The Empress (The Tarot Club 1)

I wrapped lightly on her door. From what I could ascertain, she had not left her room the entire day. I wasn’t even sure if she had eaten lunch. Not my problem. The kitchen was fully stocked and she could help herself to anything of her choosing.

I hadn’t been home much either, having needed to set up someone new at the car wash - we couldn’t have it standing empty, with no one manning the place. That would just be asking for someone else to move in and take over, and I did not do well with other people challenging me and trying to take my things. I put one of Ravi’s guy’s in Jeanette’s place, and everything was up and running for business - even if today that only entailed pick up and dropoff.

Ravi followed the old ways, and he kept pestering me to meet Corinne. I had been putting it off because quite frankly, I didn’t know what to make of her - and I didn’t know what Ravi would make of her. Only, I did know what Ravi would think of her, he would probably try and get her in bed and then claim that he was blessed by the divine or some shit afterwards. The thought alone forced a cool quiet rage down my throat. I wondered if there was any truth to those myths, that to have sex with a Witch brought you bountiful blessings and shit. I thought it was something that the old crones had set up long ago to protect their daughters - make them revered in some way and not just persecuted and raped. Is that why Arlo had brought her here? So that one of us would sully her and our family could then reap the rewards? I wouldn’t put it past the old calculating bastard.

After wrapping on the door for the second time and still not getting any sort of response, I gritted my teeth and entered her room. Lying on her stomach, feet kicked back in the air, Corinne was absorbed in a book, airpods in her ears. She looked so much younger this way - so much more relaxed than I was accustomed. She was usually a coil of nervous energy, ready to strike out at anyone who challenged her. Something about her very essence - her character - her being - spoke to me. I could only assume it was because of the Magick, and yet part of me wanted to tell her to fuck off. To tell her to flee from the ugliness of this world. To shield her from Ravi and all the product we peddled. But I couldn’t do that - not when Arlo insisted on her being here - arguing that we needed this.

Fuck, the fact that Sergei went and got himself a Voodoo Priestess showed exactly how badly we did need this - if not to counter that bitch’s Magick, then for our men to look at us and acknowledge that we still followed the old ways - still saw value in traditions long forgotten.

It was important to them. It was important because although we had been hardened and moulded to kill, protect, and conquer, we had also grown up on the stories and beliefs of the Vedman. And now, one was in our midst, only she wasn’t the Baba Yaga of our tales. She wasn’t some revered Priestess. No, she was a rich little society princess with a bad attitude.

Once again, Arlo was taking the reins, insisting she come to the club tonight - arguing that she needed to see all the dirty aspects of our business - our lives. I wasn’t so sure her seeing the club, watching patrons attend with the same religious dedication that they had when attending Sunday mass was going to change anything. I’d seen men offer up their souls for one more hit, and once again, I found myself wanting to shield her from that sight. Which was fucking ridiculous considering she had seen us kill a man a couple of nights ago. But something about her seeing all the aspects of our dealings left me feeling tainted - naked, as if I were offering up all my ugly bitterness on a plate for her to examine. It left me feeling exposed and I didn’t want this woman rifling through my sins, casting her judgement upon me.

In his old age, Arlo seemed to pick and choose which aspects of the business he wanted to be involved in, and which ones he didn’t. It made running this ship a fucking nightmare.

I had skirted around her for three whole days - if she walked into a room, I would walk out. We worked and lived past each other, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t aware that she was there. That her vanilla scent didn’t coat my house as if the very walls accepted that she belonged here. I didn’t know what to do with her - I hadn’t been able to come up with a plan on how to deal with her, and that left me off-kilter because if I had learnt anything in this life, it was that if you wanted to succeed, you needed a solid plan, and a backup to the plan, and a backup to the backup plan.

She still hadn’t noticed my presence, too caught up in her own world - or the world within the pages she was reading. That fucking thing could get her killed. Just another reason she was not the right fit for our business.

I stepped closer, casting a shadow across the pages. Finally she glanced up, her face hardening at my presence. Right back at you, Princess, right back at you. Tugging the pods from her ears, she waited for me to offer some sort of explanation as to why I was even here. I had expected her to jump at my presence, so accustomed to this Bambi persona of hers that I couldn’t help acknowledge that on some level, I scared her. She should have been scared. Terrified actually. If Sergei and his men got ahold of her, she would be ripped to shreds - and not figuratively. Instead, she glared at me, filled with defiance and loathing. Which was worse - much fucking worse.

A white candle burnt down on her vanity, the coconut aroma filling the room, mixing with her own natural vanilla scent. No doubt some sort of spell or ritual of hers.

“Arlo has requested that you attend one of our establishments tonight,” I grunted.

Her entire expression soured at the mention of his name. What the fuck was that about?

“We leave in an hour,” I stated smoothly, refusing to allow an inch of emotion to eek out, even if that emotion was frustration and I wanted nothing more that to throttle her with my bare hands - she was that fucking infuriating. I didn’t even await her reply, spinning on my heel to leave, allowing her to ready herself.

