Page 53 of We The Depraved

Niki

You’re ruining my fucking club, the text reads. It’s from my future bride and of course I can’t stop smiling but the mask slips onto my face as Artur slaps a man pinned to a chair. The man already has a busted lip and blood is pooling.

He looks like he’s ready to confess his sins.

Good, I think.

“All it takes for the pain to go away, Mr. White….”

Ivan’s voice is a deep timber. This is what I pay him for; he is the muscle to my brain when I need him to be. He asks no questions and does only as he is told.

“Yes, Mr. White,” I come over.

The man’s head is rolling around but I’ve had enough. He will sign this contract just as I got all the others to sign. Some had to be coerced, some took the money.

He had been one of the last to hold out.

“You…” Mr. White comes through for a second, his eyes focusing on me. “Can go fuck yourself.”

I snicker and I hear Damien laugh. “Has spirit, Niki.”

Looking over my shoulder, “I agree. But it’s too bad…”

Mr. White’s eyes want to roll back in his head and he tries to strain against the bindings that have his arms tied behind his back.

“See, Mr. White….I know there are few things that you love.”

Ivan had disappeared, knowing it was going to take more than force to get this job done. He wheels a television into the room, and we all watch.

“I know how God fearing you are, Mr. White. I know that you believe on Sundays when you pray to God, that you truly believe He will forgive all your sins. And he might. But Mr. White….the world is unforgiving when you’re fucking the youth preacher at your private cabin.”

The video begins to play and Mr. White is focused now. The camera man gets up close to the window and Mr. White and James Gavin, the youth preacher at South Houston Baptist church comes onto the screen. Mr. White strips off his lover’s clothes and unzips his pants before forcing his lover down onto his knees and his cock pops into his mouth.

I nod to Ivan and he pauses the video.

“Do you think Mrs. White would like a copy of this video?”

Mr. White begins to cry. “You can’t tell anyone.”

I look back at my brother who shakes his head. “Sign the fucking contracts, Mr. White. I don’t give a fuck who you sleep with, but I want your company and the surrounding land.”

He pleads with me.

He pleads with God, promising he’ll do what is asked.

Damien and I leave, laughing our asses off.

Ivan will take care of the rest of the work.

“Home?” Damien is about to slip into his car.

“I’m going to The Crescent,” I tell him. “Sage is up to something.”

“You are enamored with her,” he says.

“She is my future.”

The drive to the club takes forty minutes. We don’t conduct business close to home. Ivan will make sure to give Mr. White a cover story for his busted face and I will be acquiring the land I want by the end of next week.