mean, who was I kidding? Who was I trying to fool? It wasn’t like I’d been innocent before that night three years ago. It wasn’t as if my father had sold my entire childhood to Rocco Moretti.
No, it’d just been one night. One night. One man. One fifteen-year-old girl who longed for a normal life. A girl who’d never been innocent because she’d been born to the wrong family. Born a Santos, she could never not be her father’s daughter. I’d known how to incapacitate a man since I was ten, knew where to strike with a knife to sever those important arteries not long after that. I’d been a crack shot since I was thirteen.
No. I’d never been innocent. Without my mother, I’d only had my father, and he’d been sure to train me exactly how he wanted.
“Give me the red,” I said.
“Ooh, jumping right into it? All right. Let me get your mask.” She got up, sliding over a pen and paper to me. “Same thing you signed last time; we require an updated signature with each visit. Don’t need your I.D. this time since we still have it on file.” The woman smiled at me, waited until I signed the paper, and then got me a red mask.
I was slow to pick up the mask, and she guided me to the door to the left, right behind her desk. We stepped through, and I put the mask on, feeling its weight immediately. It didn’t block the eyes at all, so I could see perfectly—well, as perfectly as I could with the dim, sensual lighting of the place.
We stood in the hall between the lobby and the… let’s just call it playground. Maybe it was due to the fact that I was alone tonight, or perhaps it was because I wore a dress that would let me hide nothing, but the woman herself patted me down tonight, just to make sure I wasn’t hiding any weapons or anything.
“All right,” she said once she was done. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to hit the nearest button. And if you want to change your mask color, just let one of the workers in the blue masks know.” She walked to the door at the far end of the hall, holding it open for me. “Have fun.”
I said nothing to her, moving past her with a saunter I’d learned years ago. If you walked like you owned the place, people were inclined to think you had it all together, that you were confident. Fake it until you make it, basically, even if my father would never admit to anything like that.
The Playground was just as I remembered it. Though I’d come here earlier than I had that night with Zander, it was still full of people. I didn’t recall seeing a bunch of cars parked in front of the place, and I wondered if each and every one of these people had their own drivers, their own chauffeurs who dropped them off. If that was the case, they were all people with money.
But in a corrupt city like this, that wasn’t too hard to do. The slimy and the conniving were easily able to amass small fortunes in a city like Cypress. Constant backstabbing, betrayals, theft—I supposed that’s why the Black Hand came together to begin with: a group of criminals banding together, as a family, in order to protect their positions, their power, and their money.
The main room was full of people, a few were in various states of undress, while a few others were completely naked already, entangled on one of the many beds in the large, spacious room, getting in positions I couldn’t imagine putting myself in.
And yet here I was. I might be doing just that myself, soon enough.
Most people, however, were still clothed. You could tell the people who had come here with someone; they hung out in pairs or in threes, talking amongst themselves, their masked faces constantly alert for their next plaything. The ones who had come here alone hung out near the walls, near the stage up front—which currently was not taken up by anyone as of right now. Low, smooth jazz played on the club’s speakers.
It was a different atmosphere when a lot of the other people were still clothed. I didn’t know where to go, what to do. I certainly wasn’t going to stroll up to one of the men hanging along the wall and pull him into one of the private rooms. I… I didn’t know what I wanted to do at this point. Being here was a huge step, but I knew it wasn’t big enough. I needed more.
I found a small leather sofa in the back of the room, off to the side, that was empty, void of people, so I walked to it and sat down. My ankles crossed, and I continued to survey the room. My eyes were drawn to the people in the bed across the way from me. Though they were over fifty feet away, I could see everything that was happening.
A mess of limbs on the bed. Soft moans filled the room above the jazz music. A woman, bearing everything to the world, save for her face, which was tucked behind a black mask. A man on top of her, bending her body every which way. They both seemed to be enjoying themselves, which I supposed was the whole point of this club. If you weren’t having fun and letting it all go, you were doing it wrong.
Although… I didn’t know if I’d have fun. I didn’t know if I would be able to truly let go, or if I’d be there in body, not in spirit. The whole point was to take it back, to reclaim what my father had given away to Rocco Moretti, but talking about it and actually doing it were two very different things.
The minutes ticked by. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel right. This place, while atmospheric, was not my usual hangout. These people, the masks they wore… I wasn’t used to any of this.
As the time wore on, more and more people started partnering up—or partnering with other partners. It was when a group of five took to the stage, all wearing black masks, that I started to wonder if I’d made a mistake by coming here.
How foolish would I feel if I left this place without doing anything? What the hell would I tell Zander? I’d lie, of course, but would it be a believable lie? That was the question.
My gaze moved to watch the group on the stage. Two girls, three men. The girls wore sexy lingerie, their other clothes having already been torn off and left on the floor somewhere. The men wore different amounts of clothes; one wore nothing but his boxers already, his dick tenting the fabric. One wore his pants and nothing else. The third wore the most clothes, a suit of some kind. Things obviously snowballed from there.