Page 31 of Dark Prince

LORENZO

This isn’t my first rodeo so to speak. I’ve hired and fired people in the past, but when I bought Headliners two years ago, it was already staffed and a well-oiled machine. It’s the place people wanted to be for the night life, abundance of alcohol, and . . . tits.

I only bought the club because Sasha decided stripping sounded like a fan-fucking-tastic idea, and one that would set her father’s ass on fire; except it never seemed to faze him. Hell, nothing she has done in her quest to bring Mischa Nikolayev to heel has panned out.

A week after we married, she dropped out of college to train six to eight hours during the day and then dance at night for money. I was beyond pissed, but I had to keep my trap shut. It was the hardest damn thing I have ever had to do. I don’t believe in forbidding my woman to do anything she wants or desires, but even that didn’t tamper with the fact that I hated the idea of her taking her clothes off for other men.

She was mine. She is mine. But I also realized early on that you can’t constrict her independence. Doing so only results in her doing the opposite, which makes me question her relationship with Mischa, her father. Nothing she does to get under his skin works, yet she continues to push.

Is it that he knows what I know? That Sasha won’t be forced into anything someone else wants her to do. That only backfires, which is why I kept my ownership of the adult entertainment club she worked at a secret. It’s why I made sure she worked the private booths, and I was the only one that watched her, paid her. No one will have her but me. She was made for me. Why can’t she see it?

What’s mine is mine. I don’t share. Sienna and I might be twins, but she had her shit, and I had my stuff. We swapped from time to time because we wanted each other’s stuff too, but it was always a clean trade. I gave her what she wanted of mine and she gave me what I wanted of hers. She didn’t like girly toys, so it worked out for me—until the only possession I wanted was Sasha Nikolayev.

My sister arrived last night and hasn’t said one fucking word to me. She’s making plenty of go-fuck-yourself eye contact, but her lips remain in a snarl. Domenico wants me to fix our beef, but I don’t know how. She hates my wife, and my wife hates my sister. It’s a damned if I do, damned if I don’t, situation. I love them both, and I can’t live without either, which is why I’ve been avoiding all this.

“When will the girls be ready to go on stage for a live performance?” Domenico asks from behind me. He takes a seat at the bar next to where I’m perched, nursing the whiskey in my glass. It’s odd. The need to drink isn’t present like it used to be. It hasn’t been present since the night before Dad announced our two-year marriage in his living room Saturday night. “We need to open this place back up so that we can get the next joint rolling.”

Strip clubs are the only legit businesses Salvatore Santo operated, with the exception of this one, which his boy Kent ran in the dirt. All of his captains managed one to three clubs in various parts of the south: Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Why Texas isn’t on the list, I don’t know, but since this is all I have to work with, that’s about to change. First, I just have to get this one up and running and then Dom needs to reappoint someone that’s business savvy.

After being here almost a week, I’m tired and I need pussy, or my wife to suck my cock. I haven’t trained or worked out. I have no time. I’m living and breathing this goddamn strip club. I may have to sell Headliners when I get back home or let someone else run it. I’ve had my fill. If a woman’s tits don’t belong to Sasha Nikolayev, they do nothing for me. I’m fucking broken. That’s the only thing I can come up with at this moment. My man card should be taken.

“They need a dance instructor first. I’ll have to look into that tomorrow. I’m done today. I just want to fucking relax or go take a shower.”

I shouldn’t feel dirty but I do. And it’s not just that I feel unclean. Looking at other women and critiquing their performance makes me feel like I cheated, like I did something I wasn’t supposed to do.

I’m not cut out for this shit; at least not being this involved in the nitty-gritty. Back home, I have a club manager that deals with everything. I literally only handle the money, and that’s because I didn’t want Sienna to know about the club. Dad and Dom knew, but it wasn’t something we talked about. For certain reasons, I needed Dad’s permission to buy the club, and Dom, being his underboss, had to be in the know as well. Maybe if I let Si in on that little detail, it’ll take some of the heat off me and place some on Dom.

