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I don’t let it bother me, though. I piece together the sexiest outfit I can find in my own closet and head out the door with a full face of makeup and my hair styled meticulously.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear a full face of makeup more than once a year. What’s changed?” Regan asks curiously. “Are you trying to fuck your new boss?”
I blush a little, but I don’t show enough emotion to let her believe she’s right. Having sex with Akim as soon as I met him was very out of character for me, and if Regan knew what was really going on, she would be concerned for my mental wellbeing.
And if I told her the surrounding circumstances, she would be appalled.
“Just want to look nice, you know? They’re paying me a lot.”
She raises a questioning eyebrow. “They sure are.”
As I leave, I realize she probably thinks I’m moonlighting as a stripper. I don’t have time to explain to her that it’s just a normal bar job, though, so I let it go. It’s not her business, anyway.
When I arrive at Agave, I’m shocked by how little training I receive as a new staff member. I’m not assigned to anybody for shadowing. I’m simply given a list of ingredients and specialty drinks that are popular at the club. For every job I’ve ever had, I’ve at least been trained properly. Right now, I feel like a dog holding my own leash.
Despite being caught off guard by the lack of training, I quickly learn the drink recipes and am serving customers far more efficiently than I would have expected.
I don’t see very much of Akim. Most of the time, when he’s here, he’s in his office having meetings with groups of men who look like they want to eat me every time they look at me. He smiles at me, of course, but I still feel dread humming in my stomach whenever he brings in a new group of men.
None of the men he brings around are ever unpleasant, except for the one that comes here the most often. The rest of them are either overly friendly or don’t speak much at all. It’s hard for me to get a read on most of the people that Akim brings in as friends because he can never tell me what it is that they do for work.
The other bartender, Josiah, is exactly as Akim described him – sort of slow at his job, not very talkative, and generally unhelpful. Because of this, I find myself searching throughout the club for bottles of liquor whenever I run out. Josiah knows where they are kept, obviously, but his lazy demeanor and pettiness prevent him from showing me.
As I’m searching through the back rooms for a few bottles of bourbon, I find a large, unmarked box concealed underneath a collection of other liquor boxes. Though I’ve been warned not to get curious about anything that isn’t related to my job, I’m overcome by the need to understand all of the secrecy.
When I uncover the box, I open it to reveal a collection of guns, all varying in size and functionality.
I slam the box closed, suddenly hyper-aware of my surroundings. My heart pounds in my chest as I glance back at the door behind me. If someone sees that I’m snooping in here, what will they do?
Before now, I would have expected another one of Akim’s “lessons”.
But now, I’m worried that he’s capable offarmore than that.
I cover the box back up just as I had found it, grab the bottles that I need, and practically sprint back over to the bar despite the fact that we had almost no customers.
After twenty minutes of doing breathing exercises to keep myself calm, a familiar face walks up to the bar and sits down. It’s Rurik, one of Akim’s most trusted men. Even though I’ve never had a conversation with Rurik, I know that Akim trusts him more than anybody. I feel at ease when he’s around.
“Hey, Rurik, what can I get for you?” I ask as I refill the ice container at the front of the bar.
“Just a vodka, neat. I know Akim doesn’t like it when we drink on the job too much, but having to deal with these fucking Italians is giving me an insane headache,” he replies.
“Why are they upsetting you so much?” I ask, playing dumb even though I have a few half-baked conspiracy theories since seeing the guns.
“They have no idea how to run a business. They’re all about image. They want to front as these killers, but the second they need to get their hands dirty, they run away,” he continues, taking the tumbler of vodka as I hand it to him.
“Should you be telling me all of this?” I ask cautiously.
“What do you mean? Did Akim not catch you up on what it is we do here?” Rurik asks, genuinely shocked at my naivete.
“No, not really. He’s just been kind of secretive with me, so I figured it was something important,” I reply.
Rurik drums his fingers on the bar, looking around to make sure no one else is listening. He leans in. “To put it in plain terms, Akim is the leader of the Russian mafia in this city. He oversees all of the imports and exports that we manage, which range from drugs to guns to everything in between. He doesn’t do people. That’s a hard line for him,” he explains, sipping his vodka.
A mafia boss? I work for a mafia boss?
What the fuck!?
“Yeah, he didn’t tell me any of that,” I reply sheepishly as I clean out a glass.
