Claimed Harder by Em Brown
Chapter 3
DARREN
Past
“What are you smiling at?” asks JD as we work out in his home gym, which is equipped with several different pieces of cardio and weight equipment.
I put down my phone and pick up a pair of dumbbells to resume my biceps curls. “Giving Bridge a hard time.”
With a barbell situated over his shoulder, JD does a set of squats. “Who?”
“Bridget Moore. Amy’s roommate.”
“You’re kidding. You banging her?”
“We got together a couple of times.”
JD stares at me. “Why?”
The truth is, I don’t know. She’s not really my type, but for some reason I’m drawn to her. Maybe there’s some truth to what they say about pheromones. But I’m sure I’ll get bored of her eventually.
“She good at giving head or something?” JD asks.
“Don’t know. Haven’t done that yet.”
JD shakes his head. “What’s up with you? Are you trying to get back at Kimberly?”
Kimberly is my most recent ex-girlfriend, now dating the son of a billionaire real estate developer turned governor of Florida and presidential hopeful.
I don’t bother answering JD because getting back at an ex wasn’t even something I would have considered doing as a teenager, let alone as a twenty-eight-year-old adult man.
“Just trying something different,” I muse aloud. “I invited her to your sister’s wedding.”
JD practically drops the barbell, which weighs over a hundred with the weights. “You what?”
“Invited her to Phuket.”
JD stares at me again, then shakes his head. “I hope she doesn’t wear that ugly-ass sweater of hers to the wedding.”
That “ugly-ass sweater” is what got me off on the wrong foot with Bridget. I thought she was working with Ron to pull a joke on me. After approaching her with that assumption, I wound up with Coke splashed in my face.
“I’ll take care of that,” I respond after I set the dumbbells back on the rack and move over to the bench press.
“I guess Amy will be happy her friend gets to tag along.”
Lying down, I settle myself below the barbell. “Things getting serious between you two?”
“Have you ever known me to be serious? I mean, Amy’s as cute as they come, and she’s got this tight little pussy, so she’ll last a month or two longer than others. I don’t have to contend with a mom like yours.”
JD’s mom ran out on his father when JD was five. He grew up close to his father, who’s now retired from the Jing San Triad and lives in Sydney.
“My mom’s more concerned with getting me out of triad business than seeing me settled,” I say before I lift the barbell off the stand and lower it to my chest.
“That’s why I’m glad I don’t have a mom. Has anyone ever talked to her? I mean, I get that she doesn’t want you to end up in jail like your dad, but the chances of that happening are slim. We took care of Stan. We sent a potent message.”
Stanley had turned state’s witness after getting arrested with several hundred kilos of cocaine on him, leading to my dad’s conviction for counterfeiting. Though Stanley’s body remains missing, photos of him naked—missing his fingers, toes, and penis—have circulated among triad members. His defense attorney has also gone missing.
“She doesn’t want me dead,” I say after doing a set of twelve and setting the barbell back.
“That was a fluke. Being knifed by a racist inmate.”
That’s what I believe, though my mother wonders if my father had been killed so that he doesn’t pull a Stanley Locke. I tend to think if that was the case, my father would have been killed a lot sooner, not two years into his sentence.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” JD continued. “You know, Hao Young really would like to see you follow in your dad’s footsteps in counterfeiting.”
I start on my next set. Lee Hao Young, a high-ranking Operations Officer in the Jing San, had approached me already.
“I don’t think I’ll take him up on that.”
“’Cause you’re trying to make your mom happy? Don’t you want to continue your old man’s name? Your dad’s a legend.”
“Death changes people,” I grunt as I push the weights up.
“You afraid of death?”
I consider his question because I’m oddly not. I’d rather live, for sure, and it would suck for my mother if I died prematurely. My father often said that the man who doesn’t fear death has the winning hand.
“No,” I answer, “but there’s nothing that appealing working ops for counterfeiting.”
“Don’t you want to climb the ranks? Where’s your ambition? You just want to run The Lotus for the rest of your life?”
I don’t. In fact, I can’t really see myself running it for more than two or three years more. Cheryl can manage the club just fine without me.
Done with squats, JD switches to cardio and gets on the rowing machine. “And what about your dad’s legacy? You just gonna walk away from that?”
