Chapter Eight
Iwasn’t usually someone who was shocked. I’d seen too much shit in life to truly be bowed over by anything. But as I walked into Red’s that night, determined to find the girl who knocked me on my ass, I’d been surprised to see her shaking her tits for the crowd.
Surprised and delighted.
Kelsie, as they called her, though I was certain that wasn’t her real name, was topless her large, pale breasts bare for all the hungry eyes in the crowd to see. She danced with abandon. Looking too carefree for a woman who had put herself in the crossfire of a mob war.
All that made her…intriguing. Maybe she was insane, and that was why she returned to the club tonight. Or maybe, she thought I was dead. She’d knocked me across the head hard enough to kill. Or maybe, she was just reckless.
Either way, I found myself eager to find out what made her tick.
“How much for the girl?” I asked the manager.
Tommy turned to look at me, his eyes wide. “What?” he stuttered out.
I rolled my eyes. For a man who was expected to deal with a certain clientele he was a pussy. Over the years, I’d watched him bend over backwards to accommodate every man in the bar, even when it wasn’t in the best interest of his girls.
`“Who’s that girl?” I asked. I tried to sound nonchalant, as if I wasn’t desperate to find out.
“Which one?” Tommy asked.
I growled low in my throat, sure that he was messing with me. I didn’t have the time or patience for this tonight. Dom had called my phone three hours ago letting me know that the Bratva were looking for Adrian. Apparently, he’d had a meeting with his uncle that evening, and when he went dark, they sent out feelers.
So far, no one knew that Adrian was likely encased in cement in some warehouse floor. I wanted to keep it that way, which was why I was back at the club.
“The one before,” I gritted my teeth together as I spoke. “The brunette.”
A slow smile unfurled on Tommy’s face, and I knew he was about to say something that was going to piss me off. “She’s hot, right?”
I grunted, my eyes never leaving the stage. The longer we stood here the tenser I got. I didn’t have time to waste with Tommy.
“I want a private dance,” I demanded.
Tommy raised a brow. I rarely asked for private dances from the girls, and when I did, it was always the same one. Maggie.
“Mags is working today.” Tommy shifted his weight as he spoke, a sign of his nervousness. “I’m sure she would be happy to--”
I raised a hand, cutting him off. “Not interested.” I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my wallet. I counted a mountain of bills, at least a thousand, and handed it to him. “Send the brunette to the back room.”
For a moment, I worried that he would refuse. But Tommy was a conniving, greedy asshole, and he grabbed the money tightly in his chubby fingers.
“I’ll make sure that she’s ready,” he said.
I nodded. “Put this on my tab,” I said, as I reached down the bar and snagged a bottle of bourbon. Probably wasn’t the best idea considering that I needed to keep my head on straight, but I needed something to take the edge off.
I reached down into my back pocket and grabbed my phone. Dom and Alex had been blowing me up all day. My brother wanted an update at every moment, either to make sure that I knew how badly I screwed up, or to make sure my head injury hadn’t killed me. Alex wanted updates about the girl.
I smirked as his name popped up on the screen of my phone. “What?” I asked, answering it.
“You found her already? Christ.”
I laughed loudly and walked through the door of the private room. I frowned as I looked around the space. Normally, I was too drunk to take in the décor, but today, I was cold sober, and the black and red was not to my taste.
“She’s a dancer.” I took a seat on the black couch trying my best not to think about the type of stains this thing was probably covered in. Something told me that Tommy wasn’t the most hygenic, and despite Red’s clientele, I knew from experience that most of us were shit drunk when we came to the private rooms.
“I fucking asked Tommy…” Alex trailed off.
I rolled my eyes. “Tommy needed some dead presidents.”