Rapture (10 page)

“Or work with me…
for me
.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, dude? Working with you doing
what
?”

“I’m glad you asked. Has to do with our friend, Rush…”

“Do with Rush,
how
?”

“Well, I understand that the new club will be opening next weekend. Come see me on Monday morning at eleven, so we can discuss details,” Jacob stated, as he walked off.

“Jay…come on, dude. What—”

“I’ll see you Monday, Bart.
Be there
.”

~
9
~

Rush

When the night had turned to early morning, and was coming to a close with most of the patrons emptying out of Chaos, I was tired as hell. I know that my staff often wondered why I spent so much time at the bar when I didn’t have to, but Chaos was my life. When it was first built, it was meant to be a haven for me and my group of friends to hang out and act out, without restrictions. We’d convene, invite a few beautiful women, lock the doors, and what happened behind closed doors, stayed behind closed doors. But that was seven years ago, and now times had changed. I reflected on how me, Bart, Jacob, Gavin, and a few others would meet up and shoot the shit. Back then, it was something like Vegas where what happened behind these doors stayed be—

“You got something great here, Rush.” I jumped slightly when I heard the interruption to my thoughts. “I’m sorry!” she laughed.

I turned around to see Alika standing behind me, sexy as ever. I laughed uncomfortably at being caught off guard. “It’s okay,” I smiled. “I was just in deep thought, that’s all.”

“I was just saying that you’ve really got something great here.”

“Thanks,” I grinned. “And you…
you
,” I said, pointing at her. “Seem to be a crowd fave. I saw the traffic you had over there tonight. It didn’t go unnoticed. You even got back there with Nikki at a point and mixed a few drinks. That’s pretty impressive.”

“You saw that?” she blushed.

“I see everything. Even when I’m not supposed to.”

I did observe her a lot. I watched her interaction with customers and they seemed to be drawn to her, which didn’t surprise me at all. She was nice, easygoing, and she was hot as fuck. And the thing about her was that she didn’t take herself too seriously. It was like she didn’t even know how beautiful she was. I was inwardly happy to see that she hadn’t allowed circumstance, to send her sulking in the corner. She had all the characteristics of a strong-willed woman, and I admired that.

“
Ohh
, he sees everything, huh? Okay,” she said, smiling at me, and seeming more relaxed than I had seen her.

“You must have a real knack for mixing up the good stuff,” I commented. “You sure being CM is gonna keep you busy…entertained?”

“Oh, I’m sure. And if not…” she winked, “…then I’ll make a few drinks to get back in the flow. Everybody needs a hobby, right? Mixing drinks can be mine.” She rubbed my arm softly. “You don’t have to worry about me, Rush. I’ll be fine.”

“I think I’m seeing that for myself, Alika.”

“I’d like to make you something when you’re ready to live a little and try something
other than
Jack & Coke, shots of Tequila or Scotch!” she teased.

“I may, if you can convince me that what I’ll be getting is tasty enough.”

“Oh, I can make it tasty. As tasty as you want.”

Alika didn’t think I caught on to what she was doing: Touching my arm, bringing the subliminals with her. Oh yeah, I saw it clearly. But after what she put the brakes on, I wasn’t going to dive in and entertain it. My plan was to wait and let her come to me when she was ready. All the way ready.

“Okay, you got it. Real soon, I’ll give one of your specialties a try.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that, Mr. Cambridge.”

I gave her a thumbs-up, and winked. “So, are you about ready to shut it down for the night, Ms. Collins?”

She giggled softly. “For the morning, you mean? I am.” She looked around at the few folks who were slow to leave. “Where did Bart go?”

“He took off a while ago. Headed home to the wife, I assume.”

“To his wife?
He has a wife
?”

“Yep, sure does. For five years now.”

“Oh…” she said, with a slight smirk.

“What…?” I curiously asked.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t give me that. I’ll bug you all the way home if you don’t spill it.”

“Okay, if you insist,” she remarked, as we trekked toward the exit. “I thought he had a thing for hookers.”

I laughed so loud that Kent came running from the kitchen area. “It’s all good Kent, this woman here is just funny is all. I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“Okay,” Kent agreed before turning back, to shut things down.

“What’s so funny?” she queried.

“Bart and hookers? He’s a lot of things, and girl-crazy
might
be one of them, but he’s not a John.”

“If you say so.”

She seemed steadfast on the subject, and I was slowly becoming more than a little intrigued. Things were seemingly too intertwined. I thought back to the Curtis’ reference…or rather on the way to making a reference about “making money” off of Alika. Then at the same time I remembered the girl earlier that was in the bar who I vaguely recall seeing him with. I figured that Alika might actually be on to something, so I pushed for more. “What aren’t you saying, Alika?”

Stopping short of the exit and standing akimbo, she asked, “You do know that you have hookers parading around in your bar, right? Expensive ones, but they’re here. I guarantee you that. I’m surprised you don’t know. They’re well-disguised, so I can’t blame you. I won’t even call you naïve,” she joked. “And Bart…he indulges. I’m an observer. I see things. I sense things about people. Bart…likes hookers.”

I could feel my blood begin to boil over. I’ve never been opposed to anybody making a living, but not on my dime. My establishment wasn’t for pimps and whores. It dawned on me what it was that my father might have been referencing at dinner. But if he knew of a damn prostitution ring operating out of my fucking club, I would’ve thought that regardless to how we battled, he would tell me that instead of trying to fuck me off! When Alika saw that my wheels were turning, she blurted out: “
Ohhh
! Damn, Rush. You really didn’t know, did you? Which means that Bart may not know either.”

“Let’s head out,” I suggested. “I need to go home and make a couple of calls.”

