Page 22 of The Fractured

Castello di Vetro, a strip club, was under new management, according to the sign outside the front of the entrance.

I joined the others outside the club in Downtown Brooklyn and cast my eyes across the black glass exterior and flashy, oversized neon sign.

Two oversized knuckle-heads stood guard at the doors.

I rolled my shoulders and pocketed my hands. All too aware of the way the microphone wires, taped to my chest and stomach, tickled my skin. The tape itself was one heated room away from unsticking completely.

Roxy stood in front of our small gathering, adjusting her little black dress and her high ponytail as she looked the club over and lifted her chin.

“Alright, boys,” she purred. “Let’s do this.”

Walking towards the doors and the bouncers stationed at them, Roxy dialled up the sway in her hips while we followed loosely. Once she explained who we were here to see, as she felt up their biceps, the bouncers let us in.

The entrance began with a small, dimly lit foyer with a dark red carpet and black walls. A woman in a tight pink dress with a plunging neckline stood behind a desk that ran along the entire right side of the foyer. She was there to collect hats and coats, but seemed preoccupied with the white lines on the surface of the desk as we entered.

“This is gonna be interesting,” Seb muttered as we moved to the next door, where music pounded against it.

I hummed in agreement as I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt. It was warmer inside, and the tape was unsticking already. I casually pressed a hand to my chest, as if I was brushing away lint.

The second Roxy pushed open the door, I was hit with the familiar wave of the club scene. This one was more sophisticated than The Den. The room was wrapped in black mirrors, from the walls to the ceiling, and cast in a pink and blue haze of light that bounced off the scantily dressed dancers and their little stages and poles around the room. Businessmen and preppy college boys filled the place, all ogling the women on show or showering them in cash. Other dancers weaved through the audience, offering lap dances or leading patrons to private rooms for something more. And then there were the aerial performers on black silk ribbons hanging from the ceiling.

One dropped down right beside Seb as we edged through the club. She was upside down, her bare legs wrapped in the thick silk and spread like a capital T as her mouth came to his ear. Whatever she whispered made his eyes pop.

“I’m good, thanks!” He hastily side-stepped her as we moved forward.

Roxy wouldn’t let us wait or get distracted, simply because she wasn’t stopping. Her eyes were set on the other side of the room. But her determination to meet with Antonio’s kids didn’t stop the other fighters with us from getting distracted.

It was optimistic to think a group of men could make it across a strip club floor without being tempted.

But somehow, we made it.

Barely.

One fighter had groped a dancer in passing, prompting her to backhand him across the face because of theno-touching-the-dancerspolicy. When he went to go after her, I gripped the back of his neck and shoved him back in line.

At the back of the club, where red velvet sofas lined the black mirror walls, two more bouncers stood by a silver door handle – the only indication that the mirror they guarded was a door. Roxy spoke with them too, and then we were waved forward. But not before both bouncers indicated they needed to check us for concealed weapons.

I clenched my jaw as I went after Roxy, hoping that the microphone wasn’t about to get me killed.

The devices whirred as they passed over my chest, back, shoulders, and legs, but neither went off, and I was free to walk through the door and into the top of an all-black stairwell. The only light was the neon blue strip of LEDs along the handrails.

We were all cast in blue as we went, single file, down the narrow stairs.

“There’s nothing more uplifting than a black stairwell, don’t you think?” Seb’s sarcastic tone echoed through the space, joining the sound of our footsteps. “I love the ambience. It’s like going on a leisurely stroll down to a torture room. Or a sex dungeon. Maybe both—"

“Shh!” Roxy hissed over her shoulder. “No talking.”

I didn’t have to listen hard to recognize the sound on the other side of the door at the bottom of the stairs.

I wasn’t even fighting tonight, but my body was already preparing itself. My muscles were tense, and my mind was racing through different fight strategies.

To make it all much worse, I was getting warm.

I pressed my hand to my chest again, reapplying the tape as it threatened to peel off.

Roxy pushed the door open, inviting a wave of cheering to rush into the stairwell, and we stepped into a large concrete basement. But it was more than that. Way more.

“Oooh, shiiit,” Seb said.