Vicious Betrayal

Chapter One

Oksana

I can feel the bass rolling out from the club hitting me before I even get through the door, the low thrum vibrating up through the soles of my teetering heels and rattling in my chest. I decide immediately, before I’ve even seen the interior, that I love this place.

The line outside stretches for nearly half a block, full of girls in barely-there dresses and guys in overpriced button-downs shivering in the chilly September night, all of them hoping the bouncer will deem them worthy. We didn't wait. Bianca knows someone who knows someone, and within four minutes of arriving we're inside. Past the velvet rope and the enormous man in a black suit who looked at us like he was cataloging our net worth, and into a mass of sweaty chaos that makes my pulse quicken before I've even had a drink.

"Oh my God," Talia says, gripping my arm hard enough to leave marks. "Oksana. Oksana. Look at this place."

I'm already looking. The club used to be some failed restaurant, and now it's unrecognizable. Black marble floors catch the light from a ceiling rigged with hundreds of small gold fixtures, so it looks like someone tipped over a jewelry box directly above the dance floor. There's an upper level ringed with private booths, most of them already occupied by people who look like they could buy the building outright, and below that, a sea of bodies moving to music too loud to talk over without shouting.

"It's insane," I shout back, grinning, and I feel Bianca's hand close around my wrist, tugging me toward the bar.

"Drinks first. Dancing second. And then we can gossip about who we think actually owns this place."

There’s a reason this club is packed to the brim tonight, and it’s not just how beautifully decorated it is or the fact that a new club opening is a draw for every content creator and eager twenty-something in Chicago. It’s the rumor that this club belongs to Declan Murphy. The Irish boss who runs half of Chicago's underbelly, and who has taken the organization he runs from a violent mafia terrorizing the criminal underworld of the city to a more… diplomatic endeavor. He likes his illegal dealings, if what I’ve heard through the grapevine of my own family can be believed, covered in a more legitimate outer shell. Clubs, bars, restaurants, strip joints—Declan Murphy owns several of each, but they're all hiding something darker underneath.

Everyone likes a taste of danger, and going to a club rumored to be owned by a dangerous mafia boss is exactly that. The general public loves the idea of being in proximity to a criminal, because they don't know what that life is really like. They only know the glamorization of it, not the truth—that belonging to a criminal organization or being born into one of the families, whether it's a powerful man like Declan Murphy or a small-time pakhan like my father, is blood and violence and responsibility, grit and difficult choices and doing your duty.

Except it hasn't been that way for me. I'm the youngest daughter, and so far, that's meant I've been beautifully, almost alarmingly exempt from the unpleasant choices this life forces on people. My brother is going to inherit. My sister is going to marry well. And I've mostly been treated like a pretty extra feather in my father's cap, one who is allowed to do what I want so long as it doesn't reflect badly on the family.

I know better than almost anyone in this club what kind of danger might be sitting at one of those private booths upstairs, sipping whiskey and watching all of us dance without a single flicker of interest in our lives. It doesn't scare me. If anything, it makes it all a little more exciting. I'm right here under their noses, and no one knows who I am.

We sidle up to the bar, where a tall, handsome man with a nose ring and hair buzzed on the sides pours a purple drink into four glasses, garnishing it with edible gold glitter. Talia has her phone out already, snapping pictures of the line of drinks. We all know better than to reach for them before she's gotten her Instagram shots. 

"To bad decisions," Bianca says, raising her glass once she's grabbed it after Talia is done.

"To rumors," I say, and Talia laughs. Priya, who's been quiet since we walked in, mostly because she's too busy staring at a man near the DJ booth, finally lifts her glass too.

The drink is delicious and goes down easy, with the sharp bite of just a little too much alcohol. Either the bartender likes Talia or this club uses the strategy of making the first couple of drinks a little stronger so that we keep going, and watering them down later. By the time I'm halfway through it, I can already feel a warm buzz spreading through my veins. I haven't eaten much today. I knew what kind of night this would be when I got dressed, and I wanted the alcohol to hit fast. It does.

We make our way out to the churning dance floor, moving along to the music as we hold up our drinks. I chose a short black dress tonight that clings to every curve, swoops low between my small breasts and dips nearly to my ass in the back, thin gold chains looping across all the way down my spine. Talia is wearing a scarlet red bandage dress, her hair loose and flying, and Bianca went for a silky white number that's devastatingly sexy despite the innocent color. Priya is wearing a bright pink dress that pops against her deeply tanned skin, and she still has her eyes on the handsome man near the DJ booth, who seems to have noticed her now, too.

The DJ himself is great, spinning a fantastic mix of recent hits and remixes of oldies with fresh beats. My hips move as if entirely on their own, all those stuffy dancing lessons my mother insisted I take as a child having given me a sense of rhythm that I'm now using for something she definitely didn't intend. Talia spins under my arm, laughing, her dark curls sticking to her forehead with sweat, and Bianca has her phone out, filming a few seconds of the crowd to post later with some caption about the club everyone's talking about.

