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A serene smile is on her face, but her bright blue eyes are missing their sparkle. The baby blue color is lifeless, and it’s my first clue that she’s seen too much in this place.

I enter into what looks like a foyer with gold tiled flooring, black walls, and an obscene chandelier. Gold framed pictures of the founding members of the gentlemen’s club line the walls.

Or, in other words, a bunch of fucking rapists line the walls.

Men in business suits, smiling at the camera and probably still riding the high from raping a little girl or boy. They all look the fucking same to me.

I walk down the hallway, the creepy men staring at me from either side the whole way down, while music with a heavy bass emanates from somewhere ahead of me.

I’m keeping the earpiece tucked safely away in my jacket until it’s needed.

It took five minutes to get in this godforsaken place because Detective Fingers from security wanted to thoroughly investigate my asscrack. I had to spend several minutes lecturing him about what would happen if his fingers brushed up against my asshole one more time.

After walking down Rapist Alley, I walk into a massive room filled with couches and poker tables. Men lounge on the couches with women draped over their laps and shaking their asses or tits in their faces.

At the back of the stage, a woman is currently humping a pole while men are throwing dollar bills at her. A full bar is off to the left of that, where several men in business suits sit, drinking glasses of alcohol. Probably fifty-thousand-dollar Scotch that tastes like ass.

Then again, they probably enjoy that taste since they think their own farts smell like flowers.

Women in scantily clad clothing roam the room, delivering drinks, and pretending to laugh at their lame jokes and—what the fuck?

Ten feet from me, a woman stands at a poker bar holding out her bare arm while an asshole stubs out his very lit cigar on her skin. My face drops when I see that asshole is Mark fucking Seinburg.

Goddamn it.

Smoke sizzles from her flesh, but she doesn’t move an inch. In fact, she doesn’t even flinch.

Anger punches through my chest. I force myself to stay calm as I walk over to the table, acting more interested in the game than I am in the girl.

As I get closer, I notice she has a blank look on her face, much like the hostess that greeted me.

The smell of burnt flesh fills the area. One dickhead even waves his hand in front of his nose dramatically, as if it’s her fault it smells. She drops her arm and just stands there, a glazed look in her eyes. After closer inspection, I notice that the entirety of her arm is covered in burn scars. Old and fresh. All in different stages of healing and plenty of fresh burns from tonight.

Mark shoos her away, and she robotically turns and walks off, as if she didn’t just have a cigar stubbed out on her flesh.

She’s drugged.

And after looking around at the women, I realize they all are.

Not only does it keep them compliant, but they probably won’t remember the majority of the shit that goes down in here.

My mask stays in place, refusing to crack from the anger swirling in the depths of my chest. Keeping my eyes on the table, I approach the men.

“Gentlemen! Who’s winning tonight?”

Five pairs of eyes turn to look at me, all with snide looks on their faces. I can tell what they’re thinking without them even saying it.

Who are you? What gives you the right to speak to us?

“I am,” Mark chirps, and I literally couldn’t have planned that better myself. It’s like God opened up His hands and dropped that fine piece of blessing in my lap Himself. “Do you play, boy?”

What I really want to do is smack the shit out of him for calling me ‘boy’ when I’m a thirty-two-year-old man, but instead, I offer a devious smile.

“Sure do,” I say.

Mark looks over at a bald man and tips his chin up. “Let him have your spot.”

The table seems to go silent. I keep my expression calm as the bald man stares back at Mark with a blank expression. But he doesn’t have his eyes on lockdown. Anger sparks in his brown pools, and he looks at Mark much like how I really want to. Like he wants to kill him.