“Rush, are you okay?” she asked, once again touching my arm.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I lied, escorting her out the door.

But the truth was that I was far from good. I had questions that needed answers. I wasn’t going to let anybody destroy what had taken me so long to build. Not anybody. I was so caught up with logistics for Temptation, while still making sure things were running smoothly with Chaos, that I might’ve have been inadvertently oblivious to some things. That wasn’t like me, and I was seeing red. But, shit, with all the people I have around me, working for me, I shouldn’t be the only one with eyes wide fuckin’ open!

~*~*~

Friday, October 3, 2015

After leaving Chaos, I went inside and slept for about five hours before getting up for a morning run. Hell, I didn’t even know if I got a full five hours because it took me super long to even fall into a semi state of sleep. All I could think about was that somebody was seriously disrespecting everything I’d worked for. For the most part, I didn’t fuck with anybody. I stayed to myself and minded my own damn business. I only stepped into shit when necessary. Then I got as dirty as I needed to. If that’s what this situation called for, then so be it.

With each footfall that pounded the concrete, my adrenaline rush was powered up to the maximum, and my brain was on overload. I had a million things running through my mind, simultaneously, and each of those things needed answers. Who was running prostitutes out of my club? Why in the fuck would it be there and not somewhere else? Was it somebody that I knew? Was it Bart? Did that motherfucker Curtis have something to do with it, and now that he was gone…
presumably
…who’d taken his place? My anger made me push hard as I sprinted back towards home in preparation of my confrontation. When I made it back through the gates, I stopped short of the entrance to do my stretches. When my breathing began to steady, I pulled my shirts over my head before heading inside to shower.

As I walked through the large space, I stripped as I went along. Somewhere in there my mind drifted to someday filling up my house with a good woman and a few kids. There was really no reason for me to have so much room with nobody to fill it with, but I also wasn’t the type of person to live in small spaces either, so I would’ve had a large home, regardless. I didn’t like my own company that much, and having places to move around in, helped keep me from boredom—and out of trouble.

By the time I reached the top of the stairs, I was shower-ready, but detoured to drop everything I had just removed into the laundry room. After that, I was in the steam and out in half an hour. I needed that time to decompress. After I dressed in a pair of basketball shorts, a tank top, and socks, I put on my Bluetooth and dialed my father’s phone number.

“Hunter…?” he said, on the second ring.

I got right to the point. There was no need for small talk. “Yeah, it’s me. I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“What did you mean at dinner Wednesday when you said something about ‘calling in favors’?”

“Like you don’t know. Don’t insult my intelligence, Hunter.”

I sighed, but I tried to keep my voice as leveled as possible. “Insult your intelligence? What? Look, whatever day it is that you decide to realize that talking to me like I’m beneath you, is the wrong thing to do, that’ll be the day where we eliminate all conflict.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I’m
not
beneath you. I never was and I never will be. If we can get to a place of mutual respect, we’ll be better off.”

“Give me something to respect, Hunter.”

“Give you something to respect? You can’t be serious,” I shot, shaking my head. “In case you haven’t noticed, I stopped worrying about your validation a long time ago. I’m not even asking for it now; I’m just asking for you to tell me what it was you were talking about at dinner, and then I could let you go on with your day.”

He released a rush of air loud enough for me to hear, and then said, “In the last two weeks, three guys ended up in the hospital ER,
after
leaving your sports bar—
after
having a bad reaction to a substance that they said came from there. It was enough to get you on the radar for state agents—”

“Wait…what? State agents?”

“Yeah,
state agents
. You know the ones who investigate drugs and shit like that? The ones who shut down clubs just like yours? Yeah, them.”

“Fuck…” I gasped.

“I guess chaos is what it’s causing you, right?”

He almost sounded as though he was enjoying the shit he was telling me. “Why wouldn’t you tell me any of this? Why did I have to ask you? Are you trying to see me fail?” I charged, glad that he wasn’t in my presence in that moment. I might very well have blacked the fuck out forgotten that he was my father.
Who the fuck does that shit to their own family
?

“I didn’t tell you because I assumed you knew,” he responded, matter-of-factly.

“You’re a real piece of work, dad. Not until this very moment did I realize just how much you don’t value me at all.”

“Oh, don’t for one second become indignant with me, Hunter. The people you have on payroll are not boy scouts. I’m abreast of everything that goes on in
both
my kids’ lives.
Yours and Jamie’s
. Believe that. I have to be.”

“You don’t know shit about who’s on my payroll.”

“The hell I don’t. I know that Quinton guy is a felon, and that you use him as some kind of enforcer where you see fit. I know that your friend Bart is a whore who would sell his own mother for pussy. And let’s not mention that Jacob character you couldn’t live without as a kid—the one you took that bum rap for…do I need to continue?”

Yeah, continue to the nearest cliff and forget to stop at the edge.

I said nothing. If he wanted to live in the past just so that he could keep from giving my props in the present, that was his problem, not mine. It used to bother me a lot that he never let me live the shit down, but I decided long ago that trying to change things would only be a waste of time, and life was much too short to be wasting time. When he saw that I was done arguing with him, surprisingly, he surrendered.

“Listen, Hunter. I’m going to send something to your fax. It’s a two-pager. It’ll give you a better idea of things. I gotta go.”

With that, he was off the line, and I ran downstairs to my office to see what it was that he was sending through. By the time I reached my office, the first ring was sounding. Then when the machine beeped several minutes later, the first page slid through and onto the holding tray. As bad as I wanted to snatch up the paper to see what details were outlined, I decided to wait until both pages had come through so that I could get the full picture all at once.

Eight minutes later, I was holding a fax in my hands that literally left me speechless…