I sigh in resignation. No, I’m not that much of a dick; at least not to my brother. Sienna doesn’t need to be angry at both of us.

“Why the fuck would we do that?” Domenico’s voice breaks through my thoughts. He is staring at me like it’s the dumbest shit he’s ever heard.

“Because they all fucking suck?” I say as if my previous statement wasn’t obvious. The girls can move. They have various levels of dance experience, but something is missing. The club needs a vibe, a pull, something that is going to make it the place to be nightly. New Orleans is a huge attraction for tourists. We need to entertain people, give them something they cannot get anywhere else, which means we need strippers that do more than take off their clothes and shake their tits in customer’s faces.

“As much as it pains me to say, I have to agree with Ren.” Sienna takes the seat on the other side of me as the bartender that I’m paying isn’t yet serving actual customers, brings an iced mineral water with a straw and sets it in front of her. After observing my sister today, apparently that’s her new thing. She even ordered some type of mineral water that’s exported from Mexico to have on hand. Let’s not forget the place isn’t making any money yet while we spend dough on shit that isn’t even needed.

“Nobody asked for your opinion, Si. Go count some fucking money or something,” Domenico interjects. He nods his head in Brandon’s direction, requesting a drink. Brandon already worked at Gino’s. How this name came about, I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m rebranding it to Sinner’s Playground. Only I need a goddamn show with a banging performance for it to be that.

“There is no money,” she deadpans. “You are going to have to open this shithole back up for that to be possible.” My eyes roam to where her lips are pursed as she brings her straw to her red lips. She’s decked out this evening, dressed in black jeans, a loose red top covered with the leather jacket I bought her, and heels.

“They have potential,” I say, swinging my head to face Dom and justify my decision on the girls I hired this week. “They just need a professional to choreograph their sets.” They need outfits too, but I’ll leave that part out. I’ll figure that out later and get something ordered if I have to call my guy in New York that runs my other club.

“Fine,” he concedes. “But we are not hiring that shit out when we have our very own ex-stripper in-house.” My jaw clamps and I turn my head to look straight before I clock him in the fucking jaw.

“No,” I bite out, annoyed at where he’s going with this. Sasha is not stripping here, nor is she getting involved in this shit. The sooner we get this place up and running and an actual captain that knows what the hell he is doing, the sooner we can get back home. I don’t know why we had to take over. Could have left this place to the wolves, but no, Dad is determined to become the Italian American version of Mischa Nikolayev and the country is going to bow down to him.

“Dom does have a point.” My sister nods her head as I watch them both through the mirror behind the bar. A toothy grin graces her lips. “Put that bitch to some good use finally.”

She leans over the bar, wrapping her lips around her straw as she stares at me. She’s trying to get under my skin and it’s working, but only because I’m wound so goddamn tight. I need to either stab someone or get laid.

“You’re the club’s new dance instructor. You start immediately.” Dom’s voice catches my attention. He’s swiveled around in his chair, his back facing the bar. Glancing in the mirror again, I see Sasha and her brother walking toward us.

“Hard pass.” Sasha comes up behind me, placing her hands on my hips and digging in with her nails through the material of my white T-shirt. It isn’t a hateful act. She only does this when the need to touch me weighs heavily. It doesn’t happen often, so it makes me wonder what Krishna took her to do. I know Mischa has people here that report to him. I don’t know what they do, but I’d imagine it isn’t the legit kind of work like Dad insists all our businesses are. That’s another reason to make the adult entertainment aspect of Sal’s operation work or come up with something brand new. Something new is only going to ensure we’re here longer, so strip clubs it is.

“Tough shit. You’re doing it, so chop fucking chop, little girl.” Domenico claps his hands, a sardonic smile taking form on his lips.

“I said no,” Sasha smarts off, which was a bad move on her part. Why can’t she make anything easy?

Domenico’s face hardens in the blink of an eye, his upper lip curling. His dark-brown eyes shift from her to me. “Lorenzo, you might want to set your goddamn wife straight. Apparently, she’s forgotten I’m the boss here. What I say goes. End of fucking story. So you can tame her ass, or I will. Which is it going to be?”

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