Chapter 2

Two

Sapphire

A s Chicago’s city lights zoom by, my cousin Belle sends her usual late afternoon text to make sure I haven’t chickened out of our deal.

“Are you ready for The Gilded Key Society tonight?”

I physically feel my heart squeeze reading those words. I love her beyond measure. She’s my best friend. But the more time I spend with her the more I realize my life is a crap show.

My immediate answer is hell yes. I need a stiff drink, a dark place to think, and a hellacious orgasm. I’ll get two out of three with the third as only wishful thinking. And that is the problem.

The Gilded Key Society just opened a branch here in Chicago. The other two places are in New Orleans and Seattle. I never thought the sinful adult club would make an appearance in my city, but I’m glad it did. It is a place where fantasies live and I could use a few of those right now. But I know better to think like that. Seeing the three men I can’t have night after night rips my heart out. Fantasies never come true for me. But like I said, this isn’t something new.

Especially in this instance.

Despite my inner warring I quickly reply and thumb out: yes, have the tequila ready .

She sends back a peach and eggplant emoji making me laugh. Something I haven’t felt like doing in a long time. Not because I’m doom and gloom, but my life hasn’t been peachy as of late. I hate admitting this, but I’m having a really hard time looking at my life as a glass-half-full kind of scenario. And that is just not me. I’m not a kitten and rainbows chick, but damn I just can’t seem to shake the black clouds hanging over my head.

Let me see if I can put this into perspective for you.

Royal mafia blood. Check.

Yay, me, right? Wrong.

Wealthy. Check.

Hmm. I guess on paper. As escrow holder for Club Genesis, the money isn’t mine, but I have access to millions at any given time of day. Does that still count? That is a big fat nope. Ask my dad. He used to hold the job title I now have. After a large bounty was deposited into his care he dropped me like dead weight, grabbed his ditzy hooker girlfriend, and skipped town. The man hasn’t been heard from for over ten years. The second he shows his face he’ll catch a bullet between the eyes.

I’m thinking he won’t be coming around any time soon for birthday cake.

This leads me to…

Protection. Check.

I have that in spades as long as I am the undertaker for the Northern Alliance. Personal driver, bodyguards everywhere I go and a cousin and his two partners—the men of Genesis— who hardly let me out of their sight.

It’s damn annoying. But I get it. Harlon is not only protecting a valuable business asset but, he’s making sure I don’t repeat family history. He won’t admit that last part, but I’m not a fool either.

So yeah, to anyone looking at my life from the outside in I can see how things might appear like a dream come true. Stable job, money, and sexy men in black suits surrounding me twenty-four-seven.

It looks good in the movies, but in reality, it’s a royal bitch being mafia royalty.

The truth is my life resembles more of a reverse fairy tale. Instead of waking up each morning and spinning around my royal chambers all dreamy-eyed about the perfect life with no trouble in sight, my feet hit the floor at the same time my brain clicks over with thoughts of wondering whose death I’ll be ordering that day. Abandoned by my father, shunned by my family, and without a place or people to call my own.

That’s my truth and it’s not pretty.

And today is gonna be an ass-dragger kind of day. I can just feel it.

“Ma’am, we are here.”

My blurred vision refocuses and I realize I’m staring at my phone’s blackened screen unaware we’ve arrived in the sub-basement where I work, Club Genesis.

“Oh, um, thanks, Raphe.” My mind scrambles to catch up.

Warm, green eyes find me in the rearview mirror. “Will you be joining your friend again, this evening, ma’am? Usual pick-up time?”

His kind eyes don’t hold an ounce of judgment for what I’ve been up to with my evenings this week.

My heart gives a small quiver at the plans I have with Belle. “Yes. Thank you, Raphe. Our usual time. I’ll meet you here at seven sharp.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Impatient as always, Belle’s face pops up in a message bubble with the text: Harlon doesn’t suspect, does he? Frown emoji

I get her insecurities. I do. I just wish she would take strength in owning her desires. She has no idea how strong she is.

