Lady Night

Chapter two

"So, what does the Russo Corp. want you to do for them?" Audrey, my sister, asked for the seventh time.

I slumped further into our couch, pretending like I didn't notice the fluff that came out of a small hole. Time to flip the cushions again.

"No idea," I said.

Audrey flopped down next to me. More fluff rose out of the hole and I pushed it back down with my index finger. My sister and I looked a lot alike- both with auburn hair, blue-gray eyes, and a light smattering of freckles on our noses.

But, Audrey was different in every way that counted.

She was younger than me by two years, and she was good. Kind. She spent nights grading papers for her middle school English class rather than serving drinks at a club. The worst crime she ever committed was having a couple drinks before she turned twenty-one.

Our childhood had left her view of the world virtually unscathed. She went on dates with polite young men, ones with steady jobs and good credit scores.

She was also the reason why I owed my debt to Marafi.

"Do you think that they want you to work in their resort? Elysium, right?"

"No idea," I said again, closing my eyes still hearing the thrum of the bass from the club in my ears.

Audrey was still in her pj's, about to start her day when I was ending mine.

"Why did they make it part of the deal?"

"No idea."

"Is-"

My eyes flashed open and I sat up as I cut her off.

"Look, Aud, I appreciate you thinking I have the answers. But I seriously have no clue what I'm going to do or why this happened or how I'm going to handle it."

She swallowed and I winced watching reproach fill her expression. It had been a long night at the club. Exactly one week since Marafi and the man from the Russo Corp. agreed to the terms of the merger. Agreed to make me an employee of the Russo Corp.

I told Audrey the night that it happened as soon as I came home to the little apartment we shared. She peppered me with questions then too and I still didn't have an answer either. I didn't bother telling her about Marafi's plan— it would make her worry too much and she already did plenty of that on her own.

Audrey knew the kind of man I worked for. It was impossible not to hear rumors and whispers about the Marafi family. Did she know the full extent of what I did for him to pay off the debt?

No. And she never would.

The Russos, however, were not the subject of rumors. If only because people were terrified to speak about them, for fear that they might be listening. If I told my sister that Marafi was sending me to spy on one of the most notorious crime families in the city, she would lock me in my room and never let me out.

Audrey would always have the benefit of not knowing, and I would never let her view of the world get any darker.

"I wonder which one of them you met," my sister thought aloud.

"Hm?" I asked, barely capable of keeping my eyes open.

"The man who came to APEX. Do you think it was one of them? Actually a Russo?"

I swallowed past the dryness in my mouth. For the past week, I had done a good job not thinking about the man who sat across from me.

Done a good job not picturing his face. Or hearing his voice. Or thinking about-

"No idea," I said again and Audrey huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

She wanted something from me- some answers. Clearly, she wasn't going to let it go easily without giving her a little information to go on.

"He was handsome," I offered, feeling as though I sorely understated the man that came to do business for the Russo's.

Audrey's eyes widened, a pleased smile covering her face as she peppered me with more questions. I did the best to give her the answers she could handle and tucked the ones she couldn't in my back pocket.

When she was finally satisfied, I fell quickly into a restless sleep.

***

The next night was my last shift at APEX, and I'd barely spent any of it out on the floor or behind the bar. Instead, Marafi ushered me over to his booth at the beginning of the night.

Jesse and Roman, two hulking men that worked for him already sat in the booth as we waited for my boss to join us. I sat across from them.

Roman smirked at me and I couldn't help but roll my eyes— definitely not happening. Er... again.

"How've you been, Red?" he asked, lifting a tree trunk arm up and above his head, running his fingers through the buzz cut.

"Been better." Especially when my boss didn't use me as a bargaining chip to get what he wanted from a notoriously dangerous Family.

"Can't complain."

Roman's green eyes narrowed into a mischievous look, and I knew what turn his thoughts were taking. He'd been part of a phase I went through when I graduated college and started working for Marafi. I couldn't even call it dating, really, it was more of mutual accessibility to each other. We both knew going into it that nothing real was going to come out of it

However, it was still fun to mess with him a bit.

"Haven't seen you around so much lately," Jesse added.

Code for: why haven't you been partying with us lately?

"I've been here or there."

Code for: staying as far away from the Marafi Family as I was absolutely capable.

Unfortunately, I was never far enough from them. Not when there was the weight of my debt hanging on my shoulders. Everyone in the Family knew what I owed and why I owed it.

Roman's eyes still trailed the parts of my body he could see above the table, and a part of me wanted to snap at him but it would do nothing but egg him on.

The next time I went through a phase, I was going to make sure that it wasn't with a slimy i***t.

Fortunately, Marafi chose right then to slide into the table beside his two lackeys. He appraised me with a type of vibrancy I'd never seen in his expression.

"You start tomorrow. 8 pm. Elysium."

So Audrey had been on to something. Elysium was in the highest echelons of clubs. In fact, it was a hotel, casino, and had two night clubs in its basement. I'd never even stepped foot inside the lobby.

I leaned back into the velvet cushion, crossing one leg over the other. All three men tried- and failed — not to watch as the hem of my dress inched up my thigh. Simple creatures. My fingers twirled a lock of auburn hair between them as I watched Marafi through my lashes.

"And what exactly," I sighed with feigned boredom, "am I supposed to do for them?"

"Whatever they ask," Marafi snapped. Fat chance of that happening. "Although," his eyes slid down my legs down to the strappy heels on my feet. "This might come in handy."

Roman and Jesse both chuckled and I did my best to hide my cringe behind a yawn. Over the last nine years, I'd done a lot for Marafi. Things I wasn't proud of... but never that.

"Who exactly am I supposed to report to?"

"You'll report to Russo," Marafi said as though it were obvious. My stomach dropped. Looks like Audrey was right again. Marafi noted the dumbfounded expression on my face. "The man you met. Giovanni Russo."

Why was that name so familiar? Maybe somebody had dared to whisper about him. If his last name was Russo that meant he was related to the Family by blood, not merely by initiation or profession. No. He belonged wholly to a Family no one dared to talk about.

"And you'll do whatever it takes to get close to him," Marafi said, inspecting a speck of dust on the white tablecloth.

I met his gaze, not in a challenge. I wouldn't dare challenge him, especially not in front of Jesse and Roman. Still, there was an ounce of desperation in my expression that I let him see.

"Yes, Sabina," he said slowly, a threat.

"Then we're even?" I hated my voice for wavering.

Both Roman and Jesse tensed, their eyes shooting to our boss. He shifted, leaning his hands on the table and fixing me with a cold expression. An expression that terrified me just as much now as it had when I was fifteen years old. An expression that could mean the difference between walking out of this club alive or being buried underneath it.

Then, a sick smile spread across his face.

"If you get something good. Something good enough to bring the Russo Family down. Then, sure. We'll consider your debt paid."

I loosed a breath. "And then I'm out."

Marafi nodded. "And then you're out."