CHAPTER ONE

Caro's POV

As the night was getting older in LA, the cheers from the crowded dancing floor from the night clubbers dancing to the booming sounds of music kept me shaking my b***t more and moving my hips sexly to impress them as much as I could under the different dazzling lights of blue and white that lit up every corner in the glamour club on a two metres raised stage.

Having only a matching golden glittering outfit of a patra and blastier top on displaying my perfectly curved body plus the glittering golden boots that reached my knees, I bent over with my hands touching the ground and my legs stretched apart. I had taken a long time without doing this and felt an overwhelming pain.

"No this is the only way out now!" I thought to myself.

On Monday Doctor Albert, my father's personal doctor had called me to the hospital concerning my father's condition that was worsening. He needed an immediate surgery for the Obstructive sleep apnea disorder within the course of the week. He had had a cardiac arrest recently and it would be difficult for him to survive the next attack if he didn't get a surgery by Sunday.

I had no job at the moment or savings left to pay off the ten million dollars for the immediate surgery .I had just sold off my father's casino the famous Glamour casino a week back to pay off my father's bill in the LIVESON hospital that had threatened to stop my father's treatment with immediate effect if I didn't clear my bill by then.

Am sure my father would be able to understand me once he wakes finding out that I had sold off a property he worked hard for.

Having no other option left except to turn to my closest family even when we didn't get along, I asked my step mother Madame Gorret the next of kin of the Glamour club according to my father's will to lend me the ten million dollars for my father's surgery.

There had been a huge rift between me and madame Gorret for a longtime after her taking over the two of my father's lifetime projects, the Glamour casino and club but then refusing to pay my father's bill.

The argument got tough between us and I was forced to take the matters to court which ordered my father's lawyer Mr Benson to read out the will to us even though my father was still alive.

The Glamour club had been put under her care as the lawyer indicated and the Glamour casino was put under mine. That's when I parted ways with her knowing that she wouldn't help me with anything but instead will cause trouble for me and my sick father.

When I approached Madame Gorret for the loan of ten million dollars to treat my father she asked me to make a dance performance for her then she would see something she could do about it.

I was a famous dancer since my teen age and dancing was my passion but I had stopped doing it because it didn't earn me enough money and every man seeing me on stage almost half naked and wanting to approach me is what made it more disgusting to me that I quit it and became an HR at the Glamour casino, it was my real profession.

I didn't want to go back to those days when I were still immature wearing half naked and dancing in front of a crowd and I was sure Derrick my boyfriend would disapprove it but then each day that would pass, my father was alive by God's grace and I had no one else to turn to therefore I did oblige to her one week offer.

More night clubbers had come to the club today compared to the ones that showed up during the course of the week and now was the time to show off my skills so I could be more convincing to Madame Gorret to lend me the ten million dollars I asked from her.

Sliding till my b**t flat touched the ground with my legs apart, the crowd cheered more but all this didn't matter to me. I actually hated what I were doing totally like a b***ch.

Rolling my body on the floor, my eyes meeting with the pale brown eyes lurking with lust beneath them in a masked face in the far corner of the counter. A cold chill ran down my body making me tremble. This was the third time I was meeting these eyes and I couldn't say this was a mere coincidence. I halted in my move making a quick stand up from the floor.

The gentleman was in a slim fit black suit with his blazer placed on his shoulders wearing a black panama hat with two other men standing side to side with him in notch lapel black suits. He was holding a lit cigarette to his lips that displayed a dragon tattoo on his wrist.

"Casablanca Mafia gang!" My mouth gape petrified for a second. This was the Casablanca Mafia gang's symbol. " Are they stalking me?"

The Casablanca Mafia gang was the most powerful mafia group owning half of the total casinos and clubs in the whole city and the rest were individually owned by different masters.

They were highly respected and feared by everyone and most of the masters owning the famous casinos and bars were too careful not to get on their bad side. They wouldn't let anyone who got on their bad side to live in the next minute. Them being here was a bad omen.

Wanting to escape from the constant stares from the gentleman opposite to me, I walked off the stage moving to the back of the stage. Strolling the curtain aside to backstage, the curtain risers and the light controllers blissed at me while my eyes fell on Derrick whose eyes remained fixed on the camera he was fixing despite knowing I was present.

He had been giving me this cold attitude for two months and my heart was aching deep inside like I had been cut by a sharp knife at the moment. This time around I needed to know the reason why he was acting so distant from me, I needed him most in these trying times.

