The Mafia King's Kitten

By midnight, Celia had learned which men reached for her before they spoke.

The ones who wanted attention lifted their empty glasses and waited. The others leaned into the aisle, forcing her to pass close enough for a hand to land on her waist or thigh. They laughed when she startled and looked offended if she moved away.

She carried a tray of untouched champagne through the crush near the dance floor, keeping her elbows tight and her eyes on the narrow path between tables. The club’s lights changed every few seconds, washing everyone blue, then red, then colorless. Music thudded through her shoes, heavy enough to feel behind her ribs.

At a low table near the stage, a man in a pale suit shifted his chair into her path. Celia stopped before the tray struck his shoulder.

“You keep avoiding me,” he said.

She tried to smile. The manager had explained that customers noticed when the hostesses looked unhappy. “I’m working.”

“So work over here.”

His friends laughed. The man in the pale suit caught the thin strap at Celia’s hip between two fingers.

She stepped back. The tray tilted, and the glasses chimed against one another.

“Careful,” he said, smiling as though she had nearly caused the problem. “That dress looks expensive.”

It was not. The fabric scratched beneath her arms, and one seam had begun to split near the zipper. The club had added its cost to her account anyway, along with the shoes, shared makeup, and a cleaning fee for the room where she slept.

“I need to deliver these.”

His fingers slid from the strap. “Come back when you’re done.”

Celia nodded because refusing directly would be reported, then walked away without looking behind her. Her shoulders stayed tight until she reached the service station. Only then did she release the breath she had been holding.

The bartender glanced at the full tray. “Wrong table?”

“They said they didn’t order it.”

“They did.”

“They already had a bottle.”

He looked toward the man in the pale suit and lowered his voice. “Leave it next time.”

“It would be charged to them twice.”

“That isn’t your problem.”

It was always her problem. Every mistake appeared somewhere in the manager’s ledger, though never where she could examine it. Broken glasses, incorrect orders, food, laundry, transportation. The figures changed depending on who spoke, but the balance moved in only one direction.

She had kept her own record in her head since the manager took away her notebook. Fourteen shifts. Fifty-six hours the first week, sixty-one the second, fifty-eight the third. At twenty dollars an hour before deductions, even after housing and clothing, the debt should have fallen.

Instead, her father’s debt had grown by nine thousand dollars.

A hand settled between her shoulder blades. Celia did not jump; she had learned not to give the manager the satisfaction.

“Office.”

The bartender looked away. Celia wiped the condensation from her fingers and followed the manager through the staff corridor, where the music dulled into a steady vibration. He opened the office door and waited for her to enter first.

The room smelled of cigar smoke. Receipts, cash envelopes, and half-empty glasses crowded the desk. A monitor showed black-and-white feeds from the club, the loading entrance, and the hallway outside the staff rooms.

Beside the desk stood a locked cabinet. The manager kept her passport and identification inside it, along with the folder of certificates her father had told her to bring for the office position. She had not seen any of them since her first night.

The manager shut the door.

“You embarrassed a customer.”

“I didn’t.”

His brows rose, and Celia corrected herself. “I didn’t mean to.”

“He asked you to stay.”

“I had drinks to deliver.”

“He spends more in one night than you’ll make in a year. If he asks you to sit, you sit.”

Her mouth went dry. “That wasn’t part of the job.”

“The job is whatever keeps the club profitable.”

Celia looked at the monitor instead of him. In one square, the man in the pale suit had moved closer to the stage. Another hostess sat beside him with a fixed smile while he spoke near her ear.

The manager opened a drawer and removed a sheet of paper. He laid it on the desk, turning it so Celia could see the handwritten total at the bottom.

$73,480.

“That isn’t right.”

“It’s current.”

“You said sixty-four last week.”

“Your father cost me money.”

“That isn’t part of the debt.”

“Everything he costs me becomes part of the debt.”

“Nine thousand dollars?”

“He missed another meeting.”

Celia stared at the total. “What kind of meeting?”

“The kind that pays for your room.”

Her father had borrowed from men connected to the club, then disappeared before Celia understood how much he owed. She assumed the manager meant collection meetings, chances her father had failed to take because he was hiding.

Disappeared was the manager’s word. Celia preferred hiding. Hiding meant her father might still be trying to find a way out. It meant his silence could be fear rather than abandonment.

“The room has four beds.”

“And security.”