I think about what my father would have wanted me to do: continue his name in the triad. Like JD, who took over his father’s job importing additives and adulterants used to cut cocaine.
Moving up in the Jing San is a logical step. The triad is my world, my family. I know I wouldn’t want to work for anyone else, and it’s not like I have any special talents to do anything else.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell JD.
“Good. It’s an honor to be recruited by Lee Hao Young, you know.”
JD recently expanded what he does after being approached by Hao Young a few months back. I don’t know the details, and I haven’t asked because the less I know, the better.
Bridget sendsme an update in the afternoon:
Got a lot done, so I can come over tonight with Amy.
Like you weren’t ever going to, I think to myself. But if I text that back, Bridget might change her mind just to prove a point.
I recall the many times she had come at my place, and in that small bedroom in her apartment six blocks from campus. She’s going to want more of that. The question floating in and out of my head is whether or not she’d go beyond vanilla sex.
As if reading my mind, while we’re sitting in my usual spot on the second floor of The Lotus later that evening, JD asks, “You plan to show Bridget the other side of your club?”
The Lotus has two sections: one for the regular patrons, comprising a good chunk of triad members and their friends and associates, and the other for those who also engage in BDSM. I have distant relatives who play at a place like The Lair, which isn’t bad, though the place tends to also get gawkers and newbies. Before The Lotus, I’d played a few times at a placed called The Cross, a unique club where gang members manage to mix without getting into fights with one other. But I like my own place. It’s not as crowded as The Cross, and I control the clientele.
“Too early to tell,” I say in response, imagining how Bridget would respond being tied to a St. Andrew’s cross, my flogger whipping over her naked body. I haven’t actually seen her completely naked yet. “Would you take Amy?” I ask JD.
JD pours himself a shot of baijiu. “Maybe. I don’t know that I have enough patience.”
That was a challenge for JD. He’d get aroused, want to come, and after he came, he wasn’t all that interested in finishing the scene.
One of my servers comes up to refill the water glasses on the coffee table. She smiles at me in a coy manner while JD looks her over, his gaze resting on her ass as she bends over to pour the water.
“That’s some tasty-looking putang,” JD says after the server heads back down the stairs. “And I saw the look she gave you.”
“If Cheryl catches her flirting with me, she’ll be fired faster than you come,” I reply. My manager is no-nonsense, and in a club like mine, a tight ship is needed.
“Ha, ha,” JD replies sarcastically. He looks past me. “Speak of the devil.”
Cheryl comes up to me and tells me that Manny wants to talk.
“He’s not asking me to allow more Park Street Boyz into my club?” I inquire.
Manny recently partnered with Tim Tran of the PSB on opening massage parlors in the ’burbs. The PSB used to fight over turf with the Jing San in the old days, before the triad moved into higher-level crimes.
“He says it’s personal,” Cheryl replies. “He’s waiting in the office.”
I check the time on my watch. It’s just past ten. Bridget should be here soon. But I make my way down to the office.
“What’s up?” I ask Manny, who’s a little younger than me but looks older.
“You know how I’m working with Tran to get these massage parlors opened?”
I sit behind my desk and notice Manny doesn’t sit down. He tends not to when he’s anxious.
“That going okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s going really well. We’ve got locations and business permits for three of them already.”
“That’s fast.”
“Well, I used our connect in the county business licensing department, and we made sure all our sites are in unincorporated areas. Now we just need to staff them up and get the word out.”
“So what did you need to see me about?” I inquire, betting that it has something to do with money. Manny is better at spending than making it. Right now, he’s dressed in a burgundy silk shirt and black Armani pants and jacket.
“I just need to chip in a little more investment to help make sure everything is up and running smoothly. Plus, I told Tran that I had a connect that could help supply the women.”
“I can’t help you there,” I reply. Sex trafficking is my least favorite part of the triad business.
“Yeah, yeah, I can figure that piece out myself. Word is JD might be groomed for that.”
I don’t reply. Is that what JD’s new project with Lee Hao Young involves?
“But if you could help with the capital end…” Manny continues.
“How much?”
“Just a couple thousand.”
“Exactly how much?”
“Six or seven thousand.”
“How is ‘six or seven’ just a ‘couple thousand?’”
