Page 7 of Wrecked By You

Besides, in my experience, desperate people were often the hardest workers. And I had no room, or time, for slackers.

As long as she arrived on time, didn’t mess with me, and did her fucking job without bringing shit to my door, then she could stay. But one sniff of trouble and she was out of here. I’d tend the fucking bar myself if it came to that.

I had an business to build, and while the clubbing side of the Kingcaid empire had started off slow, it was growing fast. Last year alone, I’d opened six new clubs, and in the next twelve months, I planned to double that, at least.

I might be damaged goods, and treat everyone with suspicion, but I could run a fucking business. From birth, success had been ingrained into me. Sadie had knocked me off course for a while, but I’d put the past behind me—to a degree—and now I wanted to pay back my father for the belief he’d shown in me and line up beside my family as an equal.

Dad’s idea of starting a business might have begun as a way of giving me something to concentrate on, goals to aim for, and a company to ground me. But in the end, his “here’s an expensive toy to play with” had been exactly what I’d needed to fire me up. I wanted to prove him wrong. To show him that while I might be the ugly-mutt son whose biggest claim to fame was the fact that I’d trusted the wrong woman and almost died, that I had just as much to offer the Kingcaid brand as my brothers and cousins.

I wasn’t an underdog. I was a broken man who’d lost my way for a few years. That was then and this was now, and nothing would stand in my way of putting Kingcaid nightclubs on the map.

At the sound of bottles clanging from the bar, I rose to my feet and slammed the laptop closed. As I entered the main area of the nightclub, Stan’s butt crack greeted me as he bent over to pick up a crate of beer.

“Fuck’s sake, Stan. Pull up your pants before I have to bleach my eyes.”

Stan set the crate on top of the bar, hoisted up his jeans, and flashed me a toothy grin. “Afternoon, boss. Want to give me a hand?”

“Is that you tending your resignation, considering I pay you to manage the bar?”

Stan’s grin grew. He was one of the few people outside of my family who dealt with my moods with good humor and the lack of an offense gene. It didn’t matter how foul I was to him; he’d come back at me with a joke or a friendly nudge and somehow coax a glimmer of a smile out of me.

Not today, though.

“I take it you saw the glass.”

His cheeks tinged pinked and he nodded. “I’ll speak to the team.”

I nodded curtly. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“You got it, boss.”

I tapped a fingernail on the surface of the bar. “Andy’s quit.”

Stan dropped the crate he’d picked up back onto the stack and straightened. “You’re fucking kidding.”

“I never joke about business. Family stuff, apparently.”

“Timing couldn’t be worse, what with that big VIP party coming in tonight.”

Yep. Nate Brook, the darling of Hollywood, had chosen to celebrate his thirtieth birthday party at Level Nine. Just him and six hundred of his closest friends. The club could hold twelve hundred, but as VIPs tended to be assholes most of the time, I counted every VIP as the equivalent of three “normal” people, which meant the staff would work harder than if we were at capacity.

It was going to be a long night, especially with the new girl.

“Want me to put feelers out and call in a few favors? Get someone on a temporary basis.”

I shook my head. “Already done. Woman named Ella… something. Can’t recall her surname. She’ll be here at eight.”

Stan’s blond eyebrows flew up his forehead. “That was quick.”

“I don’t mess around.”

“True. She experienced?”

I twisted my lips and shrugged. “She’s tended bar and done some waitressing.”

He narrowed his eyes at me, searching for… fuck knew what. “But she hasn’t worked in a place like Level Nine?”

“No.”

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