“The rear door locks from the outside.”

His expression changed. Not much, but enough that Celia wished she had stayed quiet.

“That lock is for your protection.”

“We can’t open it.”

“You can use the front entrance.”

They both knew what waited there: security, the manager’s driver, and a camera recording everyone who came and went. The women could buy toiletries twice a week if they went together. Celia had once asked to visit her old apartment and been refused.

The manager folded the paper. “You’re taking a private booking tomorrow.”

Celia thought she had misheard him. “What?”

“Two hours upstairs.”

“You said I wouldn’t have to do that.”

“Your father said a great many things.”

“I can work more shifts.”

“You already work every shift I give you.”

“Then let me do what I came here to do. Payroll. Inventory. Vendor accounts. I studied accounting.”

His face changed again, this time with something sharper than annoyance.

“That’s what he promised me.”

Celia looked at him. “My father?”

“He said you were good with numbers. Quiet. Easy to manage.”

Shame rose through her though she did not understand why. Her father had remembered what she studied. Perhaps the office position had been real before something went wrong between them.

“Then let me help.”

“I don’t let people I don’t trust near my books.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust anything your father gives me.”

The words landed strangely. The manager sounded as though the argument had begun before she arrived.

“I haven’t done anything.”

“You keep looking at totals that don’t concern you.”

“They concern me when you put them in my name.”

The manager pushed away from the desk. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been looking at my records?”

“No. I haven’t seen them.”

“Then keep your opinions to yourself.”

He stepped closer. Celia held still as his hand closed around her wrist. His grip was not hard enough to bruise immediately. He understood how to hurt without leaving evidence customers might notice.

“The private room starts at one,” he said. “You will be pleasant, and you will stop acting as though you are better than the women who know how this works.”

“I don’t think that.”

“Good.”

He tightened his fingers once before releasing her. “Maybe after your father hears where I put you, he’ll remember who he works for.”

Celia looked up. “Works for?”

The manager’s mouth flattened.

A sharp knock struck the office door before he answered. He swore and opened it.

One of the security men stood outside. “There’s a problem.”

“What kind?”

“They’re here.”

The manager’s face emptied. Celia had seen him angry, amused, and impatient. She had never seen him frightened.

“Who?” he asked, though his voice suggested he already knew.

The security man leaned closer and said something Celia could not hear. The manager shoved past him. Celia followed more slowly, uncertain whether she had been dismissed.

The staff corridor opened onto the club just as the music cut out mid-song. For several seconds, only the confused murmur of customers filled the room. Then the lights came up enough to expose faces that had looked glamorous in the dark.

Men were entering through the main doors, and they did not dress like club security. Their suits were plain and dark. Two remained near the entrance while the others spread through the room.

One club guard moved toward them with his hand beneath his jacket.

The nearest stranger caught his wrist before he drew the gun. He twisted the arm behind the guard’s back and drove him face-first into the wall. The weapon disappeared into another man’s coat. No one raised a voice or explained what would happen if the guard tried again.

Customers shifted aside.

The last man through the door did not hurry. His black suit fit without drawing attention to itself. He wore no tie. One hand remained in his coat pocket while his gaze traveled over the club—the bar, the private staircase, the cameras, the exits.

He looked at the room as though measuring what would be left after he was finished with it.

For one disloyal second, Celia noticed the clean line of his face before fear pushed the thought aside.

The manager reached him with both hands open. His smile appeared a second too late.

“Mr. Serrano. I wasn’t told you were coming.”

Simon Serrano stopped several feet inside the club, and Celia knew the name. Everyone did, though most people spoke it carefully. He owned buildings across the city, restaurants along the river, and a security company whose cars were parked outside places where trouble rarely lasted. Other things were said about him in lower voices.

He looked at the manager. “You were told not to open.”

The music had not resumed. The sentence carried farther than it should have.

The manager laughed softly. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”

Simon’s gaze moved past him to the crowded tables and the women in identical dresses. His expression did not change, but one of the men beside him glanced toward the office corridor.

“This is a legitimate business,” the manager said. “Everything can be explained.”

Simon looked back at him. “Then explain it.”

The manager’s eyes swept the room and found Celia. For one hopeful second, she thought he wanted her gone before the discussion began. Instead, he crooked a finger at the bartender, then pointed directly at her.

“Take Mr. Serrano a drink,” he said. “And stay with him.”