I tap her bubble head and thumb out a reply: Unless you talked, no.

This week is her first time performing at The Society and I’ve promised to be there for her the entire time. In the back, with my back turned and my earbuds in.

Four days down, one day to go. She’s not doing this for money, but because she wants to find her deeper self. I guess using sex is as good as any other enlightening method. I prefer the tarot.

My knee-jerk reaction was…umm, no. Watching my cousin on stage having sex is not my idea of fun. But saying no didn’t feel right either. Not after years of her being there for me when my father ditched me, the entire Constantine family shunning me and my college years.

So I agreed in exchange for free margaritas.

And then I saw them.

The Southern Alliance.

My family’s enemy.

The three men I’ve lusted after for two years. I hadn’t seen them this close in months and seeing them just feet from me is a temptation I don’t need. They’ve made me realize I might actually understand the allure of why my father did what he did. His dreams were right there in front of him day after day until one morning he woke up and said no more.

When I first walked through the doors of Chicago’s most elite adult club I had no idea Elyah, Lev, and Gregor would be there. I nearly chickened out and ran home when their collective auras of power hit me head-on.

Only the fear in Belle’s eyes of being left alone kept me rooted to my seat that first night.

Because they are men I can never touch, I went home that night and came three times before passing out. But between you and me, my body doesn’t care about mafia politics, territories, and old grudges. Nor what my battery-operated boyfriend can do. It wants them.

Seeing all three of them in their expensive suits and their tattooed hands wrapped around vodka glasses brings out a side of me I am struggling to recognize.

I palm my phone and a small computer case carrying my laptop.

Please don’t judge when I say this. Every night I sit in that audience with the smell of sex permeating the air around me and it makes me wish they would walk over to my table, steal me away to a room in The Gilded Key Society, and screw me until I no longer know my name.

I signed on to be Belle’s moral support, but I keep hoping a miracle will happen.

“Until this evening, Ms. Constantine.”

Damn. I got lost in my thoughts again.

I open my door and slip from the back of my cousin’s Mercedes and lean down a little to answer his driver. The man is in his late sixties, has gray hair, and owns one of the sincerest smiles I’ve seen on a man.

“Thank you, Raphe.” He gives a knowing smile and I make a mental note to pick him up the sweet cherry-flavored pipe tobacco I know he prefers.

Club members come and go at all hours, but the majority don’t show up until sundown; since it’s barely three in the afternoon it’s not unusual for no one else to be in the underground parking. I spent most of yesterday and last night pulling overtime on a contract so I took some personal time and decided to come in late. A perk of my new job.

True to form, the driver waits as I enter the elevator before pulling away. I punch the large number three on the wall panel and stand back as the doors swoosh closed. Seconds later I’m walking onto Genesis’ dark floor. Not because of aesthetics or its black carpet, but because this level is treated like a vault of silence.

What happens on the dark floor, stays on the dark floor.

When my cousin read the rules to my position I laughed too, but he was dead serious. Something he’s been a lot of lately.

Landlocked with two floors above and two below, the third level of Club Genesis is a country of its own. The price of entry is a Genesis membership, your fingerprint in blood in my ledger, and no less than five hundred thousand dollars in the undertaker’s escrow.

Unless you are a runner. That membership is blood in, blood out once you have given your loyalty to the Northern Alliance.

This floor is where deals are made, sealed, and enforced by my cousin’s crew. Bounties are issued and collected. And all overseen by me.

I step out of the elevator and immediately to my right the day receptionist greets me with a polite smile and tilt of her head.

In front of me, the open floor plan is sectioned off into three areas. Against the far wall is where the private rooms are. Behind those doors is where negotiations are handled by the men of Genesis. If you ever wondered where the bad guys with guns come to make deals with other bad guys with guns, well, now you have your answer. In the back rooms of Genesis’ dark floor.

