Chapter 1: Treasured Petals

 ”Boss, HEY BOSS,” a lilting feminine voice yelled into the noisy and bustling kitchen of the Treasured Petals. Men and women in gray and navy aprons ignored the woman shouting except for a young man in the back with dark brown hair and a sharp blade. He looked up from the cutting board for a moment, eyes scanning the kitchen, before returning to his work. His hands cut the vegetables in smooth, practiced motions as he prepped for the evening rush. Glancing up again, he scanned the kitchen to find the source calling for him. The only things he could see were pots and pans hanging from an overhead rack and the other cooks on the grill line. Steam fogged up the air down the grill line as one of the chefs began cooking.

 ”Boss, I know you’re flaming back here somewhere,” the female called again, her voice sounding annoyed. The young man suppressed a smile as he recognized Cassie’s voice by her favorite curse. He and some of the dancers had picked up her off-world curses, but no one said it quite like she did. Shaking his head, he finished chopping the siziaya, a sweet and tangy spice native to Beorus IV, into cubes and scraped them into a bowl for the line chef next to him. Cassie continued to call for him louder and louder. A few cooks snickered or tried to cover up their laughter as she yelled more and more colorful curses.

 ”MACK! There you are!” Cassie growled and stomped down the line of grills to his corner of the kitchen. She wore an unbuttoned white blouse that revealed one her multicolored dancing pasties on her large tanned breast, the edge of her nipple poking out the side of the covering and the tight black synthetic hiphugger-panties from her last dance.

 ”Why hello Cassie, I didn’t hear you,” Mack said with a broad smile and grunted when she punched his arm, hard. It was hard not to like the brunette, but he couldn’t help cursing her when she left bruises with her punches.

 ”I know you heard me, you flaming twit, but never mind, we’ve got a flaming ion licker trying to rough up,” the beautiful brunette started, but when he’d heard the worry in her voice and the words “rough up”, he slipped past her and pulled off his apron, putting it on a peg above the sinks.

 ”Where and who?” he grated out over his shoulder as he stormed up the line of cooks. Cassie tried to follow in her 6” stiletto heels, heels clicking on the tile over the sounds in the kitchen. He saw one of his cooks, Jeff, pick up a meat tenderizer and start to follow, but he shook his head and smiled. The muscled cook got the hint and grumbled before turning back to cutting the meat on his table. He loved his staff, but sometimes they could be a little too quick to jump to his aid like he couldn’t handle difficult situations by himself. It gave him a mixed feeling of pride and exasperation. He threw the clear disposable gloves in the trash as he waited for Cassie to catch up, trying to keep his eyes where they should be and not on his employee’s displayed assets.

 ”Tiff is in booth three with the flaming pig,” Cassie said and took off towards the back of the strip club, hips swaying.

 His eyes roamed over the club in a practiced sweep as he made his way to the back. He’d been busy in the back, preparing for the peak hours and hadn’t kept up with the flow of customers. The long ornate bar and lavish dining area were almost full with patrons, with only three tables open on the far side of the stage. Mel was dancing on the color changing light-pole to Star Drop’s Dream, a new-wave pop hit, wearing only her red heels and a sparkling smile. The dark room was pulsing with multicolored lights to match the beat of the song, and the crowd ate it up. The young dancer had suggested to sync the lights to the song, and it had become a hit with the patrons. Two large groups of men on either side of the stage were yelling and whistling in appreciation to Mel’s lithe form, but the two men in black dress suits caught his eye sitting a few feet back from the middle of the stage. There was a wide circle of empty tables around the two men and one of his waitresses, in a low-cut top and g-string, was serving them drinks. The Shroud Mafia owned the club and brothel next door, but he always hated that they pushed paying customers out to have the best view.

 Shaking his head, he returned his attention to the back of the club where Guido and Jack stood with their arms crossed, underneath a holosign in red reading “Exotic Dances,” blocking anyone from entering or leaving the booth section. “Guido, Jack, what’s going on back there?” he asked once he’d reached the two muscular men. Guido was an illegitimate bastard of one of the mafia lieutenants, and Jack was a local boy from the 13th block. Both men had more muscles than any two dive-miners he’d ever met, and unlike the stereotype of muscular men, they were both intelligent.

 ”Boss, we got a newbie with wandering hands and a desire to hurt women to get his way. We got Starlight out when she hit the panic button, but she’s got a terrible shiner,” Guido sad with a frown and pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. Tiff, or her dancer name Starlight, was sitting on the floor crying and holding a bruise-pack to her eye. Cassie squatted next to the injured dancer, comforting her by rubbing her arm and looking worried.