A man in a gray suit tries to dance with Priya, and she lets him for about thirty seconds before shaking her head and turning back to us, unimpressed. Another one offers to buy us all a round, and I let him. Free drinks are free drinks regardless of his intentions, and even though we can all afford our own alcohol, there's a rush to getting the attention and having handsome men buy us drinks. Plus, there's no fear that they'll demand we owe them anything—I have security nearby, blending into the outer edges of the club, and if someone tried to touch me, there'd be hell to pay. 

The only times I've hooked up with a guy have been entirely my own choice, and because I managed to briefly give my security the slip. It's no wonder my older sister resents me, I think suddenly, and push the thought away just as quickly. It's not fair that she has to marry who she's told and I get this freedom, but am I supposed to toss it away and sit at home learning to arrange flowers just because she has to?

I down the second drink almost as quickly as the first, throwing myself fully into the music as I give myself over to the feeling of being buzzed and twenty years old and fully alive in a city that for me, at least, is nothing but a playground tonight. 

And then, as I spin around, rolling my hips against Bianca as we dance together, I see a man standing at the bar.

I wasn't looking for anyone in particular. My eyes catch on the bar almost by accident, sliding across the crowd. And then they stop. Because there's a man sitting there, alone, and he looks startlingly out of place, wedged between a girl in a skirt so short I can almost see the curve of her ass and a guy with a shirt open almost to his navel and chains littering his sweaty chest. 

He's older than anyone else in this club by at least a decade, maybe more. Late thirties, I'd guess, maybe forty. He's not dressed like the rest of the men here. He's not wearing a suit or a half-open silk shirt or a hipster-y skinny tie. He's in dark plain jeans and a black button-down with the first two buttons open, showing a hint of chest hair with a thin gold chain lying against it. I can see ink just below his collarbones and crawling up the muscled forearms visible beneath his rolled-up sleeves, and he looks incredibly fit, shoulders pushing at the seams of his shirt. His hair is a dark reddish-brown, curling slightly at the nape of his neck and behind his ears from the humidity in the club, and he has a short, well-kept beard on a strong jaw.  

He looks a little weathered and tired, but something about that is strangely appealing. He's not hitting on anyone at the bar or hunting for a conquest. I have no idea if that's just because he doesn't need to or because he's uninterested, but that lack of prowling hunger catches my attention as much as his appearance. He isn't talking to anyone except occasionally, the bartender, and even then it's brief—a word, maybe two, before he goes still again, watching the club with an expression I can't quite read from here. Not bored, exactly. Alert, like he's cataloging every person in the room. There's a stillness to him that doesn't match the chaos around him at all.

"Oksana." Bianca's voice cuts through, and I realize I've stopped dancing entirely. "What are you looking at?"

I don't answer right away. I can't decide if I want to share this pull I'm feeling toward a stranger who hasn't so much as glanced in my direction. But Talia follows my gaze anyway. Subtlety has never been my strong suit, and within seconds all three of them are looking too.

"Oh," Priya says, her voice low and appreciative. "Oh."

"Who is that?" Talia asks in my ear.

"I don't know," I say slowly, still watching him. He lifts his glass, filled with a small amount of some amber liquid, and takes a sip, his gaze still sliding across the room before returning to the bartender. His forearm flexes and his throat moves, Adam's apple bobbing as he leans back slightly on his barstool. His thighs look muscled in the tight fit of his jeans, and below them, he's wearing motorcycle boots that look like they've seen better days. "But look at him."

"He's like fifty," Bianca says. She wrinkles her nose a little.

"He's not fifty." But he is definitely a lot older than me. He lifts the glass again, and I focus on his hands. They're long-fingered, veined, and I wonder if they're scarred. He looks like trouble, like a man who gets shit done, probably with a heavy hand. A burst of heat ripples out through me, and I feel my teeth sink into my lip.

I'm not a virgin. I've had a handful of hookups in club bathrooms and dark corners, messy kisses and fingers and hands in places I know they shouldn't be, and twice I've snuck away from my security to go further with someone. Once, my first time, was in the back seat of a Maserati in the parking garage behind a downtown club, and the other was up against the wall behind a fancy bar, an empty bottle of Veuve Clicquot rolling against my shoe while he pounded into me. But those men were young, reckless as I am, and not that good at what they were trying to do to me, more focused on their pleasure than mine. I got off on it because of the danger and the thrill, not because of any skill on their part. 

 "He's maybe forty. And he's gorgeous." I run my tongue over the sting on my bottom lip where I chewed it, still halfheartedly moving to the music while I try to decide what I'm going to do. 

"He's giving off serious don't-fuck-with-me energy," Priya says. She's not wrong. Even the men around him seem to give him space without quite realizing they're doing it. Two guys in expensive suits laugh loudly a few stools down, and he doesn't so much as glance at them, but there's something in the set of his shoulders that suggests he's aware of everything happening around him regardless.

"That's exactly the energy I'm here for," I say. Bianca laughs delightedly.

"You're not serious."

"Watch me."

I toss back the rest of my drink and hand the empty glass to Talia before she can talk me out of it. She looks like she wants to. Her eyes are wide, half amused and half concerned. It's the expression she gets whenever I'm about to do something she considers reckless, which happens often enough that she's developed several varieties of looks depending on the occasion.

