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“The club? Yes. He’s got CCTV. The poker rooms, yes. He keeps an eye. But there are no cameras in the break room for the girls, in the bathrooms—anywhere private.”
“There’s not?” I ask, surprised, and Marco laughs.
“The girls talking?” he asks with a laugh, and I nod, confirming that the girls have been, in fact, talking in my ear. “Nah, he doesn’t watch the girls. He watches the crowds. The men. It’s the men he doesn’t trust.” He shakes his head with a sigh. “We’ll have to have a team meeting again. Remind the girls that there are no cameras back there.”
“What about the private rooms? Are there . . . cameras in there?” My mind goes back to my meetings with Dante, spilling insignificant information about myself, but it still feels . . . personal.
Marco sighs.
“Yes, but mostly in case something happens. We need to protect the girls.” I nod, understanding, but before I can say anything else, there’s a knock on the break room doorframe. We both turn to see Luca, one of the bouncers, standing there.
“Hey, Marco, sorry to interrupt.”
“Nope, all good, just finishing,” he says, crumbling up his paper. “Need me?”
“Yeah, there was an argument. Men are in the cool-down room.”
“Got it. I’ll be there in three,” Marco says, and Luca nods before walking off. Marco looks at me and smiles, pushing his own bag of chips my way. “Payment.”
“Payment?”
“For hanging out with me.”
“I like hanging out with you, Marco.”
“That’s good. Gotta stay on your good side, princess. Here. They’re your favorite,” he says, then he nods and walks out, tossing the balled-up paper into the garbage. After I watch him close the door behind him, leaving me in a comfortable silence, I notice that he’s right—they are my favorite barbecue chips from that fancy grocery store downtown.
But the question remains: how the fuck did he know that?
Twenty-Eight
-Lilah-
Okay, so the secret back room games are a million times better than . . . this.
Back room games might be boring as fuck most days, but this chaos? No, thank you.
This chaos being a Friday night at Jerzy Girls, where I’m waitressing because three girls caught the flu and Roddy basically begged Marco to let me serve.
I’m not sure how two weeks of peace and quiet in the back rooms with minimal serving messed with my head so much, but I truly forgot how much I hate a Friday night here.
Men staring at every curve, every bounce of my body as I scoot through what feels like clouds of Axe body spray and sweat and arousal. Trying to hold a tray loaded with beers and the disgusting comments that seem to just float in the air.
The poker players are usually so focused on their game, they don’t have any energy to spare me other than to request a drink.
But these men?
This is what they came for. Including the especially rowdy group that came in for a bachelor party, the groom already drunk off his ass, and his friends egging him and his bad behavior on.
I’ve already seen Roddy come over a few times when one of the groomsmen tried to touch a server or yelled at a dancer, but nothing too extreme has happened yet. It’s just exhausting, frustrating, and, to be honest, degrading.
But again, the rule of thumb seems to be if something shitty is going to happen, it’s going to happen to yours truly.
This is why I should anticipate the worst when I’m walking from the far side of the club back toward the bar and I need to pass by the rowdy bachelor party.
But of course, I’m me, and I don’t, so when a hand wraps around my wrist, it’s a shock to my system.
“No touching,” I say in my sweet customer service voice before my head even turns to the man—the drunk groom—irritation and just a hint of panic settling in.