Pausing in the doorway, I added, “It’s a nightclub, Corinne, so wear something appropriate for that kind of setting.”

The last thing I needed was for her to arrive looking like a fucking secretary. Although, that thought had its own sense of appeal, and she would probably hate it - which only made me like it more.

She stepped out of the room wearing a black bodice that held the mound of her breasts perfectly. It was the first thing my gaze settled on, which meant it would be the first thing any guy’s gaze would settle on. I swallowed down my unease at that thought.

She paired her bodice with a short golden skirt that seemed to defy physics, flowing with her movements. She looked better than any club girl I had ever seen, and I wondered how often she allowed herself to dress like this. Black heeled boots slid all the way up to her thigh, and I had to fight the memory that the vision of those boots evoked.

A night with an unnamed woman, wearing boots in a similar fashion, as I pressed her against the wall and had my way with her. The smell of her cheap perfume had lingered on my skin for days after, and the boots were cracked at the edges. Still, the feel of those boots digging into the back of my thighs as she wrapped her legs around my waist would be something that remained with me until my death. The vision alone made me want to relive that experience, only this time I wasn’t some eager teenager that couldn’t control his cock - this time, I knew what I was doing.

Corinne’s surprised expression made me aware that my thoughts may have given away more than I had intended.

“Come on,” I grunted out, the sudden need to be at the club inexplicable - as if I were about to rip a bandaid off.

The drive consisted of both of us being glued to the screens of our phones. Who was she constantly texting? Surely not one of those suits? I watched her smile as a message came through, and her joy reverberated through me, settling within my core. Happiness was such a foreign concept to me, simply because it was fleeting, only ever present for a heartbeat or two. Now safety? That was something I could truly strive to attain - something tangible, something I could have a physical hand in realising.

The orange neon sign lit up the pavement, a crowd of people huddled outside the entrance, awaiting their turn to enter Club Euphoria. Whilst some may have thought the club boasted connotations of finding euphoria through the music and the very act of dance itself, it was more about the fact that our product was called Euphoria, and so, naturally, this was its headquarters. Gazes skittered over us - first at me, and then they lingered on Corinne. Eyes on me, motherfuckers. It was normal for the crowd to watch me as I walked in, they knew that I was going to circumvent the line, heading directly for the front door - even if they weren’t certain about who I was, rumours about me ran rife among these streets - even if they didn’t know exactly who I was and what I did, it was enough for people to keep their distance. But their lingering gazing upon Corinne made me want to punch every single one of their faces in. I stifled the urge to shove her behind me like the animal I was.

Bringing her here was a bad idea. Ravi was going to try and fuck her and then I might end up punching my best friend. Control. I needed to get my shit under control.

The front door was large and imposing, but not as imposing as the mountain of brick that stood at the entrance, flagging ID’s. Juan was a wall of muscle, menace rolling off of him. Good, it was his job to look intimidating. The Brazilian had joined our business a few years ago and had proved himself time and time again. Those were the type of men I appreciated, the ones who were fleeing from an even darker past to what I was offering. He nodded his greeting, stepping back as we walked through the door, a hush had descended upon the crowd. They knew when to shut up.

Juan’s gaze took in Corinne, but his expression didn’t change - he didn’t leer at her, and he didn’t look at me with surprise. And I fucking appreciated that. Yeah, I knew what it looked like - me bringing a girl to our club, but I would rather them think that we were together than tip my hand and notify everyone that she was our Witch. It was one thing informing your enemy you had a certain weapon tucked away, and another thing entirely flaunting it in front of them.

It was also fucking typical - Arlo demanded that I bring Corinne here, and then he, himself, didn’t want to attend. Something was going on with him. I was tired of him maneuvering situations to suit his own agenda and then retreating. I knew the method like the back of my hand because he had taught me how to do the exact same thing, I just didn’t appreciate that same method being applied to me.

The smell of bodies pressed against one another, slick with sweat, rolled over us as we skirted the dancefloor, heading to Ravi’s office. The last thing I needed was Corinne getting lost or caught up in this place, so I slid my hand around her wrist and tugged her along, forcing her to follow me. Her pulse beat wild and erratically in her wrists, and I unconsciously swept my thumb across the area as if I could soothe away her nerves somehow. The girl had to be nervous - she had seen what we were about - had witnessed us execute Olek, and she was still here.

I would not be the one to lead our little Witch into Club Euphoria, only to have her partake in what actually made the place falsely euphoric. We bypassed the cigar lounge, bar, and dancefloor as I led Corinne straight to the staircase that sat next to the bar, leading to Ravi’s office above the damn thing. Cindy - one of the regulars here waved at me from the lounge. She was all tits and seduction. Not tonight, Cindy. Ravi’s office was a glass box that sat neatly atop the steel mezzanine that hovered above the bar. Even I could understand the appeal of watching the sea of writhing bodies beneath us. This design was all Ravi.