 ”Boss, we’re not sure, but we’ve never seen this moron before. He might be a spacer or someone that moved into the city recently, but he looks like a typical bottom level Shroud enforcer. I ran him through the usual channels as soon as we pulled Starlight out, but it came up clean. Normally, we’d rough him up and dump him in a garbage hauler, but,” Jack said breaking off with a shrug. It was the owner’s rules to rough up any patrons that hurt or assaulted any of the working girls or boys, and Mack had no problem with the policy. Guido nodded and told him he didn’t know who the attacker was either when he’d asked around.

 ”I’ll go back and have a chat with him,” Mack said as he pulled his slug-thrower from the shoulder holster under his dark jacket and passed it to Guido. The TE-SA110 was a civilian model slug-thrower that put a nice sized hole in anything in the path of the subsonic projectile and his favorite self-defense weapon. Guido took the gun without comment and slid it into the back of his belt under his jacket.

 Stepping past the two bouncers, he walked over to Tiff and rubbed her shoulder, pulling her into a gentle hug. “Tiff, sweetheart, go with Jack into the dressing room and get the first-aid kit. The bruise-balm will help with the eye.”

 Tiff looked up and sniffed, trying to keep her composure. Her mascara had run, leaving dark streaks on her beautiful oval face and her synthetic-red hair was matted to the side of her face where she kept the wet bruise-pack. “I’ve got a dance in a few, Mr. Wolf. I’ve got kids and,” she broke down in fresh tears.

 He hated seeing women cry and his bullshit meter wasn’t going off signaling Tiff was trying to play the situation to her favor, but he’d been wrong about pretty women before. Shaking his head and smiling down at her, he lifted the lovely redhead’s head up to look in her amber eyes. “Tiff go ahead and get cleaned up in the changing room. If the bruise doesn’t go away after the balm, we’ll take you across the way to Doc’s, and he can clean it up before you go home to your kids.”

 Tiff hiccuped and hugged him hard before nodding and struggling to her feet, using him as support. He did his best to ignore the two generous mounds of flesh rubbing against his chest. Once Tiff was on her feet Cassie stood and took Tiff’s other arm to support her. She kissed her on the cheek. “Come on, Tiff. We’ll get you looking beautiful again and let Boss have fun with the ion licker,” the beautiful brunette said as she helped Tiff towards the dressing room.

 Tiff giggled through a sob and stumbled off with Cassie, but not before he got a good look at Tiff’s face; it wasn’t just a little bruise on her face. Her eye was red, and it looked like there might have been a cut on her skin because there was blood on the outside of her eye. He wondered if she could see anything out of the eye at all. Glancing back, he noticed Jack had seen the same thing he did by the thunderous look in the large man’s eyes.

 Jack moved closer and whispered, “We’ll get her over to Doc’s right away to make sure nothing was damaged other than her beautiful face. Boss, you could let me in,” Jack started to say, but Mack put a hand on his shoulder.

 ”Jack, take care of Tiff, and I will take care of the shit stain,” he promised and pointed at the retreating women. Jack looked once at the door to booth three and nodded once before turning around and hurrying after the girls. Guido glanced over at him as Jack ran after Tiff and nodded once before turning back to watch the main floor.

 He sighed and shook his head, it had been such a pleasant night so far, and he hadn’t had a girl hurt in over three months. The last time one of the girls got hurt was when a new girl decided to try a new dance move on stage and had face planted onto the hardwood stage. Rolling up his sleeves, he strode over to the third door on the left and pressed the unlock and open button on the panel. When the door slid open a man in a black dress suit sat on the couch with his arms folded across his chest.

 ”You must be Mr. Wolf, that took some time for you to grace me with your presence,” the older man remarked with a sneer. A scar went across his pasty white forehead, and his unkempt black hair looked like it left a grease stain on the leather of the couch as it shined from the overhead light. His bulging muscles stretched the too-small suit, and numerous tattoos wound up his arms. The man sat up and cracked his knuckles.

 Mack strode further into the room, glancing around and looking over the seated man while the door slid closed, blocking out the music and loud catcalls from the main room. The dark three-piece suit, attitude, and empty shoulder holster matched that of a Shroud mafia member, and he shook his head. “You know Don Savino doesn’t like his girls roughed up under any circumstances. The problem I have is I don’t know you and more importantly, Guido, my bouncer, doesn’t know you either. Why is a Shroud member roughing up our dancers?” He asked, his question as polite as he could make it. Anger bubbled beneath the surface of his skin as he looked at the trash in front of him.