I approached him trembling, not sure of what his reaction would be with his facade.

Bending my face over to his."Derrick! Can we please have a word together?"

"Am so busy Caro I will call you later." He said without turning to me.

This is what he kept saying to me this whole time that he would call me but he wouldn't.

I was getting upset now." But….."

"I have bills to pay!" He yelled interrupting at me that everyone backstage put their gaze in our direction.

I just wanted the ground to swallow me up due to this embarrassment with everyone staring at me. Two years back since I and Derrick had started dating, I had rented a two thousand dollar monthly apartment for him and paid his electricity, water and food bills which in addition always asked for a monthly allowance which I provided to him.

Everything was going tough for me with my father in the hospital as more bills piled up that I had to pay for the past six months.I wasn't able to pay his bills anymore and I got him a job here at the Glamour club.

He had recently started avoiding me. My heart was aching for him so badly. I understand he was busy but I could still notice the distance he was creating between us.I really wanted to know the reason why he treated me this way.

Dragging me by his hand, he led me to the extreme end of the hallway, gripping my shoulders and pushing me against the wall with force leaving a distance between our bodies. The lurking anger beneath his eyes made me too frightened to make a movement.

"Listen Caro. Can you please stop being childish right now? Can't you see the kind of situation I am in? I can't afford getting fired right now and it is so embarrassing being with a girlfriend who dances half naked around a crowd." He snarled in an icy tone letting go of my shoulders.

His words were cutting me deep inside and my eyes got watery. I couldn't still afford to lose him now.

I got hold of his hand. "This is temporary. Everything will be okay." Putting my palms on his face."I promise you Derrick we shall get back on our feet."

He got hold of my hands, removing them from his face." Nothing will be fine Caro."

He walked away from me hurriedly, not turning to flash at me. I watched his back as it disappeared while tears rolled down my checks. He had completely changed into someone I didn't know.

By tomorrow when I pay my father's bill, I hoped everything would get better between me and him. It was the last day I was hoping to stop performing here and find a decent job.

It was embarrassing having to stand over a crowd of men and dance half naked and I could get the reason why Derrick was distancing himself from me.

Walking into the changing room, my eyes fell on Madame Gorret in her tight black jarmsuit which displayed her flat body. Her face had slight nose wrinkles that she covered up with more concealer looking thirty but in she was forty eight years.

She always had her long artificial blue eyelashes that gave her a comic look.

She signalled to the three ladies who were in the room and they stood up hurriedly leaving as I walked nervously nearer to her.

"Great job Caro. But I am not impressed.You made my customers so angry in the end and as I recall the deal, it was all about me getting impressed so you get nothing at all." She laughed loudly getting up on her feet.

My body froze hearing Madame Gorret's words ring in my ear.

"How could you make a deal based on my impression? You are so dense like your father! Did you think I could give you all that money." She laughed even more.

"But it's your husband we are talking about here!" I retorted hoping she could change her mind.

"As his wife I have already done so much for him. He left a lot of debts that am still paying off. "She grinned.

She was now getting on my nerves, as far as I remember it was my father who always tried hard to pay her gambling debts.

Glaring at her. "Which debts are you talking about mum? I have been taking care of my father's expenses and bills for the past six months. And as far as I know he didn't have any other debts." I snarled.

" I didn't tell you to sell the Glamour casino, look at yourself right now.The mighty lady you used to call yourself thinking you had made it in life just because the casino was under your name, my daughters emerging out with nothing at all from the Hamsway property. Lawrence is already a corpse waiting to die again. Why would I waste my one million dollars on him? " She snarled walking to the door and slamming it right at my face.

Clenching my jaws, I stood still while tears followed uncontrollably from my eyes with the words, "Your father is a corpse." ringing in my ears. She was lucky she already left before I punched her face.

Right now I was regretting not having put her in her place when I had the chance to. She even had the guts to blame my father for not including her two daughters in his will yet she had gotten married to my father with them.

I fell to the seat right next to me burying my face in my hands thinking of where I could get the ten million dollars immediately. There was a knock on the door at that moment, my legs were trembling that I couldn't stand up.

The door was pushed and I lifting my eyes they fell on an aged fat man standing in front of the door in a white suit with un unbuttoned blazer showing off his big belly through the tacked in white shirt .Four other men dressed in black were standing behind him.How could I have not thought about him? Right now all my worries were going to come to an end with him here.

"Master Brooklyn!"