"Oksana, he could be—"

"Dangerous? Yes. Obviously." I smooth my hands down the front of my dress, adjusting where it's ridden up from dancing, and roll my shoulders back. "That's part of the fun, isn't it?" I lean in and kiss her cheek quickly, leaving a faint mark of lip gloss she'll probably complain about later. "I'll be fine. I always am."

I move through the crowd, my heart starting to beat faster. Women in places like this are often reduced to being prey, but right now I feel like the one stalking my target, zeroing in on this man with the full intent to find out whatever walls he has up and dismantle them until he's panting and desperate for me. My pulse throbs in my throat, the anticipation rising as I let a seductive smile curl the corner of my mouth. I'm almost there, and I wait for his eyes to turn toward me again. I want him to look at me, and I want to see what happens on his face when he does.

The alcohol has softened the edges of everything. I see men glancing at me as I pass, but I ignore all of them. I've decided who I want, and now it's just a matter of getting him. It's never hard, but I can't wait to find out what he's like when he is. 

Up close, he's even more overwhelming than he was from across the room.

I see a scar through his eyebrow, and another lower on his cheek, a little deeper and more ragged, cutting into his jaw. His hands, I see, are scarred too, white marks crisscrossing his knuckles. I sidle up next to him, and he turns when I move into his periphery. He doesn't move quickly, but he's not a man you sneak up on, I can tell.

His gaze is impartial, as if he's just checking to see who's moved into his space, but I feel that look all over my body anyway. Every hair stands up, my skin tightening, my heart racing so hard I can feel it in my throat. He's gorgeous. Definitely pushing forty, if not there already, but fuck, he's hot. And older isn't bad. It means experienced. It means he'll probably do more than fumble halfheartedly to find my clit before he sinks into me and his own desire to come takes over. 

His eyes are a deep green, with flecks of gold. My pulse stutters in my throat.

"Is this seat taken?" I ask, already sliding onto the stool before he can answer.

"It's not really mine to give." His voice is low and rough at the edges, with the faint trace of an Irish accent worn smooth by years in this city. He doesn't look at me when he says it. His attention has drifted toward the upper level and a man in a black T-shirt moving along the edge of the railing. I watch his jaw tighten fractionally before easing again when the man disappears around the corner.

"I'll take that as a no." I signal the bartender for another round, mostly to give my hands something to do. "I'm Oksana."

He doesn't offer his hand. He doesn't offer much of anything, actually, just a short nod. "Cormac."

"Cormac." I let it purr off my tongue, but he seems surprisingly unaffected. His eyes follow a waitress cutting through the crowd with a tray held high, then a bouncer near the far exit who lifts two fingers toward him in some small signal I don't understand. Cormac's chin dips barely in response, before his attention comes back to me like he's making himself do it.

"You're not much of a talker," I say, tilting my head and letting that smile curl my lips further. "Or is that just for pretty girls who sit down uninvited?"

"I'm working." He says it flatly, almost dismissively, but something in the way he says it makes the back of my neck prickle with interest instead of discouragement.

"Working." I raise my eyebrow. "At a nightclub?"

"Something like that." His eyes flick toward the entrance again, toward the line of people still filtering in past the velvet rope. I notice again how he seems to have positioned himself so that he sees as much of the space around us as possible. 

"You don't seem like the type who works in a club." I lean in slightly, testing the space between us. "No offense." He's not the slick type who does marketing or runs the back office or manages the staff, and he's not quite thick enough to be a bouncer. He's muscled, that's for sure, but he's not a bodybuilder. He's built more like a fighter. 

"None taken." Cormac pauses, and then says, almost as an afterthought, "You should get back to your friends."

The way he says it isn't unkind or rude. It's oddly almost gentle, like he's giving me some friendly advice, but there's a hard edge to his words that tells me he's trying to hint that he's not interested. He's not playing hard to get or hoping I'll chase him harder. He genuinely wants me to walk away.

Which, infuriatingly, only makes me want to stay.

"They're fine without me for a few more minutes." I watch his face for some flicker of amusement. There isn't one. His eyes have already moved past me again, and I have the distinct sense that I'm the least interesting thing happening in his field of vision right now.

"Suit yourself." He lifts his whiskey, takes the last sip, and sets it down. "But I've got somewhere to be."

"You just got here."

"No." For the first time, something almost like humor appears in his eyes, gone as quickly as it came. "I've been here all night."

Before I can ask what that means, his attention snags on something past the dance floor. Two men are near the far wall, one of them gesturing too sharply, too fast, and Cormac's whole body shifts, moving off the stool in a single motion that makes it clear exactly how strong he is. He doesn't look back at me. 

"Careful, Oksana." It takes me a second to realize he remembered my name. "This isn't the kind of place you want to be too curious about."

Within seconds, he's swallowed up by bodies and lights, and I'm left sitting alone on a barstool with a half-finished drink and a pulse that hasn't slowed down at all. I watch the space where he disappeared for longer than I probably should.

This isn't the kind of place you want to be curious about.

I've never in my life been good at taking that kind of advice.