 ”Where is Sibilla? She should have been here and told you the new rules.”

 He shook his head and frowned. “I don’t know a Sibilla, and I definitely didn’t get told about rules allowing shit stains to rough up girls when they say no.”

 The suited man cursed in his native tongue and charged Mack from a seated position. A swift, hard front kick to the man’s face sent him sprawling backward into the couch. “I recommend you don’t attack me again. There may be management changes in the future, but until then Don Savino owns this club, and his rules are law.” He watched as the Shroud member got to his feet on unsteady legs. Shifting his weight, he dropped into a defensive stance, left foot forward and weight on his back leg, to ready himself in case the idiot tried to attack him again.

 ”You won’t hear the last of this Mr. Dead Wolf. I don’t care who you are, but Sibilla will make you pay for hitting me.” The larger man cracked his neck and flexed his fists to show his dominance. Mack was unimpressed by the man’s bravado. The bright red imprint in the middle of the man’s forehead stood out against the white scar. Growling in anger, the man shook his head again before looking at him with hate-filled eyes.

 ”Get out, take your friends if you need to, but you are barred from this club and the brothel next door until this can be sorted out,” He ordered, shaking his head and keyed the door open behind him. The noise of the strip club filled the room again, and he stepped aside to allow the man to leave.

 ”Brothel? There is a Shroud run brothel in this hell hole?” the man asked, confused.

 ”Don Savino owns almost everything on this side of the city. Torus may be a shit city on Beorus IV, but there are rules and factions that govern the city. The quicker you learn them, the better chance you don’t catch a slug for being an ion licker,” he answered in a soft voice and swept his hand towards the open door, dismissing the man. He didn’t strictly have the power or authority to remove a Shroud member, but since he was a manager of the club and the man had caused harm to one of his girls he didn’t care.

 ”Fine, this place is a dump anyway.” The greasy-haired man strode out of the room without looking back or picking up his fancy hat from the couch.

 Guido appeared in the doorway half a second after the man exited and he gave the order to have the man escorted out and banned until everything could be worked out. Without a word, the large bouncer yanked the shorter man up by the collar of his expensive jacket, ripping part of the jacket, and frogmarched him towards the front door. He did his best not to smile at his bouncer’s method of removing the trash and went back into the booth to call his boss. Taking out his communicator, a small hand-held tablet, he hit the first quick call contact and placed the communicator on one of the tables. The ringing sound played over and over while he cleaned up the small room before the call rolled over to an automated answering machine.

 When the automated voice stopped talking, he picked up his communicator again and spoke in a clear voice, “Don Savino, we’ve had a problem with a possible Shroud member hitting one of the girls. I’ve had him removed and temporarily banned until you tell me what to do. He spoke of Sibilla coming and changing the rules, which is news to me, but if you know of any changes let me know. Thanks, Boss, Mack out.” He turned off the communicator and tucked it back into his jacket pocket. The next call was to his opposite, Madam Yvette, who ran the brothel next door explaining the situation. He was about to leave the room when the door opened, and Nilde stepped in with a rag and a disinfectant spray bottle, her eyes darting around the room before landing on him.

 ”Oh! Boss, I didn’t realize you were cleaning up already,” the buxom blonde said and stuck out her lip in a pout. Her plump blue lips glistened from the overhead lights.

 He saw through the fake pout and had to suppress a laugh. “Nilde, I didn’t see you come in tonight. I cleaned up some, but these booths always need a thorough cleaning if you’d like to do it now.” He bit the inside of his cheek to not laugh at the flash of revulsion on her face before she hid it behind a stunning smile. Nilde was a daughter of one of the local gang leaders and liked to work the “safe” clubs whenever she felt like dancing, much to her father’s displeasure. She wore a bright pink top that failed to contain her enormous chest and a black g-string thong, leaving nothing to the imagination. Nilde’s half New-Italy and Native Beorus ancestry made her look exotic. Her olive skin had streaks of blue veins all over her body that seemed to enhance her beauty rather than detract from it.

 The exotic woman stuck out her tongue in a seductive way and wiggled her chest. “Aw, come on Boss! I was just getting the cleaning stuff for you,” she said with wide innocent eyes, then winked at him, her tongue running over her lips.

