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Chapter16
Liz
Liz had hyped herself up to work at the Moretti private party for days. After meeting with the Don, Ben had texted her the information in a very cold and practical manner. She appreciated the detail, but the lack of personal flair made her stomach turn, and not in the fun way she was used to.
He’d sent her a cocktail dress she was to wear as the champagne girl, a title that was both degrading and amusing. It was long-sleeved, short-skirted, and sparkled like New Year's Eve had exploded inside the box. She laid it out over her pajamas, standing in front of the mirror as the daylight snuck in.
It was made of tiny stitches of sequins, every color of the rainbow sewn together to add glitter in a single expression of brightness. She smiled as she began to think about the Fruit Loops she used to eat as a kid and felt simultaneously disappointed, wishing she could share the joke with Benny.
She got herself primped and looking like a smoke show once she’d straightened her long hair, applied dark eye shadow, and candy apple red lipstick. She slipped the cocktail dress on, finding that it fit like a finger into a glove. She twirled around a few times in front of the mirror, admiring herself, feeling empowered by the way the dress ran along her curves in a gentle hourglass flow.
Liz didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she longed for Ben to be present at the party. Having him there would make her feel even sexier. The lingering anticipation of their collision was as delicious as the implosion itself.
But it was a solo mission at the Moretti’s party that night. She would attend, do her best to spy and figure out if there was any skimming going on, and then report back to him as soon as possible.
It all felt stale and non-stimulating, but she needed the cash desperately. But most of all, she needed a reason to keep the hulking shifter’s attention.
Liz attended the private party at Sinsations. The man who had clapped her ass and pulled her into his lap was in attendance, but he shied away from her, his bruised eye nearly as glossy as her shimmering dress.
It was business as usual for the most part. Liz continued to feel like she was wearing a mask, or even a costume of sorts, pretending to be an attractive woman who knew all of the ins and outs of male attention. The truth was, she barely did, yet it didn’t make her nervous or afraid. She had Ben to thank for that confidence.
The party consisted of strippers and sex workers. Liz wore a tray with straps in front of her chest the entire night, balancing drinks and other forms of questionable, ingestible drugs. She gripped the tray with great gratitude, thankful that it was mostly in the way of her ample bosom.
Liz kept a smile plastered to her pretty face as she served several members of the family, using her sweet voice and newly adopted flirtatious ways to gain their attention. Though she found out rather quickly that it took a lot of effort to get a man to open up to her. They were often blinded by beauty, their jaws unhinged by even the flicker of the implication that they could get more than they’d bargained for.
Because of her practical nature, Liz was a good spy. She went back and forth between tables, using her high falsetto voice to please the men, and strutted back to the bar, her ass swinging like a pendulum. Then she would take a look around while she helped the bartender construct their masterpieces.
Most of the bartenders were also men, young, and likely naive. She continued to use her charm on them as she lingered with the drinks, playing dumb to give herself some time to look around.
The private party venue looked like a movie set from the 1980s. The walls were literally draped in grape-purple velvet, with tacky neon fixtures placed above the booths, every one upholstered with flamingo-pink leather. Strippers danced on the main stage, the poles glistening from their sweat and the relentless blast of bleak yellow lighting.
It would have been amusing if it wasn’t so ugly and strange.
There were four separate entrances that Liz managed to scope out as soon as she walked in. One was where she and the guests walked in, hidden tastefully behind a wine-shaded curtain. Another was in the back next to the bar, which led to the bathrooms. The remaining two were even more private areas where some of the sex workers took their clients for a quick fuck or suck behind the thin veil of a curtain. The music of the evening constantly throbbed. It was house music that sounded like one long metronome of cymbal strikes.
But it wasn't the music or the clearly feigned moans coming from behind the curtains that Liz was concerned about. She had spotted two of the Moretti brothers moving back and forth behind the curtain to the left of the stage, not a call girl or waitress in sight.
One of them was the bruised eye brother, who was one of the top suspects in the skimming scheme. It was the third time that they dipped out of her eye line that she decided to finally make a move.
She sighed drastically, then turned to the young man behind the bar. She made sure to stick her chest out amply, using her breasts as the swinging clock in any typical hypnotism.
“My feet are killing me!” she expressed in a childlike voice. “Do you think anyone will mind if I take a break for a second?”
Liz pouted her lower lip out, then lifted a foot to her knees and began rubbing her fingers up and down the heel. The young man looked like his eyes were going to pop out of their socket.
“Um, not really,” he stuttered. “Just don’t take too long, okay?”
He instantly returned to pouring drinks, averting his eyes from her like if he lingered too long, he would turn to stone.
“Thank you so much!” Liz said gleefully.
She walked away, smirking to herself, and thrilled by her skillful manipulation of the male gaze. That was the easy part and now came the hard part, actually getting some useful information.
Liz decided to walk all the way up to the stage, where an attractive woman was performing her routine. She had no qualms about their choice of careers. In fact, she admired their agility and strength, as well as their boldness in diving headfirst into a position men loved to judge and also pay for.
She leaned up on the stage on her forearms, peering upward as the woman wrapped her thick legs like a python around the pole. Her hazel eyes glimmered at Liz, and she felt a tinge of the power they held on a daily basis.
She was right next to the room where the Moretti boys were mingling, strategically trying to angle her body toward the curtains so she could observe them. The cheers and yells at the woman on stage from the men were a bit distracting, so once her routine was over, Liz found it easier to bend her ear in the direction of the two main suspects.
