Chapter 32 - 0032: I Own This Place

Chapter 32: Chapter 0032: I Own This Place

Jaxx’s Point Of View

"I wanted to serve you, sir," she said, her voice dropping an octave as she tried for a bedroom huskiness that sounded entirely forced.

"I never asked for your service." My fingers tightened on her wrist, squeezing just enough to cut off her blood flow until her knuckles turned a mottled, chalky white.

"But I’m willing." She pressed forward another half-step, her lower body practically brushing the arm of my leather seat. "A man like you shouldn’t have to drink alone in the dark."

I leaned back, letting my eyes sweep over her cheap face powder and the artificial curl of her hair, unimpressed by the effort she’d clearly put into this performance. "I never knew prostitution was added to the club’s standard employment contract. It seems like you’re new here."

Her smile faltered for a fraction of a second, a flicker of panic cutting through her seductive routine like a crack spreading through glass. "Sir, I just thought..."

I didn’t answer her. With my free hand, I pulled my phone from my inner coat pocket, tapped a quick three-digit extension on the secure internal network, and held the receiver to my ear while keeping my grip locked around her wrist like an iron clamp.

"Boss?" the line picked up on the first ring.

"VIP Booth Four," I said flatly. "Clean your trash."

I tossed the phone face-down on the low wooden table. The waitress tried to pull her arm back now, her eyes darting toward the velvet curtain at the entrance of the alcove, panic replacing whatever confidence she’d walked in with. "Look... mister, I’m sorry, I was just trying to get a good tip..."

"Shut up," I said softly, not even looking at her.

Less than two minutes later, heavy, frantic footsteps rattled the floorboards outside the booth. The velvet curtain was yanked open so hard the brass rings screeched against the rod.

The club manager stood in the entrance, his face slick with cold sweat, his tie slightly askew. The second his eyes landed on me - and then down at my hand holding the terrified waitress by the wrist... his knees almost buckled.

He dropped his head into a deep, desperate bow. "Boss... you’re here. I... I didn’t realize you had come upstairs already."

"I never knew the floor staff had gotten into whoring themselves out to paying guests, Manroe," I said, my tone conversationally light, though the air in the small booth turned sharp and freezing.

Manroe’s head snapped toward the girl, his face flushing a violent, furious red. "Are you fucking blind?!" he barked at her, stepping into the booth and grabbing her by her collar. "How dare you try to seduce the Boss?!"

The girl’s eyes rounded into massive saucers, her mouth dropping open in sheer horror. "Boss? He’s... he’s the owner?"

"You’re fired." Manroe yanked her back so hard her high heels tripped over the edge of the Persian rug. "Get your coat, hand in your badge to security, and get the fuck out of my club before I have the boys throw you into the alley!"

"Please! Manroe, please!" she begged, tears instantly welling up in her eyes as he shoved her out through the heavy curtain. "I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t know!"

Her cries faded down the long, carpeted hallway as Manroe turned back to me, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the edge of the table. "I am so sorry, Boss. Truly. It won’t happen again. I’ll personally vet every floor server on the night shift..."

I raised two fingers, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Go."

"Yes, Boss. Right away." He backed out of the space, pulling the velvet curtain tightly shut behind him.

Silence settled back over the booth. I picked up my glass, took a slow sip of the single-malt, and let the ice melt on my tongue, the burn a welcome distraction from the low hum of irritation still coiled in my chest. My phone buzzed on the wood. I flipped it over to see Roman’s name flashing across the dark screen.

I hit speaker and set it down. "Talk to me."

"Manifests are cleared," Roman’s deep voice came through, slightly distorted by the faint bass thumping from the dance floor below. "Dalton’s papers went through the port system twenty minutes ago. The customs chief didn’t even check the sub-clauses. We’re greenlit for the two-o’clock shipment."

"Good," I murmured. "Make sure the dock crew is wearing the right uniforms. I don’t want any eager beat cops asking why five unbadged guys are moving crates at midnight."

"Already handled, Boss. I’m heading back to the office to lock the originals in the safe."

"Keep your radio on."

I ended the call, set the phone back on the table, and leaned my head against the dark leather headrest, closing my eyes for a brief second to let the whiskey work through my nerves and untangle the knots the night had already tied.

About twenty minutes passed. The ice in my glass had completely melted into a thin, pale gold ring when the velvet curtain rustled again.

I didn’t open my eyes at first. Irritation flared hot and fast behind my ribs. Who the fuck...

"Manroe," I growled, my voice low and dangerous as I opened my eyes. "If you brought another clueless... "

The words died straight in my throat.

The woman standing in the entrance of my private booth wasn’t a waitress.

She wore a short, form-fitting dress that hugged her body like a second skin. At first glance under the dim, red-tinted light of the VIP corridor, it looked like a deep, midnight blue, but as the ambient strobe from the main floor flicked across the fabric, the underlying weave shifted into a dark, stormy violet-black. Hundreds of tiny, dark-toned stones were hand-stitched into the bodice, catching the dull light in faint, metallic sparks every time her chest hitched with a heavy breath.

