Page 25 of Beautiful Rush
“Hey Sexy.”
“Hey babe. You good?”
She batted her false eyelashes at me. Her gold eye makeup matched her pasties and thong. Val was exotic-looking with coal black hair and dark almond-shaped eyes. But she was all tits and ass and I suspected that most of the men in this place never looked at her face.
“I’m the best,” she said with a wink. “You ever wanna test the goods, I’ll give you a free ride.”
“Appreciate the offer,” I said with a smile. “But you’re Dmitri’s girl.”
She rolled her eyes and jutted out one hip, planting a hand on it. “He doesn’t own me. Besides, he’s with his new whore tonight. Send his highness my love.” With that, she strutted over to a table of paying customers and I headed to the VIP lounge.
Before I could part the purple velvet curtains, a beast of a man with long black hair, a beard, and hands so big he looked like he could crush a human skull with them, appeared in front of me. His arms were the size of tree trunks. It was a wonder he could cross one over the other. Leon was the muscle, and nobody got to Dmitri without going through Leon.
When my CI had first introduced me to Dmitri, Leon had held a sawed-off shotgun to my temple for a solid ten minutes while Dmitri questioned me.
“You’re a cop, ain’t you?”
“I’m not a cop. Are you?”
“When did you graduate the academy?”
“Didn’t go.”
You think ten minutes isn’t a long time? Think again. Longest ten minutes of my life. My heart was in my throat and I had tried not to break a sweat or let them see that I was nervous. I had passed the test and little by little Dmitri had started letting me in.
“Well, well, well if it ain’t Dima’s golden boy,” Leon said around the fat cigar clamped between his teeth.
Dima’s golden boy. It made me feel like a two-bit hooker. “How’s it going, Leon?”
He grunted in reply, a man of few words, and made a sweeping gesture with his hand as he ushered me inside a black room. Everything was black—the walls, the mirrored tables, the plush carpeting, and the crystal chandelier.
Dmitri was sitting on a black velvet sofa like it was his throne, his arm slung around a Val look-alike who was snorting lines off a mirror with a hundred-dollar bill, a girl on her knees between his spread legs, her blonde head bobbing up and down.
Lifestyles of the Rich and Depraved.
“There he is,” Dmitri said, a big grin for me as he shoved away the girl on her knees in front of him. The girl collapsed in a heap at his feet and then stood, looking a little dazed as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Dmitri didn’t even spare her a glance. He zipped his black pants as he stood and extended his hand to me. We shook and he clapped me on the back like I was his honored guest. He jerked his chin at Viktor who was sitting on the sofa across from him. “Move.”
Without questioning it, Viktor dutifully moved to the other end of the sofa and I took the seat he’d just vacated, across from Dmitri.
I tipped my chin at Viktor who nodded his greeting before he went back to playing on his phone and at Sergei who narrowed his eyes at me before he went back to snorting blow off a girl’s stomach.
The girl Dmitri had shoved away perched on the edge of the sofa and watched me as she snorted a line off the mirrored coffee table, her reward for servicing Dmitri, no doubt. She resembled Connor’s girlfriend, Ava, with her white-blonde hair and big eyes. Pretty like a china doll. But I could tell she didn’t have Ava’s sass. She had a deer in the headlights look, too young and innocent to be in a place like this. I wanted to tell her to take the first bus back to Kansas or wherever she came from, but she was too busy getting high off Dmitri’s expensive blow to think about the danger she was putting herself in.
Dmitri snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Go show Kosta some love.”
She blinked as if she didn’t understand his words. His hand shot out and he backhanded her. I gritted my teeth but kept my face neutral so he couldn’t see that the way he treated women made me physically ill. She just stared at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, and raised her hand to her cheek to cover the red mark from his hand. “You wanna keep your job, you fucking do what I tell you to do. You hear me, bitch?” he snarled.
“Come here, sweetheart.” I crooked my finger at her. I didn’t want her to come over to me. I just wanted to get her away from Dmitri and if she didn’t move her ass, he’d backhand her again. She responded to my words and made her way over to me, running her tongue over her lips and her hands over her tight, stretchy red dress.
“What’s your name?” I asked when she stood in front of me, her legs spread.
She ran her tongue over her blood-red painted lips, a stark contrast to her pale skin. “Angel.”
Of course, it was.
She dropped to her knees in front of me as if that was expected of her and undid the button on my jeans. That shit just depressed me. I hauled her up by the arms and planted her ass in the seat next to mine. Dmitri and Leon, who was standing in the shadows, arms crossed, were watching me to see what I’d do next. Everything was a fucking test with these guys and my next move was risky, but my conscience won out. I leaned in close, my voice low and for her ears only. “You don’t have to do that for me or for anyone in this room unless it’s something you want to do. Understand?”
She shook her head, her eyes filled with fear. “I cannot afford to lose my job,” she whispered in my ear and I detected the Eastern European accent. Fuck me.
