Novel Palace
73
Jakub
Five years later
The silence of the club welcomes me as I step inside. It’s been a long weekend. Most working slobs hate Mondays, but they are my favorite day of the week. My main club, Katfish, is closed, which means I have little staff to deal with and fewer headaches.
Not that I do all the work for the club. After a yearlong search, I’ve finally found a competent general manger who doesn’t need me every second of the damn day. But I still have responsibilities not only to Katfish but the other two clubs I oversee for my family.
The Staszek family has these three clubs, legit businesses to shelter the not so legit work we do. My oldest brother, Dominik, and my father keep my hands clean for the most part, just in case, they tell me. Though I’m not sure what they think will happen. If the house of cards falls, we’re all going down with it.
“Jakub.” Dominik breezes through my office door looking as rested as any father of a newborn should be. There are dark circles beneath his eyes, but I have a feeling it has more to do with his hovering over his wife than having to actually deal with their baby daughter.
“I wasn’t expecting you.” I plop down in my leather chair and lean back. When we opened this club together almost two years ago, it was a joint venture. We bought it out from under a Ukrainian asshat who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. I was charged with fixing it up, rebranding it, and bringing it back to life. And I’ve done it. Except for the fucking name. I never managed to change the name of the club. Dominik had bailed on the project, leaving it in my ‘capable hands.’
But he pops his head in now and again to check up on things.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.
“I left a message I was coming over.” He sits across from me, steepling his hands.
I drop my phone on the desk. “I haven’t checked it.” He looks like he could fall asleep right there in front of me. “You look like shit. Who kept you up all night, Kasia or Dominika?”
“Dominika had a fever, and Kasia wouldn’t leave her alone so we both stayed up all night.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “She’s fine this morning. No fever and happy as a clam.”
“So of course, you’ve ordered the doctor to the house immediately?” I tease him. With our father getting older, Dominik has been taking more responsibility for the family. He was overprotective before he had a wife and child, now he’s unbearable. Thankfully, it’s mostly aimed at them nowadays.
He raises his eyebrows. “You’ll understand one day when you finally stop all this fucking around and find a wife.”
“Find a wife?” I laugh. “What is this, the old country? You have a family, Lena’s married, leave me out of it.”
He grunts. “At least you’ve stopped fucking the staff. That’s a start.”
It’s my turn to raise a brow. Who I fuck is none of his damn business, but we’ve been through this conversation more times than I can count, and I don’t have the patience for it again. He’s right though, I have stopped getting into bed with the staff. It was starting to make for awkward staff meetings. Besides, my newest manager-the best I’ve had so far with this club-is happily married. And one line I don’t cross is the marriage altar. I stay away from it, and anyone who’s been near it.
“I’m sure you didn’t haul your ass all the way from the suburbs to comment on my sex life. What do you want?”
His lips flatten into a straight line. Whatever’s coming next, I’m not going to like.
“We need to expand the club.”
“What club, this club?” I stab my finger into my desk.
“Yes, this club,” he says.
“What for?”
“We’re taking over some construction lines,” he says simply, as though his explanation explains anything.
The Staszek family business needs growth, and in order to protect the expansion from the prying eyes of the law I get to do the grunt work on the legal side.
“What sort of construction lines? Something I can work on with you?” I lean forward, already knowing his response.
He shakes his head. “No, no. I need you to stay on this side of things. You’ve already doubled last year’s revenue. It makes sense to expand the club and squeeze more out of it. It allows us to make nice with the unions while we profit off the constructions on the other side of town, shuffle some money through, and increase the profits here.”
“So, you want me to do what exactly? Put on another floor? Remodel?” Since we were children Dominik has given me tasks to keep me busy while he learned how to run the business. Watch over our sister, keep her out of trouble. Get a degree in hospitality management. Anything to keep me on this side of the family.
“We’ll buy out next door. That restaurant does shit for business, and the second floor is just an unused apartment. We’ll put the bid in, and you do whatever you want with it. Do your thing.” He gestures toward me. He has no idea what my thing is. How much work goes into building a club, marketing it to the right people, and keeping the place full till closing time every night.
“And what about the Stereo Club and the Musicbox? I barely have time to get over there now as it is.”
He lifts one shoulder. Minor details, none of which he cares about. Katfish is our biggest revenue maker at the moment on this side of the city.
“You have managers there reporting to you. Your manager here seems to be doing well; you haven’t fired one in almost seven months.”
“Eight. Nora has been here eight months, and hopefully she won’t be going anywhere.” The hunt for a good manager had been long and hard before I picked her up. Now that she’s settled in so well and has this place straightened out, I’m not letting her go for anything.
“Okay then. You’ll make it work. You always do.” He yawns.
“And what do I get with this expansion?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I’m going to be creating a new part to this club, bringing in union workers on the sly, and keeping the revenue here up, I think I should get a little something for my trouble.” I level him with a stare. “Don’t you?”
“What do you want?”
“Another ten percent ownership and then an extra five percent on the back end.”
He nods. “Done.”
I should have gone for more, but I’m not as greedy as some of my family thinks I am.
“Fine. I’ll talk with Nora today. Send me the information on the construction company you want used.”
“First I have a meeting with the owners for next door. I’ll get the rest of the information for you once that’s settled.” He gets up from his chair and stretches his chest.
“You want to crash for an hour before you head off?” I ask, motioning toward the spare room attached to my office. Some nights drag into the daylight. I like having a place I can get a few winks or sleep off a few drinks.