He simply waved it off.
“Your dad’s a detective?!”
I had walked into the staff room to put my things in my locker when Jen grabbed me by the arm and pulled me aside. My heart leaped through my chest at what she had blurted out.
“Shh!” I hissed, stumbling over my foot in the process. I narrowed my eyes at Xavier as he closed his locker door and grimaced. “So much for no one else knowing.”
“No one else knowing, what?”
I whirled to find Roxy leaning against the staff room doorway in a bright red, knee-length dress. Her lips and nails matched while her black hair was styled in heavy waves. She looked far more glamorous than she usually did.
We had all gone silent. Xavier preoccupied himself with something in his locker again, Jen tying her apron.
I smiled, albeit a little nervously, and shrugged. “It’s nothing important.”
Roxy narrowed her eyes at me for a second and then straightened as she brushed out any crinkles in her dress. The thick, golden bangles on her wrists jingled with the motion. “We won’t be opening to the public tonight.”
Jen crossed her arms. “What do you mean?”
“Antonio is holding a meeting tonight with a few of his colleagues.” Roxy gathered her thick hair over one shoulder before cutting us a look. The gold hoops dangling from her earlobes gleaming in the light. “Which means you’ll be serving drinks and that is all. Do not talk to them, interrupt them, or repeat anything you see or hear tonight… As for you, Lily.”
I tensed. “Yes?”
“You’ll be waiting on them. So don’t mess this up.”
Roxy’s smile was far from friendly as she backed out of the staff room. Just in time for Antonio and two dozen men in expensive suits to stroll through the front doors of the club.
Witnessing a mafia meeting was one of the most surreal things I had ever seen. Each of the men worked under Antonio as his soldiers, Jen explained quietly, and he was their boss. But also had bosses above him that he had to report to. Tonight, they were discussing business. Illegal business they didn’t want any of us hearing. Whenever I approached the table with their drinks, glasses quietly clinking against each other on the tray as my hands shook, their conversation either paused or they spoke in less detail, watching me closely.
I focused on keeping my head down and giving polite smiles. All the while trying to keep my anxiety under control whenever I got close to their table; a table made of a bunch of other tables pushed together in the center of what usually was The Den’s dance floor. Antonio sitting at the head of it with his back to the bar.
He gave me a warm smile and an encouraging nod as I passed by his seat for the third time on my way back to the bar, where Xavier and Jen were busy polishing glasses.
Roxy stood by the bar as I slid the tray onto the counter. She was watching over the room like a proud hostess. But there was something else written in those dark brown eyes of hers. Anticipation and excitement. It wasn’t so obvious in her expression but more so in the adjusting of her dress around her chest (fixing it so her cleavage was more prominent) or the fidgeting of the bangles on her wrist.
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure out who she got all dressed up for,” Xavier muttered as he polished the counter.
"Speak of the devil,” Jen smirked back, nodding to whatever was happening behind me. Or rather, nodding at who walked into The Den from the sound of the front door opening.
Almost all the members at the table had stiffened as Dean stepped inside. Some subtly drew their guns from their holsters but kept them hidden under the table, all pointed at him as he closed and locked the front door.
“Relax, boys,” Antonio smiled at them. “He’s one of my prized fighters. And my driver for the evening.”
Dean’s lips thinned into a forced smile at the men as he passed the table on his way to the bar. Unfazed by the fact all the men made an obvious display of returning their guns to their holsters.
I quickly turned my attention back to the bar. After yesterday’s events of running headfirst into a wooden beam, I wasn’t about to be caught staring too long again.
The smell of cigarette smoke lingered on his black T-shirt and hoodie as he slid onto the bar stool to my left. Four seats away and already scrolling through his phone nonchalantly. The bruise on the bridge of his still-straight nose was already beginning to fade from its original blueish-purple coloring.
I crossed my arms on the counter, as I waited for Jen to add drinks and a bowl of peanuts to a tray for the next order, and dared to steal another glance to my left when Roxy swooped in.
Standing on Dean's other side, Roxy had her back to the bar, elbows resting behind her as she looked Dean over. Even reaching out to delicately brush aside some of the hair that hung across his forehead, muttering something to him as she did.
Dean didn’t move away from the gesture but dragged his eyes from his screen to look at her. He didn’t say anything, only raising one brow in a way that had Roxy rolling her eyes and smirking at the room.
The drinks tray being nudged into my elbows snapped my attention to Jen.
“Good to go,” she said.