Toward the middle of the spacious opening is my area—the parlor. Cute name for where hits and retrievals are taken out in the underworld of Chicago. It has raised half-walls that give me a level of privacy with clients, but not much. Toward the front and near the receptionist is the lounge—a collection of sofas and low knee-level tables where Genesis’ runners come looking for a contract to fulfill. Or collect payment on one.

And right now, I have a handful of runners tracking my every move.

Creepy bastards.

I grew up here back when my cousin’s father ran the place with my father. They were thick back then. Before the shit hit the proverbial fan anyway.

Being here isn’t the issue. It’s doing his old job, being around the sons of the men he worked with…that is what has me questioning my very reason for breathing.

The air is cool and smells of an odd combination of gunpowder courtesy of the runners and the scent of roses coming from the large bouquet at the end of the counter.

I step up to the reception desk and the woman behind the counter hands me my ledger.

“Afternoon, ma’am.”

Her smile is rehearsed, as is the perfect winged eye-liner. But I don’t take offense. We all wear masks here.

I give a curt nod. Hearing her address me like I’m twenty years her senior is just weird when I’m two years older at best.

“Call me Sapphire, Lexi. It’s okay. Really.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Granted, I am her boss so I can’t blame her for sticking to the rules. But I still huff a sigh. I have more important battles anyway. Like figuring a way out of this job without pissing off my cousin. Or letting him down. Now that he’s head of the family and this club, he’s giving me the chance to clear my name.

I can’t screw that up.

I crack open the hard-covered book about three hundred pages thick and turn to the middle for today’s date.

Inside are the names of outstanding bounties and their holders with the names of the runners along the side picked for the job. The bounty placed on each contact is also written in its column. Doing a quick tally, and if all aspects of each contract have been met, I’m scheduled to pay out a little over five hundred thousand dollars today.

Maybe now you understand why I’ve been having a hard time finding my glass half full. My life deals with death every single day and I’m the one who signs on the dotted lines when the job is complete and bodies are in the morgues.

Sure, nearly one-hundred percent of them are rapists, drug dealers selling to children, kidnappers, and traffickers. But not all. Not all.

That is the part Harlon says I need to come to terms with and fast if I want to have a soul and sleep at night.

My fantasies of wrapping babies in my arms, kissing a loving husband, and feeling protected from the evil of the world are nothing but fairy tale make-believes. Monsters are very real in my world and I’m not entirely sure I am not one of them. Belle thinks my outlook is a little jaded but, hands down I am not the kind of girl a guy brings home to meet the family.

Lexi clears her throat.

Right. I lock down my wayward thoughts and bring my focus where it needs to be. My job.

I narrow my eyes on the men waiting for me to dish out their fees. I can’t help but wonder how many know my history. Do they know I’m that Sapphire? How could they not?

“How long have they been waiting?” I place my phone on the counter.

A couple of the runners look like they want to reach for their guns and demand their money while the other three are deceptively calm.

The redheaded receptionist stands a little taller, her jaw tight. A set of steel nerves is needed to work in this place and in the few weeks I’ve been here I’ve never seen Lexi nervous before now.

“Umm…a few of them have been here since around noon and the others arrived a little before you did.” Her eyes dart over my shoulder before locking on mine. “The tall one with the leather jacket and heavy-set shoulders has been playing with his knife for thirty minutes now. When he came in he mouthed off about hearing you were taking over the floor. It didn’t sit well with him. He said he would do you for free if you tried to run off with his money.”

I’m compelled to look over my shoulder. Ugh, bad decision. My eyes lock onto the devil in leather. And I’m not talking about the sexy version on TV. This one is fugly and sneers more than smiles.

Snake Eyes. A real bastard. Up until now, I haven’t had to deal with him face to face. Harlon warned me about him. When you need to send a message, he is the one to get the job done. Word through the club is the twisted assassin rolls a set of dice before picking how he tortures his contract.