Manny chuckles nervously. “I hated math. But you can spare that, can’t you?”
I narrow my eyes. “Have you tried selling your clothes?”
Manny rubs the back of his neck. “You’d be helping me out in a big way, Darren. Tran was really impressed when he was here. He’d like to come back. I can’t look cheap now.”
“Your idea to invite him here,” I point out with little sympathy. This isn’t the first time Manny has asked me for money.
“Think of it as an investment. I’ll pay you back. With interest. How ’bout that?”
“Manny, you haven’t paid me back the twenty bucks I lent you to buy cigarettes when we were sixteen.”
“This is different. These massage parlors are going to make bank. More people have moved out of the city lately, so demand in the suburbs has skyrocketed.”
“Massage parlors in the ‘burbs aren’t new.”
“There’s more demand than supply.”
“What is the six or seven thousand going to buy?”
“One of the parlors is a little close to residential, so we might need to retain a lawyer in case neighbors want to take us to the planning commission or city council or some shit like that.”
“What else?”
“Maybe more massage beds.”
I stare hard at Manny. “And how much is going to your gambling debt?”
Manny chuckles nervously again. “You know me well, don’t you, Darren?”
I don’t say anything, which makes Manny fidget more.
“Those PSB boys play a mean game of poker,” Manny says.
“How much?” I demand.
“Eighteen hundred. But like I said, I’ll pay you back. With interest. If you loan me this money, man, I promise you’ll make it back. Because once people like Lee Hao Young see how successful I am, they’ll finally take me seriously. And, unlike JD, who basically inherited everything from his dad, I’ll be self-made. And that’s worth a hell of a lot more. Self-made.”
“How do I know, if I give you any amount of money, that you aren’t going to spend it on more Armani suits?” I question.
“Darren, I’ve never been more serious about anything before.”
Manny speaks in earnest, but this wouldn’t be the first venture that excited him and that he was convinced would make him. Poor Manny has struck out more times than an entire baseball team.
I consider offering to pay expenses, like the lawyer, directly, but I don’t want my name associated with the parlors. Plus, I don’t want to deal with any administrative hassles of making individual payments.
I sigh and get up, ready to see if Bridget has arrived. “I’m not investing in any massage parlors, but I’ll loan you eighteen hundred to cover your gambling debt. If I don’t get any of that back in three months, that’s the last dime you’ll ever get out of me.”
“Darren, you won’t regret this!”
“I already do.” I walk past him, pausing only to say, “No more Armani.”
Outside the office, I inform Cheryl to handle the disbursement to Manny.
“Your guests, Amy and Bridget, arrived five or so minutes ago,” my manager says. “They’re up on your floor.”
I head upstairs where I find Amy Liu, a petite young woman who’s lightened her normally black hair, curled up next to JD, but no Bridget.
“She went to the restroom,” Amy explains.
Luckily, JD and Amy are so into each other, I don’t have to make a lot of small talk while I wait for Bridget. After more than ten minutes pass, I wonder aloud if Bridget’s okay. Looking over the balcony, I don’t see her anywhere.
“I’ll go check on her,” Amy offers.
JD turns to me. “So what did Manny want?”
“Money.”
JD rolls his eyes. “What a fucking loser.”
“Not everyone’s born rich.”
“Manny could have a billion dollars, he’d still be a fucking loser.”
Like Drumm. But I keep the thought to myself. JD still wants me to join him as one of the ground-floor investors of the new golf and spa resort that Eric wants to build upstate.
“He’s always been a hanger-on,” JD says. “He’s been tailing us around since we were kids, always that third wheel slowing us down. Remember that time we ditched him in West Oakland back in high school? He wet his pants. I swear, if his mom hadn’t married a Vanguard, he’d be out of here in seconds.”
“Manny just wants to be like you.”
“I always thought he wanted to be like you. Either way, it’s irritating as hell.”
I recall what Manny said about JD’s possible expansion into sex trafficking. Unlike Manny, JD respects my desire to know less rather than more.
Amy returns and tells me, “Bridget wasn’t in the restroom. I’m not sure where she is.”
I look over the balcony again at the dance floor, the dining area, and the bar. No Bridget. I make my way to the third floor, which is a smaller seating area with a few highboys. No Bridget. Where could she have gone?
