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He approached the bar and waited. The guy behind it was in the middle of a flirtatious conversation with a curvy blond and was in no hurry to help Roman.
In any other situation, Roman would have been angered by the slight, and he would have made that anger felt. He might not be in charge of the New York bratva — yet — but he was still a high-ranking brigadier.
But here at Basil’s, he enjoyed his role as one of many patrons, one of many men who drew a crowd in the basement.
The guy didn’t know Roman from Adam, but Roman knew him: Roberto Ortega, single, twenty-eight years old, no dependents, lived four blocks from Basil’s. He could have pulled the guy’s social security number if he’d wanted.
Perks of owning the place, although nobody who worked here knew that was the case.
He waited, taking in the sea of writhing bodies on the dance floor, the mating rituals happening all around him. It had never been his thing, although he’d had his share of casual sex. He didn’t have the patience for the dance. His hookups were quick and dirty — emphasis on the word dirty.
He never let any woman believe it was more than it was, a quick fuck he’d forget about just as soon as he left their bed — and it was always their bed. He wasn’t stupid enough to bring any woman into his own.
“Hey,” the bartender said, glancing up at him and slowly straightening with an apologetic look at the blond. “The usual?”
Roman nodded and the bartender set him up with two shots of tequila. Roman preferred to think of it as preventative pain medication.
He downed the shots one after the other and left a twenty on the bar. “Thanks.”
But the bartender had refocused on the blond, who from the look of things, was equally enamored.
For tonight anyway.
Roman cut a path through the crowd toward the back of the club. The tequila was already at work in his body, loosening the ever-present tension that was coiled there unless he was fighting or fucking.
He was a big man. Two shots of tequila were just enough to smooth out the edges without taking away his edge.
He nodded to a few regulars, glad none of them stopped him for a chat, and stopped in front of a door painted black to blend in with the club’s back wall. Adam, one of the regular bouncers, was there, legs planted two feet apart, hands crossed in front of his body.
“You’re pushing it,” Adam said, staring down at him. “They’re almost ready to start.”
Roman shrugged and the guy nodded for him to enter.
He opened the door and started down the narrow stairs leading to the basement. The walls glowed purple thanks to the LED lights tucked into the moldings
The door slammed shut behind him at the top of the stairs.
Music played from below, growing louder as he reached the bottom of the stairwell. He came to another door, this one unmanned, and opened it.
The crowd didn’t look very different from the one upstairs. In fact, a casual observer might think this was just another floor of the same club.
That casual observer would be wrong.
Roman made a quick right, not wanting to attract attention and unwanted conversation. He ducked into the dingy locker room, haphazardly set up by knocking down the wall between the men’s restroom and a small storage area.
He could have made it nicer. God knew, he had the money.
But that would defeat the purpose of his purchase of Basil’s, which to put it simply, was to help him forget the other part of his life. The part filled with custom-made suits and chauffeured cars, with five-star restaurants and luxury apartments.
He didn’t mind the privilege. Privilege meant choices. Privilege meant freedom.
Usually.
But his was attached to his father, and that made it repugnant to him.
For him, there was no privilege without his father.
And it’s not like he could walk away from the bratva. It’s not like he even wanted to.