I swear if anyone were to manage to kill him, they’d find snake venom instead of blood in his veins. Taller than most and built like a tank. With the long, unruly beard, he looks like he would rather eat razor blades than use one on his face. His T-shirt, dark ripped jeans and motorcycle boots don’t exactly fit in with the level of opulence and wealth within Genesis. Then again, none of the runners care about rubbing elbows with the elite men and women in other parts of Genesis. They are here to kill and get paid for it.

I lock down a shiver and hold his black, dead eyes across the twenty feet between us.

Turning on my heel, I tell Lexi, “Make sure security is alerted we may have trouble.”

Her expression turns from vaguely worried to remorseful. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have repeated his words. I should have kept that to myself. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I wave her off, ignoring the pity in her eyes. “Don’t let it bother you. I don’t. Now alert security, Lexi.”

She does as I skim over the details in my ledger, keeping Snake Eyes in my peripheral.

Lexi presses the code for security and a minute later two men in black suits exit the elevator. They don’t do much but stand there with their hands clasped in front of them, but having them close by is a comfort.

“By the way, Mr. Constantine is looking for you. He didn’t seem too happy. He had a strange man with him.”

Hmm. Vague. “Thanks. Can you let him know I’m in and will be in the back parlor?”

I close the ledger with an audible thump and collect my phone. I make eye contact with security and keep my chin high as I pass through the lounge area. At first, I thought the wide-open space was great. You know. More room and fewer walls equals a happy environment.

That equation is deceptive.

No walls mean no protection and in this line of work I have to question the architect’s thought process. Something between me and the dudes with killer instincts would be nice.

I’m beginning to realize Harlon said just about anything I wanted to hear to get me to sign on as an undertaker. What he doesn’t know is I had few options on the table. A bachelor of arts in accounting isn’t much use if you can’t get a job.

The runner in the leather jacket and knife pushes up off the couch and steps in front of me. He smells like he’s been down at the docks for about a week. In a pit of dead fish.

Fat, beefy fingers wrap around my upper arm and stop me cold. I’m against a wall and the putrid assassin with the shower phobia is in my face. His expansive shoulders turn into a black wall of leather.

Note to self: be more careful of the kind of walls you wish for.

My face pulls into a snarl.

I hear him chuckle darkly and it makes my stomach churn violently. Is this what it feels like to be the hunted?

Surprise sends the ledger and my phone tumbling to the floor. I shove at the man. “Back the hell up!”

Beady black eyes narrow on me. “You mean shit here. Get that in your head. Your father is shit, too. I don’t care what the bosses say. The day he stole my family’s money is the day he signed his death warrant.” He stops talking like he’s finally had a great idea after a long drought. “Maybe I could use you as bait and lure him in.” He snaps his teeth together an inch from my nose.

The overhead chandeliers are more for elegance than throwing the place in massive amounts of lights. Shadows cut across his face but I still get the full force of evil in his eyes. “I still can’t believe it’s your name on my contract. Your predecessor picked a lousy time to keel over.”

“Yeah, heart attacks work like that, dumbass.” I jerk on my arm but his grip tightens painfully.

I should play along. Be meek and pliant to his demands.

Yeah, that doesn’t work for me.

“Get the fuck off me.” Ungodly amounts of grit and determination drive my voice high, but the animalistic growl coming out of his throat sends cold chills through me.

“I’m here to collect my earnings. I’m gonna make sure you don’t run off with my money like your dear daddy did to my father. Harlon and those two pricks he runs with made a big fucking mistake with you.”

Against my better judgment, I laugh in his face. “You’ll be lucky they don’t kill you for touching me.”

Those vice-like fingers move from my arm to my throat and suddenly choosing to breathe is no longer an option I have.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Good advice I don’t take.

“If Constantine and those two pricks, as you say, hear you talking crap they’ll force-feed you hand-picked bullets.” I’m choking on every single word but I squeeze them out anyway.

But let me back up a second. You must be wondering who I am.