Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
The kitchen was still in immaculate shape, but every so often I would go hunting for the wayward crumb my dad talked about that day. There was always something, usually tucked away under the fridge or under a counter. The kitchen was never perfectly clean. It wasn’t the day it was built, and it wasn’t now.
Just like Aces Underground isn’t perfectly clean. The lights hide the tiny flaws that I saw this morning.
And they’re hiding something even more sinister than scratches and dings. I feel it in my bones, pulsing like a dark secret just waiting to be exposed.
Rouge may have Maddox and every other patron in this club fooled with her “making the world a better place” rhetoric, but there’s something underneath her perceived benevolence. It’s gnawing at the edges of my mind, crawling under my skin.
The reserved, risk-averse Alissa that abandoned a promising career as a flautist would just sit down and shut up. Take the path of least resistance, the straightest line, the rightest angle. God knows I learned that the hard way, growing up with my mother. I walked on eggshells, always fearing something would set her off.
But this club, and the man sitting across from me, have chipped that façade away to reveal someone willing to jump into the world with both feet. I don’t know how long this new personality of mine will last, so I’ve got to act now.
I’m not sure how deep the rabbit hole goes, but someone has to figure it out.
I sear my gaze into Maddox’s, repeating my father’s words. “Nothing is truly clean. Whenever something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Maddox squints at me, his mouth hanging open. “What?”
“Something my father said. He was talking about my mother, but his words bear repeating.” I get to my feet. “Something weird is going on here at Aces, Maddox. I’m not sure exactly what, but I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
I turn and leave the club, not looking back at the stupefied expression on Maddox’s face.
28
MADDOX
What the fuck just happened?
Alissa went glassy eyed for a moment and then left in a huff.
She thinks something is going on here. Something dark.
Aces Underground certainly has some unspoken stories, but nothing that any other former speakeasy wouldn’t have.
She’s gotten worked up. People are watching serial killer documentaries all the time now, and everyone is paranoid, seeing things that aren’t there. How many conspiracy theories are floating around the internet these days? They rarely end up being true.
Harrison is the only person I’ve ever brought to this club, and he never asked too many questions. He was just happy to order drinks on my tab and flirt with whichever women I hadn’t chosen for myself.
Alissa is a woman. Maybe that’s the difference. Women tend to notice small details, ask the questions that are supposed to go unanswered.
But there are plenty of women who are members of Aces in their own right or come on the arms of their boyfriends or husbands. None of them, as far as I know, have peeked behind the curtain.
The official party line is that Rouge is doing the right thing. The people who work in this club are getting their chance to start a new life, live the American Dream.
Alissa is British. What does she know about the American Dream?
Actually, she’s kind of living it. She came here to get a music education and was able to turn on a dime and pursue nursing instead. She got a job at a great hospital downtown and can afford a nice apartment in a good part of town. And she gets to date me, which is a plus.
I’m living the American Dream, too. I built that shop from practically nothing. True, I made an arrangement with my father to get the building in my name, but everything else was at my own expense, and Dad was eating up half of my profits until the moment he dropped dead.
Good timing on the old bastard’s part. Things started really taking off once I could keep all the money I made.
I got his car too, so I was able to sell the old clunker I’d been driving since my sixteenth birthday for a little extra spending money as well. Now, over ten years later, I’m doing pretty well for a small business owner in his early thirties. I’ve even been able to start putting money away into a retirement fund—not that I ever want to stop running that shop.
Shouldn’t the scantily clad waiters and waitresses in this club be given the same chance?
Of course, if Rouge really cared about them, she’d simply sponsor their immigration without making them work for her for five years. She has the money—the Montroses are as well-established in Chicago as the Hathaways, if not more so. She could start a non-profit, raise a ton to help these people get their start here, and hire American citizens to staff her bar at an agreeable wage.