Two hours before the club is scheduled to open I park in the lot and head in across the gravel. The lot is pretty much deserted, only one of the dancers' cars peeks out from behind the back of the building. It’s too early. None of them really want to know what goes on here in the daylight hours. Tony's Mercedes is there too, parked in front at a shitty angle.

“Selfish prick,” I mumble to myself. Later on he’s going to send out someone to fix it and when they ding the bumper he’ll cut the poor guy’s balls off.

Sometimes I think he does shit like that on purpose just to have a reason to hurt someone. I don’t think Tony Fretolli was hugged enough as a kid.

Who knows, maybe he was hugged too much.

I use my key and let myself in through the back.

My boots echo strangely across the faux marbled floor, the room’s surprisingly silent until I hear mumbles and someone’s muffled crying.

Shit. What the fuck is Tony doing now?

I pause to listen, then head for the back hallway, and push open the door with the low sounds coming from behind it. The room is bathed in red. Thick dripping red splatters of blood cover the back wall. Candy is on her knees panting and crying, her hands clasped over her mouth stifling her screams. Tony and Felony stand over her, both wearing the same shocked expression as Candy.

My eyes follow the splatters of red. They lead to a body. Franco's. His glazed eyes face up towards the ceiling and bullet holes spread out like a sick game of connect the dots across his chest.

Jesus. Poor Franco.

Not saying the fucker didn’t deserve it though.

I look to the girls. Candy's face is tear-streaked, her lips open wide puffing small rapid bursts of air. Felony leans forward as if taking in every detail. As soon as I’m close enough, her hands grasp my arms and she holds on to me tight.

It feels so damn good that I wrap my arms around her shoulders and bring her into my chest. She folds into me without a fight. I’m the safest bet in a cave full of monsters and she knows it.

"What happened?" I snarl, looking over her trembling shoulder to Tony.

Through a face full of snot and drool, Candy sobs, "I...I...I just found him heeerrrreeeee. I think. I think. I think," she bumbles and stammers, "I-think-he's-dead!" She raises a thin trembling hand to her face and wipes her whole arm across her nose.

"What made you come to that conclusion, sweetheart? The dozen bullet holes? Or the two gallons of red shit all over my fucking floor?" Tony rumbles angrily next to her. "Get her the fuck out of here," he bellows.

"But I was...I was with him last night..."

Tony and I exchange a look over the girls’ heads.

"I got her," Felony says, sliding her arms from around me and bending down to help Candy up. I’m instantly furious her touch is gone—more so than the fact that Franco got himself executed. Did Tony have anything to do with it?

"Stupid broads, they give me headaches," Tony hisses under his breath as soon as they’re out of sight.

My eyes scan the area. It doesn't even look like he put up a fight. It’s as if he was ambushed, by who knows how many guys.

"What the hell is that, Corrado? What the fuck is that?"

My eyes snap to his and follow his pointing finger to a note taped to a shelf right above Franco's pale-faced corpse. Scribbled on a piece of yellow legal pad paper are the words:

And now there's nine.

Ripping it out of its place, Tony crumples it in his fist, giving me a faint troubled glance. "Somebody wants to play a game? Sending this stupid message. Call everyone for a meeting in thirty."

“Yeah, boss. No problem.” Quickly, I thumb out a text to the crew about an emergency meeting, ending it with a line of triple nines. They all know the code and what it means. One of us is down, get here now.

"Fucking stupid guinea. What the fuck did he do?" Tony growls. “Who the fuck would…you think it was anything to do with—”

A shuffling sound comes from behind us, killing Tony’s words dead. It’s Felony walking back in with a bucket of water in one hand, a bottle of bleach under her arm, and a mop in her other hand.

"You get her to shut up?" Tony asks, looking up at her.

"No. She's still crying in the lounge," she answers, low.

"Fucking stupid goomah," he growls.

"I think she loved him, Tony. She’s going to be upset for a little while, let her grieve," Felony says, placing the bucket on the floor. Water sloshes over the side and mixes with the dark red of the floor.

"Eh. She's a stupid puttana. She loved sucking his dick for money. And I don't pay you to think, sweetheart."

Her eyes turn cold, and for the briefest of moments I think she may slap him. Instead she unscrews the bleach bottle and splashes the choking stench of disinfectant into the air.

Tony points down to the bleach and the mop. "What the fuck is that for?"

Her eyes narrow.

He turns to me and laughs, “This one never had to clean up blood before, huh? She must be a good girl.”

With my hand against the small of her back, I escort her into the back room, “You don’t have to clean up the mess. It’s not yours to clean. And trust me. The bleach won’t cut it.”

"What's going on, Corrado? Do you know anyone who would do something like that?" Her eyes are wide, looking up at me.

I know everyone who would do things like that. This place is full of them, how does she not see?

"Whoever did this is a fool. It was a message job. Somebody’s trying to tell Tony something. Nobody kills one of Tony's guys and gets away with it though,” I say.

“But that’s not true, is it? Someone killed a whole mess of the family a few years ago, right? It was the biggest mob hit in history.”

She’s right. That whole mess of a family was my family. My father. My uncles and aunts. My best friend, and Giana—the girl I swore I was going to marry one day. My little mafia princess.

Those days were different. In the old days you had to ask permission to get rid of someone. It was respectful. But no one asked for permission for the execution of my family and now there's no more rules. Now it’s an open game where no one is safe.

