Chapter 1 The meeting

"Hey Tony, I need to see the CCTV footage for VIP lounge 3, please. One of our strippers just called and said a client is being a little too handsy." Kari requests as soon as she barges into the CCTV control room. Tony pulls up the footage and shows it to Kari who becomes furious when she sees one of the clients from the VIP lounge harassing two of their strippers. She storms out of the CCTV control room extremely furious.

It's against the rules of the Club Hernandez for any client to harass or assault any of its workers and vice versa, but Kari just saw a VIP client put his hands on one of their strippers. An action that will not be tolerated under Kari's watch. Kari immediately calls the club's security team to follow her, as soon as she gets to the entrance of the VIP lounge she pushes the door open in anger. She walks up to the scene and sees one of the strippers on her knees with her hands holding her left cheek crying. While the two men Kari saw in the CCTV footage sit there laughing and talking nonchalantly. The other stripper is standing quietly in a corner with her head hanging low. "What the hell is going on here?" Kari fumes as soon as she walks in. "I need to see the damn manager of this fucking establishment." One of the two VIP clients bellows. Kari turns to look at the client who just spoke. "I am the manager of this establishment. I ask again. What the hell is going on here?" At this point, Kari has lost all sense of reasoning. VIP client or not she's ready to throw these men out of this nightclub and to hell with the consequences. One of Kari's Ickes are rich men who act like they own the world and treat others below them like trash. "Who the fuck is this fat bitch talking to?" The client who had spoken earlier snickers to his friend. "What the fuck did you just say?" Kari seethes moving closer to where he's seated. "I called you a fat bitch, no wonder you don't know how to train your strippers. Bloody whores." He hollers condescendingly. At this point Kari already has smoke coming out of her ears. Before they realize what's going on Kari sucker punch's him muttering "fucking bastard". Everyone in the room gasps including his friend and the security team. He stands up abruptly holding his probably broken nose and giving Kari a death glare, they all gasp again but this time it's because he's got a nosebleed as he takes his hand off his nose and realizes there's blood on it. He fumes seeing the blood coat his fingers. He immediately raises his bloody hand in a fist to hit Kari, but before he can hit her his friend holds him back. "You shouldn't hit a lady, Khalil." His voice is deep and raspy which makes Kari do a double take. She didn't know a man could sound this sexy without even doing much. Kari had let fury blind her and she didn't even look at the clients in front of her. They were both very handsome. Handsome is an understatement, they look like walking Greek gods. Kari's anger subsides for a moment looking at the two men talk, realizing that the one who had called her fat is called Khalil. Kari turns to look at the two girls looking distraught and immediately her anger at the men comes spiraling back. She leaves the men to continue talking in their hushed voices, while she walks up to the girls and asks the one kneeling to get up and motions for the other one standing in the corner to come closer. "Girls, let me handle this okay? Go get cleaned up and go home, get yourselves together, and be well rested for tomorrow." She says softly. They both nod monotonously, before walking out of the lounge, leaving Kari and the security team. "Calvin stay, the rest of you go back to your posts." Kari orders and they all holler "Yes ma'am" to her. She turns back to the men to find them seated and staring at her. She scrunches her face in disgust before walking back to them. She opens her mouth to tell them to leave, but Mr sexy voice cuts her off. "I'm sorry about what happened here and about my friend too." he apologizes but his demeanor says otherwise. "It's okay, but I will have you know that we don't tolerate any form of harassment or abuse towards our staffs and workers." Kari informs He's staring intently at Kari, watching her every movement and reaction. Kari starts to get uncomfortable with his stare and proceeds to ask. "Is there something on my face?" He smirks and replies "No" still staring at her, but this time looks at her from her head to her toes. Further creeping out Kari. Khalil coughs making him take his eyes off Kari for a split second to look at him. "I'm Dominic and this is Khalil." He introduces as he resumes staring at Kari. He takes out his wallet and pulls out a wad of 100-dollar bills. "To pay and compensate for the damage that was done here today, I hope we can still come here again. I promise next time will be different." He says as he puts the wad of cash on the table. They both stand up to take their leave, Dominic walks up to Kari, looking at her dead in the eyes before smirking and walking past her. Kari is totally freaked out by these men because she has seen a lot of dangerous men in this club ever since she started working here three years ago. She moves closer to the table, picks up the cash, counts it, and gives it to Calvin to take to the club's cashier, before walking out of the lounge.