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Chapter1
“Why are we going here?” It was a club on Sansom Street, just opened maybe a month before, and Danielle’s sense of something being amiss had begun to tingle. The word on the street was that Vagabond was owned by someone in the Sokolov family, that it was a front for new operations they had going on.
“It’s a hot new club,” Danielle’s brother Sam said. “You said you wanted a night out, right?” Danielle looked her brother up and down. He had dressed carefully, avoiding the usual family colors of green and black that would have identified him on the street. He was also strictly obeying the club’s dress code, his tawny-colored hands and face and neck peeking out from a maroon blazer and white shirt, and a pair of oxfords under his navy, trouser-cut pants. No colors that anyone associated with, but semi-formal nonetheless. She’d never spoken to him about his affiliation with the Bey family, especially after she’d vacated her minor role in the family “business,” but she was tempted to ask him if he’d chosen the club for something she didn’t want to be a part of.
“You’re not going to get me shot, are you?” Sam rolled his eyes.
“You’re my sis,” he said. “I’m not going to take you somewhere you’re going to get shot.” Danielle looked at her brother for a long moment, uncertain of whether to trust him. She didn’t know what he did in the “business” but she was fairly sure he wasn’t just some accountant or anything like that. He probably wasn’t a soldier—but he was definitely someone, Danielle thought, who’d had blood on his hands once or twice.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go somewhere else, Sammy?” Sam shook his head.
“I promise you, you’re going to be perfectly safe,” he said. He lowered his voice slightly, looking around in quick, little glances. “This place is neutral territory. Everyone’s agreed.” Danielle pressed her lips together and weighed the amount of time she’d spent getting ready versus the risk of something bad happening in the club they were about to enter together.
She was almost certain that she was “cover” for Sam, for whatever it was he was there to do; she was a civilian, who’d had a peripheral role in the Bey family years before and who had pulled out before she learned anything that would make it risky for her to walk around freely in the world. “I’m going to hold you to that,” Danielle told her brother as they advanced towards the entrance. I did not spend forty minutes doing my makeup to go home, she thought with a little resentment.
Sam had never fully supported her transitioning out of the family and had pointed out more than once that she could be making way more money than she was in the receptionist job she’d taken, but Danielle had decided that she just didn’t like the lifestyle. She’d known that if she hadn’t gotten out soon, she would have been pulled in deeper—and that would be irreversible, short of becoming a nark.
They went into the club, and some of Danielle’s apprehension began to fade as the EDM flowed around her. She could definitely see the signs of Vagabond being something the Russian family came up with: the decor was all shiny or plush, neon and glitter, ostentatious displays with ice sculptures set up in the VIP areas, lots of vodka with most of it bearing Russian print, and the bartenders all had the hard, stone-faced look that seemed to be a defining characteristic of the families in the Russian mob scene in Philadelphia.
But if it was neutral ground, she could relax a bit; even if it was a cover operation—for money laundering, or for drug deals, or whatever else—it was public enough that it was safe. There were a ton of people in the club that Danielle could tell weren’t in the syndicates; nobody would want to risk a big, splashy situation.
“Dance floor for a bit, or drink first?” She looked at her brother; Sam shrugged.
“I could do with a drink,” Sam said. Danielle saw her brother eyeing the bartenders, and she thought he was mentally comparing them to a roster of known family members.
“Don’t start anything,” Danielle told her brother quietly.
“Not here to start anything,” Sam replied with a smile. The black lights tucked around the club ceiling made his teeth almost blue in the mostly-dark room. More people were coming in, and if they were going to get a drink, they’d better get a move on.
“Okay,” Danielle said. She followed her brother to the bar and looked around while he waited for attention from one of the bartenders. She saw a man of about six feet tall, blonde haired and blue eyed, walk into the club and directly past the bar, towards the VIP sections.
The man was dressed in a tailored suit, sharkskin pattern, with a snowy white dress shirt underneath and a black tie. Danielle couldn’t help but stare a bit as he walked past where she and Sam stood at the bar. He had a look on his face like he knew exactly where he wanted to go—not exactly mean, but focused. That is a man on a mission, Danielle thought.
She dismissed him out of her mind as Sam got her drink: vodka-cranberry. He’d gotten a Jack and coke for himself, and Danielle thought that depending on how long they were there, she might switch up later. She sipped and moved gradually out towards the dance floor, listening to the music and keeping an eye on her brother. Danielle thought to herself that whatever Sam’s reason was for coming to Vagabond, she was going to do her best to have a good night.
As Danielle danced a bit and sipped her drink, she spotted Sam talking to some of the other people who had com
e in and felt that vague sense, again, that she was being used; of course, since Sam was paying for her drinks and had paid the cover for her to get into the club, so she didn’t have much room to complain. She kept an eye on her brother, but started to mingle more, wondering in the back of her mind what had happened to the guy she’d seen striding through the club on some kind of mission.
Danielle went for another drink, getting a Jack and coke on her brother’s tab, and looked around, feeling the indescribable tingle in her nerves that came from spending more time than she liked around organized crime. Vagabond might be neutral territory, but that didn’t mean that things weren’t happening on its premises, she thought, with a little bit of resentment at her brother for bringing her there. She’d been legit for two years, and something like this might put her in a position to have to do more mob work—something she didn’t want. She took a deep breath and sipped the sharp, bittersweet concoction she’d ordered, her gaze traveling around the big main area of the club.
