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“I am going to fire her. There is no excuse for this mess,” I glower at her as I take the towels from the pile she’s built on the other side of her. “I’ll go deal with these. Please see to the other people here at my table and make sure that they are looked after well. Comp any food they order as well.”
Kennedy nods and starts making conversation with the men and women at my table while I hurry down the stairs to the main floor of my club. The music is pounding and people are dancing in the middle of the dance floor.
I look over to the bar and grin when I see the large crowd surrounding it. We shouldn’t have a problem making sales tonight, which means that by the time we close, the money I brought in this morning should be clean and ready to spend.
The more money we can clean, the tighter my grip on Miami will be. I know that I have enemies lurking around, waiting for their opportunity to snatch the city from me the same way I took it years ago.
My cartel is still too new to scare people into falling in line.
If I want to keep my position in power, I have to continuously prove that my ambition isn’t my downfall. I have to make sure that the cartel is stronger than ever.
Some days, I wonder what life would be like if I had never started an uprising.
Would I be married by now? Have a family? Kids?
Truthfully, all I ever wanted in life was to make my parents proud. See the smile on their faces as I conquer goal after goal, surmount each obstacle, achieve each victory with them by my side.
If only… I shake myself out of this funk. I can’t focus on this right now, I have a job to do.
As I head into the laundry room beside the kitchen, I keep an eye out for Hadley. When Craig messaged me earlier and told me that he hired a new bottle girl, I hadn’t expected her to look like that.
Or run her mouth like that.
If I’m being honest, the fact that she was willing to stand up to me turned me on. These days, not many women are interested in attempting to put me in my place.
They’re terrified that I will ruin their families the way I have ruined countless others.
If I had my choice, less lives would have been lost. My own family included.
I’m better off alone. Nobody can get hurt if they don’t attach themselves to me.
Those few women who are brave enough to talk to me have their own motives.
Most of them just want the protection and the power that comes with being wrapped up in the cartel.
Not Hadley, though. She doesn’t recognize me. She doesn't know who I am or what I have to offer her.
She is just another girl who unknowingly walked into the mouth of the lion’s den.
The door to the staff room swings open, and Hadley stands there, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.
I drop the towels in the dirty laundry pile as she spins and strides to the stairs.
“Wait!” I weave through the crowd, bumping into several people. “Stop!”
She stops halfway up the stairs to the VIP area and faces me. “I’m sorry about the bottle. Please don’t get me fired. I need this job.”
“I wanted to apologize.” I stop a couple of steps below her. “I may have come off as rude.”
She crosses her arms, cocking a hip. “May have come across as rude? First of all, an apology starts with I’m sorry. Second, it doesn’t state that things may have been one way or another.”
I try to smother a grin at the fire burning in her eyes. Even though chasing after her — even just for this night — is a bad idea, — there’s something in those hazel eyes that draws me deeper.
“I’m sorry,” I take another step closer to her. “ You spilled the bottle on me, but it was an accident. To make it up to me, you can dance with me.”
Her cheeks flush as she tucks a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. Her full lips part slightly.
We both move to the side as people try to pass us on the stairs.
