Page 3 of Original Sins (Dark Odyssey 6)

When you’re like me, it’s so much better when you find others who are the same.

That explains my best friend Henry Dubois and why we’re so close, close enough that we like to share everything, even women.

That also explains why I’m closer to my younger cousins, close enough that I’m willing to part with everything in my trust fund to start my own empire with them built on dark fantasies.

It’s Friday night, and Henry and I are doing what we do every week.

We’re at Club Ecstasy watching people fucking on the sidelines while we discuss our business plans for the week ahead.

Club Ecstasy is a sex club that attracts anybody and everybody. The place has been going since the nineteen sixties and is based in one of the warehouses on the other side of the docks.

We’ve been coming here since we were in high school and far too young to even know about places like this. Of course, at the time, we weren’t allowed inside, but that didn’t stop us from climbing the roof and seeing all the action from there.

This year makes fifteen years that the two of us have been patrons to the dark side in one way or another.

The structure of the club isn’t that great, but people aren’t coming here for that.

Like any normal club, there’s a dance floor, a bar, and a seated area at the end of the floor. The sidelines are where all the action is. Right now, there’s every sort of pairing in the open cubicles around us—men with women, men with men, women with women, and then multiples, my personal favorite.

Just in case you can’t see the sidelines, the club has two raised platforms in the center of the dancefloor for those who like the risqué.

One platform has a metal St. Andrews Cross for those who love BDSM, and the other platform has an exhibitionist box. Both have couples you can watch, and this is what I’m currently watching as I sip on my glass of whiskey.

The box has a new couple every night, and people book it in one-hour slots. To keep the fantasy fresh, the rule is no one knows each other.

So the couple in the box now who are fucking like they can’t get enough of each other met fifteen minutes ago.

No one would ever think that from the way the muscular marine-type guy has the petite blonde, who looks like a dainty ballerina, pressed up against the wall of the glass box while he hammers into her from behind.

The art behind not knowing each other is seeing how people react on that first time they take each other.

People like me love anything like that.

I’m sure those like me will miss it too when it’s all gone in a few week. Three weeks to be exact.

The public thinks it’s because the owner died of a heart attack, and the family is selling up because they couldn’t bear to carry on a business dream without him.

We know differently. Or rather,Iknew and was able to pass on the intel to Henry.

I’m one of the eldest sons in the Giordano crime family. When you come from a family like mine, you know things others don’t.

Things like the truth.

The truth about this place is the owner, Brian Caruso, got a hit on him after killing the brother of one of Chicago’s nastiest criminals, who also happens to be property hungry.

Brian was shot dead while he had his evening meal with his wife. She, in turn, was forced to give over the business and herself in exchange for her life.

In three weeks the place will be torn down and a new car park built. That will be it for Club Ecstasy, and decades of fantasy gone down the drain.

Tonight is going to be the count down and one of our last nights here.

It will also herald the start of big changes in our lives and put certain plans in motion.

Today was also the last Friday Henry worked at my family’s shipping company, Giordano Inc. Both of us have worked there as accountants. Me for ten years and him for five.

He previously worked for his family’s property development company, but he left after a big bust-up with his father.

A month ago, he was summoned back after his grandfather died. His grandfather left the business to him and his father in equal parts. It was something neither expected.

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