 He bit the inside of his lip when the dancer’s breast fell out of her top and cut his eyes away from the huge dark brown nipple. It was his policy to never get involved with any of the girls in his club, but damn if they didn’t make it hard on him sometimes. To him, it was one thing to see them dancing on stage for profit, which he watched with a professional eye, and another when they used their assets to try and influence him. It became almost a game at one point to see how far they could push him until he put his foot down a few years ago, stopping the shenanigans. He was a red-blooded male and having forty or more beautiful women, between the strip club and the brothel, parade around in various states of undress made it hard for him to concentrate on not wanting to screw their brains out. The rumor was Cassie won a huge bet saying he’d stick to his guns when the “game” started and Yidia lost the most money betting he would fall to her charms first. He saw the women that worked for him as his children or family, even when some of them were older than him, and always felt uncomfortable thinking of them sexually.

 He caught her satisfied smirk on her face out of the corner of his eye and shook his head. She knew what she was doing, and he was tempted to paddle her ass for it. He thought the idea over for a moment and realized she’d probably even enjoy it, the kinky girl. “Nilde if you keep that up I’ll order you to clean all the booths tonight,” he warned and stared into her soft brown eyes.

 ”No thank you, Boss,” she stated and put her large breast back into the tiny top, the fabric straining at the seams. Her wardrobe looked like an accident waiting to happen. “You want me to leave the cleaning stuff with you?”

 He thought about it for a moment and told her to leave it so he could do a quick wipe down of the booth. She smiled and left the supplies on the table before hightailing it out of the room. He shook his head at her antics and sprayed the room’s surfaces down with the disinfectant before wiping everything off, including his communication tablet. A few minutes later, he double checked over the surfaces to find them dry and left the booth. Guido was still standing there watching the club while Roxie, a tall blonde dancer, was pulling a pimply-faced young man with a drunken smile into the second booth. Once the two had gotten into the booth, Roxie poked her head back out and winked at him before and closed the door behind her.

 ”Anything else going on tonight?” Mack asked Guido as he stepped up beside the muscular bouncer.

 ”No Boss, that was the only issue so far. The night is still young if you wish to allow The Risen into the club again,” the bouncer answered with a dark chuckle. His eyes darted from one patron to another as he continued to watch and assess.

 Mack cursed aloud, thinking of the last time The Risen gang had graced his club. They were a pro clone-slavery and extremist hate group toward the natives to Beorus. The gang had a large following of Neo-Massiah religious fanatics who weren’t afraid of killing or dying for their cause. He’d had trouble with them before, but had always been polite when escorting them out. The last time they’d gotten into his club, a drunken man attacked one of his bartenders, a sweet kid by the name of Tan, and broke his arm. Tan wasn’t a clone, but the gang member was drunkenly sure of it at the time and attacked him. After that, every person that came into the club wearing The Risen gang tattoos or colors were thrown out with extreme prejudice. After the incident, he made sure to keep the club as neutral as possible, requiring gang and organization members to leave any distinctive clothing at the door.

 Shaking his head, he turned his back to the crowded room holding out his hand. Guido dropped the gun in his hand, and he made sure the safety was one before tucking back into its holster. “Come get me if anything else happens tonight,” he ordered and strode back off towards the kitchens.

 Mack loved to cook and spent every moment not dealing with the club or brothel cooking in the back with the other chefs. When he first started, he thought the head chef was going to throw him out of the kitchen, but the older man smiled, shook his head, and explained what went wrong and why. When he’d hired Chef Ty, he’d permitted him to throw anyone out of the kitchen he deemed unfit to wear an apron. During the three years he had managed the strip club, he’d become an accomplished chef, and it was mainly due to the head chef’s calm and careful instruction.

 After he washed up and got his apron back on, Jack came through the back door of the kitchen and got his attention. “Boss, Tiff is alright, and Doc is seeing to her now. There was a cut next to her eye, but no damage to the eye itself,” he said with his voice low. Relief was evident in the young man’s eyes.

 Mack nodded and breathed out a relieved sigh. “I’m glad, get her anything she needs within reason. The idiot was Shroud so I couldn’t do much but throw him out until Don gets in touch with me. I’ve left him a message with the situation as it stands, but no idea what will come of this. I really don’t want to lose a damn good dancer over that flaming idiot.”

 Jack nodded, a small jerk of his head, and breathed out. “Boss, she’s already said she might put in her notice. This incident shook her up, and the fact our hands are tied will get back around to her. Better it comes from you than one of the other girls.”

 He knew good advice when he heard it and thanked Jack again before sending him off to help Tiff for the night with the added order of telling him when Tiff was back in the building so they could talk. The club would be down a bouncer for the evening, but so far nothing else of note happened that night, and he cared about his girls’ safety. Shaking his head again, something he felt he did a lot, he threaded his way down the line of cooks to the station in the corner, the prep station near the cooler, and looked at the next item on Chef Ty’s list to get ready.