Fall For My Ex's Mafia Father novel Chapter 5

The music pounds in the club and, I have to admit, I’m really starting to have fun.

Janeen even dressed me tonight, which would usually make me uncomfortable, but I let her take charge. What she called a “dress” is more a sheet of silver fabric that falls across my front and then wraps low around my hips. It’s strapped together across my shoulders with a spiderweb of silver strings.

She also curled my long red hair into waves and gave me shadowy makeup and full red lips. Looking at myself in the club’s mirrored walls, I feel…well, I blush to admit it, but I feel really sexy.

Janeen sits down next to me then, laughing, waving goodbye to the man she had been talking with. She turns her attention to me, her eyes a little glazed.

“You having fun, baby Fay?” she asks, giving me a wide, inviting smile. I can’t help but smile back.

“Yes,” I say, laughing. But then Janeen stiffens next to me. There’s a man standing across the VIP area, his arms crossed, staring at her. As I look, he starts to walk over.

Janeen gets quickly to her feet, reaching out her arms to wrap this big fat potato of a man in a hug. I grimace a little – he looks like he hasn’t showered in a while.

“Dean!” she says, and I can tell her voice is falsely cheerful. “How you been, gorgeous?”

“Janeen,” he says, pushing her way from him. “We’ve got to talk.”

“Have you met my little sister, Fay?” she asks, gesturing towards me with a big smile. “Fay, this is Mike Dean, an old friend. He’s the manager of the club.”

Dean’s eyes rove over me, taking in the generous portion of my thigh exposed by this little dress. Uncomfortable, I try to tug it down lower with my fist.

“Um, hello,” I say, hesitant.

He takes Janeen by her elbow. “Come on,” he says. “We’re going to talk around back.”

“Okay,” Janeen murmurs, suddenly serious. She leans down to whisper to me. “It’s just work stuff, don’t worry.” I give her a little smile and nod.

With that, Janeen follows Dean into the back.

They’re gone for a long time.

Anxiously, I run my hand over the underwire of my bra, feeling the tiny switch blade that I’ve hidden there. The only possession my mother left to me in her will. I tucked it into my bra tonight, just in case. I don’t really know how to use it, but it calms me to know that it’s there.

Half an hour more and the door opens. Dean come out of it but my stomach drops. Where’s my sister?

Dean’s eyes catch on me as he starts to move further out into the club. I see him mouth the word “shit,” and then he walks over to me.

“Janeen’s sister, right?”

“Yes?”

“She got sick,” he says. “She’s just throwing up, but she’s a little green around the gills right now,” he says, gesturing towards his own neck.

I stand and turn towards the staff door, intending to go find my sister, but he stops me.

“No, listen,” he says, “she won’t want you to see her like this. Come with me, I’ll take you some place where you can wait more comfortably.” He pulls me forward.

I totter after him, confused and worried, as he pulls me quickly across the club to a black door, pushing it open.

The inside is barely lit – a dark room with mirrors on the ceiling and tiny pinpricks of light coming up from the floor. A wide velvet bench wraps itself around the room with little black cocktail tables lined up in front of it. I blink, trying to let my eyes adjust, as Dean settles me into a little table by the door.

“Wait here for a bit,” Dean says, looking beyond me. “I’ll have someone bring you a drink. Your sister will be fine soon.” Then, he walks away.

Someone does bring me a drink and I take a sip of it, but then, realizing that it might be laced with something, I push it away from me. As my eyes adjust, I look around the room and realize that I’m not alone in here.

Bodies, mostly in couples, writhe together on the black velvet seating. Some of them are dancing, but some…well, that girl is on her knees. My eyes go wide as I realize what she is doing.

I jump to my feet, blushing and heading for the door.