I feel my eyebrows jump. Lorenzo didn’t tell him what Intimate Indulgences is? I’m kind of surprised. I thought he would be bragging all about the brothels, and I was worried that some of our girls might have gone missing when he was trafficking people, but when I checked, every one of our girls was accounted for. He probably didn’t want to raise my suspicions by targeting those women.
“Is that what Lorenzo told him?” I’m curious.
“Is that not what it is?” Xavier asks as he and Colton look at the rest of the stuff on that rack.
Colton holds up a pair of hand cuffs in one hand and a spanking paddle in the other. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say definitely not.”
“Nope, it’s a high-class, extremely exclusive brothel. He didn’t question where our whores worked?”
“He thought all the strippers at the Kitty Kat Club were whores.” Xavier chuckles, highly amused at the fact that Mario completely missed another business opportunity.
“Nope. My whores are well paid and damn good at their jobs. If he was paying attention, he would have discovered that business almost out earns everything but the casino and resorts.”
I turn my back on them, leaving them to put the supplies back, and move farther into the racks of supplies.
“Why is all this stock here?” Colton catches up to me.
“It would look pretty suspicious to have an empty warehouse. Better to hide things in plain sight. It also explains trucks coming and going. We hide drugs in the shipment of supplies and send them throughout the West Coast. Nobody questions them, and inspectors tend to get a bit uncomfortable when they pull out a butt plug package or a giant dildo, so they don’t look much further.”
“Genius.” Colton chuckles as I get to the back wall of the warehouse—or it appears like the back wall anyway. If anyone looked at the building too carefully and compared the size outside to the space inside, they would notice a discrepancy, but people see what they want to see.
Against the wall is a bookcase that contains awards the Lucky Diamond resorts have earned over the years. “Impressive,” Tristan remarks as he and Xavier also catch up to us, “but I didn’t really take your family as one that feels pride in these kinds of achievements.”
“We don’t,” I reply, “but it was as good a place as any to put them.” I reach behind one of the uglier pieces and press my finger against a small scanner. The bookcase clicks open as the lock disengages, and I reach behind it and pull it wider.
“You Russos and your secret doors…” Xavier sounds bemused.
“Mario doesn’t do things like this?” I ask, and he shrugs.
“There’s a cellar in the vineyard house you need to go down a set of stairs to get to. They are hidden underneath the island bench in the kitchen, and I think there is an escape tunnel that leads from the cellar, but all that’s down there is wine. He likes to show it off to his friends when he has dinner parties, but nothing as secretive as all your spaces.”
“You haven’t seen them all. Remind me to show you once this is all over,” I say lightly, and I see Tristan’s eyes light up. I don’t know if it’s because of the secret rooms or because I’m implying that after this is all over, we may still have a chance.
“Oh, I’ll be sure to,” Colton promises, and I see his eyes heat at the reminder of my hidden sex room.
“I assure you they are not all as exciting as that one is,” I tease as we step into the humidity controlled room.
“Holy shit,” Xavier mutters as he looks around.
“I heard about that room,” Tristan says, wide-eyed, as he takes in the inventory. “I’m sad I missed it.”
“Well, I promise to give you your own tour if you want,” I assure him, thinking about having him placed in the stocks with his bare ass exposed, contained and at my mercy. I wonder if he would let me cut him lightly. I bet he bleeds beautifully. I almost moan out loud at the thought but manage to keep it inside, though I tighten my hands into fists so I don’t reach for him.
The stress and tension of the last few weeks is really beginning to get to me, and I feel myself starting to unravel. Last night went a long way to ease most of it. I never would have thought being at someone’s mercy would be so amazing, but it’s been a while since I had someone at mine, and I’m like a junky jonesing for a fix.
“I want it,” he assures me.
“Time for fun later,” Xavier states, interrupting our banter. “Let’s haul all of this out to the trucks, fill it with decoy stock, and get back to the cabin. I want to spend as much time as possible with Addi before we have to leave again.”
The wave of guilt is instant, but it’s successful in dampening my itch to fuck or fight. I clear my throat and point out the pallet of cocaine.
“That shipment came up from a Colombian supplier and is pretty high grade. Someone will have to cut it before wedistribute, otherwise we will have a multitude of deaths on our hands.”
“I’ll let Mario know. He won’t care, because if he can make it go further and earn more, then he will be all for it.”
“It will also mean that until he finds another chemist, it won’t hit the streets until after we’ve taken him out. Sage can cut it properly for us when it’s all over with.”
“I bet he can’t wait to get back on the job.” Colton chuckles as he pulls down a couple bags of vacuum sealed marijuana.