Her blue eyes stare into mine, waiting, watching, as if I have the answers to all the universe’s questions. There’s something about this girl, just something about her. Why the hell is she here in a place like this?

"Go home, gorgeous," I say, leaning in close to her. "Pick up a paper on the way home, look for another job. A decent one."

She picks up her purse from off the table and slips the strap over her shoulder. “But this is where I belong. On that stage.”

“No, love. You deserve better.”

She walks out the back door without another word and I watch her from the open door until she’s safe inside her car. I don’t think whoever popped Franco would go after one of the girls, but I don’t want Felony to be a part of this. I want her home safe, working as some secretary behind a desk and keeping her legs open only for me.

"Hey, Cassanova,” Tony calls from behind me. “The boys are here. We’re closing the club tonight. Let's clean this up.” He gestures his finger around. “Corey, I’m going to break the news to Franco’s wife. He was like a brother to me. We have to find out who did this, then I'm going to kill everyone involved."

I spend the next few hours washing blood off the walls and repainting.

I’m a zombie as I drive Candy home and tuck her into bed still crying. I feel nothing until I’m home, collapsing into my bed, and polishing off half a bottle of whiskey to drown away the images.

But they’re not images of Franco I see as my eyelids close.

It’s the same nightmare I’ve had since I was fifteen.

Bright warm daylight.

An explosion of sound, rattatatatatatat.

A moment of utter silence, then a chorus of devils screeching out bullets. A blur of suits and men and sweat. Giana's face drained of color. Her always-beautiful baby blues grew large, then glassy and glazed. I held her as the bullets zipped past us. I held her until they came and whisked who they could to the hospital. Then I sat and watched body bag after body bag devour all of the people I loved.

Angelo. Angelo. Where's Angelo...Oh my God. MY GOD. My Angelo. My Angelo. My mother's shrieks. Oh God, Corrado. Thick Italian curses, blunt and violent, slammed into my ears as I stood, stunned and stupid, tracing the rivers of blood with my eyes until I crashed to my knees.

Tires peeled and screeched away. The smell of burnt rubber filled the air.

My eyes met uncle Tony's in the hospital. He was lying off to the side on a gurney; one lucky grazed bullet wound in his arm.

After the last funeral, after he took control of the family business and named himself boss, he joked about the bullet only grazing him because it was too scared to meet the true evil that lies under his skin.

And I absolutely believed him.

Two days pass since Tony had to tell Franco's wife and his son Junior about the hit. Tony asked everyone to lay low, and the club’s been closed, and the girls aren’t making any money. “Go home to your wives and your families,” he said to everyone. Not an option for me, most of my family is dead. The rest is Uncle Tony.

Franco isn’t even dead forty-eight hours before it’s business as usual, and Tony reopens the club, and dancers and drunks shuffle their feet over the place where Franco bled out on the floor.

Tony wants to make money and no one’s talking about the hit or taking responsibility. Tony thinks it might have been a personal thing.

I agree, fifteen bullet holes feels pretty personal to me.

At the club, Felony's tending bar. Her dark hair is pinned up in pigtails like a schoolgirl and I walk right toward her like a moth to a flame. "You okay? You don't look so good," she asks.

"Fine," I answer. She doesn’t need to know I’ve been up with nightmares or that the only thing that will make me forget for a minute is to be balls deep inside her. Or how fucking pissed I am that she still works here.

She wipes down the bar with a wet rag and pulls out a cold beer for me and slides it across the bar top. "You know, I never thanked you for the other night."

I look at her, waiting. What night is she talking about? The night I saved her ass from a Franco pounding or the night she came on her own hand while I finger painted with her on my cock?

"So, thank you. I really appreciate what you did. At the card game."

"It'll keep you safe. For a while."

"You're a stand-up guy, huh?"

I lean my elbows on the bar and keep my voice level. "Don't go looking for any Prince Charmings here, sweetheart. You won't be finding any, there's just us bad guys."

Felony's gaze shifts over my left shoulder and I immediately feel a pair of warm hands slide over my arms. "Hey, Corrado. You here to watch me dance tonight?" Cherry's voice asks from behind me.

I turn in her direction, giving her a smirk. She winks in reply. Another dancer, Coco, slides up next to her and lays her head on Cherry's shoulder. "Hey, Corey. How you been, doll?"

"Uh oh, Corrado. Looks like you got yourself a fan club," Felony giggles across the bar top. But her voice isn’t laughing, it’s dry and hurt. She’s jealous.

"Oh-my-gosh," Cherry giggles, "I would be the president of that fine-ass fan club. But Corey? Corey doesn't mess around with us girls."

"That true?" Felony asks, smiling tightly.

"Nope. I had you in the back room the other night at the card game, didn't I?"

"Damn girl, you must be special then. I've been trying for like six months to get his attention. I thought he was gay."

“Guess he just likes know-it-all pussy,” Cherry says innocently.

“Maybe I’m not that special, Cherry. Maybe he just doesn’t like know-all-the-cock pussy. Maybe,” she says, her gaze flashing up to mine quickly, “Maybe he likes it because he knows my pussy is just for him.”

I back away smiling at her and shaking my head.

She’s right. It’s only her pussy I like.

Only hers.

And I like that she’s letting me know it’s only for me.