She wasn't my wife.
"If you were hiring addicts, I'd see it in the books. People don't pay our prices for the average girls up on a pole. Now can we be done? I've got to get to the club." My apparent lack of interest in the woman in the doorway seemed to only fuel him on.
"Something’s up, and I'll find out what. When I do, I'll be pissed you didn't tell me yourself."
"You need to relax, Vin." I slapped him on the shoulder as I made my way to the door. "I'll tell you what? Come over for dinner Monday and spend some time with Samara and I." Guilt flashed through me that I would be ambushing Samara with the conversation with her brother so soon, but with the risk of him poking around it seemed impossible to do anything else. Even putting it off until Monday seemed risky.
He really would be pissed if he heard it from any of the people who knew from the party at Indulgence.
"Fine," he sighed. "How is my sister?"
"She went back to work today. She's good, Vin. Really good. You'll see on Monday, I promise."
“And Connor?” he asked, glancing back at the girl in the doorway. She made no move to walk away or give us privacy, and I hoped to all Hell Yavin was being smart enough to keep the girls out of the business beyond what they did on stage.
“Ryker’s doing his best,” I reassured him, even if it grated on me. It had been over two weeks since he assaulted my woman, and there was nothing. No news, no trace of him whatsoever. He wasn’t smart enough to pull it off on his own, and I felt a sick worry that maybe he was already dead.
And I hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger.
“You better find him soon, Lino. If anything happens to her—”
“Believe me, I will do everything I can
to make sure I have the opportunity to make him scream the way she probably did.” With a last nod, I squeezed my way past the girl still standing in the doorway. Fishing my phone from my pocket, I texted Samara to let her know about Yavin's impromptu invite to dinner.
Already prepared for the hellcat that would unleash her fury if I told her in person when I surprised her by picking her up from work.
I wasn't afraid to admit that Samara's fury turned me on, but the last thing I wanted to do was tell Yavin I'd married his sister with a rock-hard cock.
My head dropped to my chest, annoyance leaking into my pores when the girl behind me spoke up. “Mr. Bellandi?” she asked, stepping toward me. “Your father is in one of the private rooms with a few of the other girls.”
“Has he hurt them?” I asked with an eyebrow raised. I kept my attention on her face, noting the way her wide eyes made her look too young to work at Tease. If I hadn’t had full trust in Yavin to keep to my guidelines, I might have questioned it. But while he preferred his women on the young side, he never ventured below the twenty-year-old mark.
“No, of course not,” she whispered in response, but I could see the way the gears turned in her head. The way she calculated one kind of man had to question if his father would harm his employees. It was only one of those moments when I realized just how fucked up my life had been. “He’s asking for you.”
“And the girls are just to occupy his time?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “Lead the way.”
We made our way down the hallway to the private rooms, and I hated every pulse of the music that sounded from behind the closed door at the end. I shouldn’t have expected any less than for my father to demand the party room for his private show.
When I flung the door open, the pounding music and flashing lights assaulted me immediately. Three of the girls I didn’t recognize surrounded the pole, winding their bodies around it and around each other in nothing but their lingerie.
With a sigh, I made my way to the control panel next to the door, stopping the deep beat immediately. All the girls froze in place, looking at me with wide eyes, but my father never turned his face away from the stage. “Get out,” I ordered, and the three of them hurried for the door without a moment of hesitation. It was good to see they remembered who authorized their paychecks.
Me. Not him.
He was nothing but a retired figurehead, a man who liked to see himself as the head of a family that no longer existed. That family had died with his brother, been replaced with the family that Matteo and I built from the ground up and filled with people who were loyal to us. People who would protect each other with our lives before seeing us harmed.
Everything a family should have been.
“Do you need something?” I asked as soon as the door closed behind them. I wouldn’t put it past my father to inform Yavin of my marriage if I gave any indication that Yavin didn’t already know, so I made sure to school my features when he finally turned to face me. I couldn’t let on that having him so close to Vin made my pulse skip with anxiety.
I owed it to Samara to give her the chance to be present when her brother found out, and I wouldn’t let my father take that from her.
“Are you pleased with yourself, boy?” he asked, standing from his seat in the front. The wide chair afforded the best lap dances.
“About what exactly?” I asked, even if I knew the answer, I wouldn’t give more than necessary. When it came to conversations with my father, less was more.
“Marrying that brat!” he hissed. “She has no place bearing my name. She doesn’t even have the dignity to look like she could pass for Italian.”