Page 24 of Gilded Kisses

Yay.

Not really.

It’s not the surroundings that make the job insufferable. It’s the hard-ass people with no people skills that make my life a misery.One more person jerks their chin at me and says, “Hey you, take my coat,” and I will take my new switchblade to their fancy furs.

I look to the heavens for about the fifth time in the last hour of my shift. All I find is someone needs to replace some light bulbs in the freaking chandelier. Again.

“Hey, coat girl. Grab me a drink.”

I jerk my head up so fast I see white dots. My hand is on my blade and I am already five paces from my target when a hand clamps around my arm.

“Whoa, there.” Dark brown eyes narrow on me with patience. “Tsk tsk. You can’t kill members,chica brutal. Calmate. Let me get this.”

My cousin’s partner, and one of my three bosses, is too nice for his own good. Well, nice to me. To others, he’s a walking nightmare in a ten-thousand-dollar suit.

“Relax my ass, Santi. And I’m not a brutal girl,” I counter. “Just fed up with assholes not getting the stabby end of my blade.”

His chuckle is less than humorous. “I see. Wait here.”

He crosses the expansive room and says something to the mobster with no people skills that has him turning white where he sits.

Two seconds later security is hauling his ass out the front door.

I raise a hand and smile, “Bye, bitch.”

Criminals are one of two things. The biggest arrogant assholes you will ever meet or so charming you lose your sense of self-preservation just welcoming them to the club.

I rub at a throbbing pain in my heart when a trio of names lingers a minute in my head. Mirsha, Luther and Viper are the latter in spades. Dickwads like this one are the former.

I can’t blame people like him, though. Everyone with the smallest amount of villain in their blood wants to be a part of Club Genesis. Miles of marble flooring, tens of beautiful ornate crystal chandeliers, countless plush leather settees and all the free booze you can handle with your membership is hard to resist, and unlike the Gilded Key Society, no one said you had to have people skills to get in.

And let’s face it, crime pays well. And no one says no to money. Not even blood money.

You think I’m kidding, but I’m not. This place has five levels of crime, which includes the sketchy basement I have seen no one leave after entering. The four other levels are used for anything from taking a hit out on your enemy to making shady deals every acronym agency in the country would love to know about.

I’m not judging, but if you enter through the revolving glass doors of Club Genesis, you need to know what you are getting into. You need someone pushing up daisies, want to do an arms deal with some South American baddies or need someone scouted out with a find-and-retrieve contract…done. Club Genesis is the place for you. As long as it’s not human trafficking. Come on. We have to havesomelimits.

What’s the cost? A Genesis membership isn’t cheap. To get in the door, it’s eight million dollars. A onetime payment that gets you access to all the dark dealings and shady shit happening in Chicago’s criminal underworld. Once in, there are only two ways we revoke your membership: you die or you talk. Which means you die.

Not my words. I’m just passing the rules along. Number one being nobody talks about Club Genesis in case you missed that the first time. It doesn’t matter who you are. We handle business in-house. No badges get involved. Not unless you want to see how well the men of Genesis are with a gun and shovel.

Hmm.It’s a blood-in and blood-out kind of deal, now that I think about it.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Your eight million earns you access to the city’s top chefs. After all the crime talk and stabby times, we offer an exquisitely prepared filet mignon with an irresistible side dish of the best pasta Alfredo.

Really, my cousin Harlon has thought of everything since taking over for his father a few years back. Five, I think. His father fell in love with an undercover cop looking to take down the Constantine family after a friend of hers went missing. Few people know that. As it turns out—and you did not hear this from me—the dude double-crossed my dear, cold-hearted uncle which ended with the other guy getting offed.

Hence the undercover cop.

And the dude? Let’s just say that there is a reason I tell people Club Genesis no longer offers the service of cooking up your enemy. No fileting, broiling, dicing, slicing, or otherwise preparing the enemy in any culinary fashion is part of my spiel when we welcome new members.

Yeah. You thought your family had skeletons in the closet. The number of dead bodies in the ground, closets, trunks, lakes and cement foundations at the hands of my family trumps yours any day of the week.

Despite the somewhat colorful history attached to my name, I still want to step in and become the next powerhouse of the heart of Club Genesis. It is that or me sitting at home waiting for my father to marry me off.

Hard pass.I’m done with men and there is no way my controlling father is finding someone to breed me off to.

Since I can’t have my dream, I have to settle. An undertaker is next to being God in this place. If I can swing the gig, it’s goodbye front door and sixty grand a year and hello seven-figure position inside the underworld’s most elite society. And with that title comes respect.

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