He was breathtaking in every sense. Terrifying beyond comprehension and so gorgeous, it was a physical blow to the senses.
People watched him nearly as much as they watched the dancers.
I know I did.
I fell helplessly into his orbit, a small, insignificant planet sucked up into his gravitational pull. Through the night, I watched him and not once, not one time, did I catch him watching me.
At first, I was so hurt it felt like a second cancer, this one a sticky, fibrous mass melding my lungs shut so my breath came through thin and wheezy. I circled through The Lotus three nights a week without the usual joy and freedom I’d felt each time I walked through those doors before.
I felt spurned worse than a lover because Zeus had never been that. He’d been in some sense more than that. He’d been my guardian monster, the saviour who had first taken a bullet for me and then saved me from living through my first round of cancer alone.
He’d been, quite simply, my everything.
And now, it seemed, I was nothing to him.
Now, it was a Saturday night, the busiest night at the club we’d had since Debra sold it off and moved to fucking Jamaica.
When word got out that The Fallen were spending time at The Lotus, the seats filled to the brim each night from open to close. Most of them were criminals just like before but a higher caliber, the kind that made their lackeys take the fall and kept themselves from jail by greasing endless hands.
It was great for making tips, especially for a girl like me who didn’t mind tossing an effective hair flick or bat of my eyelashes in the right direction to earn just another couple dollars added to the total of each bill.
These new criminals weren’t as grabby and offensively disgusting as the old clientele but they were something worse. Entitled. A few girls had learned this the hard way but acquiesced easily, both because it was their job to but also because they were paid well for their time and attentions.
I wasn’t a dancer so I had no obligation to sit on anyone’s lap. Some of the wait staff were more generous with their bodies, but I was seventeen years old at the end of the day and I had a boyfriend.
So no laps for me.
Of course, these entitled men didn’t know that and, more, they didn’t care. Even though at least a small group of The Fallen had been there every night since we’d reopened, it was obvious that a few of them had been assigned to look after the girls and they were put to good use at least once or twice a night.
“Two-hundred dollar tip and all I hadta do was let the guy kiss my feet,” Ruby told me as she swung up to my spot at the bar in her glittery red sequined bra and hot pants. “I told him to come back and see me regular. I mean, that was the easiest money I ever made.”
I laughed with her even though one eye was still on Zeus. He was sitting with a guy who had been in once before to see him, a man I recognized because he’d been a regular here back when it was seriously sketchy. Quentin Kade was a drug dealer from Whistler who sold drugs to the ski bums, Australian snowbirds and wealthy vacationers there. The dancers liked him for the tips but they tried to avoid going to one of the semiprivate curtained booths with him because he liked to get rough and often left bruises along with his generous tips.
What was Zeus doing with a man like him?
“You are so not listening to me,” Ruby accused me.
“I’m so not,” I agreed easily, sliding an iced water across to her. “What do you know about The Fallen?”
“Loulou…” she cautioned. “I told you, don’t get involved in that shit. In fact, I specifically remember telling you to get outta here before they realized who you were and did you take my advice?”
“No, so what makes you think I’m going to take it now?” I asked with a wry grin.
She snorted, lifting her heavy fluorescent red hair from her pale neck so she could fan the sweat off her chest. “Fine but I get to say I told you so when you get fucked over by one of them, deal?”
My heart clenched but I agreed.
“The Fallen are the shadow puppeteers of the entire North American west coast. About ten years ago they had some problems in their ranks that started a shoot out in a fucking church of all places.” She snorted into her water, too preoccupied to notice my flinch. “They’ve had some problems with bad drugs lately. Not sure if it’s the MC or not cooking them up, but the high and mighty mayor hates them something fierce and he tried to get the town to turn against them last year at a town meeting. Now that was funny.”