My breath caught in my chest. My gaze locked onto her face.

What the hell was she doing here? And how did she manage to bypass three security guards to end up in my private booth?

I narrowed my eyes, my brain calculating three different scenarios at once, none of them making a shred of sense.

"...Boss? Boss?! Hello? Can you hear me?"

Roman’s voice came faintly from the phone on the table. I hadn’t realized my thumb had accidentally hit redial when I stood up.

I pulled the phone away from my ear without taking my eyes off her, ended the call with a hard press of my thumb, and placed it face-down on the mahogany wood.

I cleared my throat, my jaw locking tight. "You’re in my booth."

She didn’t answer. She didn’t even seem to hear me. Her eyes were slightly glossy, her dark berry lipstick smudged ever so faintly at the left corner of her bottom lip, as though she’d wiped her mouth with the back of her hand somewhere between here and wherever she’d come from.

She stepped right past me, her high heels clicking unevenly against the floorboards, reached out a hand with dark-painted nails, grabbed my open bottle of twenty-year scotch, and poured a generous amount straight into an empty glass sitting on the tray.

Before I could even process the sheer nerve of it, she tipped her head back and downed the whole thing in one hard, violent gulp.

She winced, shuddering as the high-proof liquor hit her throat, then immediately reached for the bottle to pour another.

"Lady..." Irritation flickered hot in my voice as I sat up straight. "I don’t know if you stumbled in here by mistake or if you’re just plain suicidal, but this section is private."

She tilted her chin up, finally turning her head to meet my gaze directly.

Time... stopped.

I froze, my fingers stiffening against the leather armrest.

No, it wasn’t just her beauty... though damn, she was breathtaking in a way that felt like a punch straight to the sternum. Like a storm trapped in silk. Her eyes weren’t just eyes; they were thunderclouds threatening to pour, red-rimmed at the edges but burning with something fierce and volatile.

Her lips were curved, but not in a smile... more like a jagged, silent challenge. And that dress... it clung to her curves like a second skin, the neckline dipping just low enough to make a man’s thoughts completely derail.

But none of that was why my pulse kicked into an erratic, heavy overdrive.

It was who she was.

My voice caught hard in my throat.

Her.

Elena. My brother’s wife.

The ghost I’d seen in stolen surveillance photos, the name I’d heard my mother and Graham mutter during tense family dinners, the woman in the socialite tabloids who always looked far too polished, far too quiet, and far too timid to be real.

Except the woman standing two feet from me right now didn’t look timid at all.

Then, just like the last time she’d gotten wasted on my drink, she reached out again, her fingers wrapping around the neck of my bottle to pour a third shot. What was her damn problem with entering the wrong booth and drinking my scotch?

A slow, dark smirk tugged at the corner of my lips as I watched her hand tremble slightly over the glass.

I reached out, my fingers wrapping around the cold crystal, and snatched the glass right out of her hand just as she was about to tip it back to her lips.

She blinked down at her empty fingers, her gaze sluggish, unfocused, but not entirely lost. There was steel in her, even through the heavy haze of alcohol, a resistance that refused to fully surrender to the drink.

"If you want to get wasted," I said, swirling the golden liquid before setting the glass on the far edge of the table, completely out of her reach, "not here. I don’t house drunkards."

That did it.

She finally looked up... really looked up at me, taking in my face under the amber light of the booth.

And the fire in those stormy eyes could have burned the goddamn building to the ground.

"And who," she said, her words slightly slurred around the edges but sharp enough to draw blood, "are you to tell me that?"

"I own this place." I replied coolly, leaning back into the deep leather cushions, crossing one leg over the other. "Every glass, every stool, every bottle behind that bar - mine. So, yeah... I get to say who drinks and who doesn’t."

She narrowed her dark eyes, her jaw setting in a hard, stubborn line, and lunged forward across the small table to grab the glass again.

I moved faster. My hand shot out, catching her slender wrist mid-air. I held it - not hard enough to bruise, but firm enough to lock her in place.

Her fingers trembled against my palm. Her breath hitched softly in her throat - not from fear, but from a sudden, sharp jolt of recognition.

"I know you," she whispered, her eyes narrowing as she stared down into my face.

"Oh, really?" I tilted my head, releasing her wrist slowly, my curiosity piqued despite myself. "You do?"

She blinked again, the heavy fog in her eyes clearing just enough for realization to spread across her features like black ink dissolving in clear water. It started in her pupils - a sharp, sudden flicker of memory - then tightened her jaw and flared her delicate nostrils.

Hatred. Pure, raw, scalding hot hatred.

"It’s you." She said it almost to herself, her voice dropping into a dangerous, ragged whisper. Then louder, dripping with pure venom: "That asshole."

A short, breathless laugh escaped me before I could stop it. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the mahogany table, my chin propped on my hands, grinning like a devil who had just stumbled onto his absolute favorite sin.

"Hey, Bambina," I drawled, letting my voice drop into that dark, teasing rasp. "Still kept that name for me, huh?"