by Skye Warren
The well of the central fountain contains only dried leaves and cigarette butts. Whatever statuette once adorned the center pillar has long since been cracked off, leaving only a jagged edge jutting up. It’s a fitting centerpiece for the courtyard and the Grand as a whole, broken and proud.
I’m still in a trance as I head to Candy’s apartment. The numbness helps me here too, dulling my fear as I step over the bums and scary-looking men slumped over in the stairwell.
My knock echoes off the faded green walls.
She doesn’t answer.
“Candy,” I say, pressing my face against the door, hoping she’ll hear me. Still no answer. I try the doorknob just in case, but it’s locked.
Worry churns in my stomach. If she OD’ed on something behind that door…if she went home with some guy and he tied her up in the basement… there are so many ways she could get into trouble. So many ways to get hurt.
I know that from experience.
“Candy.” This time it’s a whisper. I know she won’t answer. Whether she’s high or just gone, she’s beyond my reach.
Silly to think I could help her, when I can’t even help myself.
I climb over the men on the stairs, hopeless and distracted. I almost don’t notice the man who holds the door open for me. In fact I’m already turning toward the sidewalk outside Candy’s apartment when I feel the prickle on the back of my neck. The same one I felt the first night he showed up at the strip club.
I freeze. Every muscle in my body locks tight.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” comes a masculine murmur behind me. A familiar male voice.
My heart pounds. My hands clench around the handle of the duffel bag.
“Honey,” he says softly. And there’s none of the mocking this time, even though the name is fake. He sounds mostly concerned.
Oh God, it’s him. I’d hoped I was wrong. He may say he’s not going to hurt me, but no man shows up uninvited to a stripper’s room with good intentions. I don’t turn, don’t face him. I speak to the empty sidewalk instead. “What are you doing here?”
“I followed you.” He pauses. “It’s not safe here.”
A chill runs over my skin. How did I miss him? And what else have I missed? Time on the run has given me certain skills, but I’m not a spy. I’m an heiress. A principessa. At least that’s what I was trained to be. I can host a dinner party for the most wealthy, lethal men in the country, but I don’t know how to spot a tail. I don’t know how to fight one.
I swallow hard. “What do you want from me?”
A blowjob? A fuck? These are the only things I have to give.
His sigh caresses my temple, gently ruffling my hair. “I just want to talk.”
That makes me scoff. He may stalk me, and I may fuck him, but at least we can be honest about it. “Then why are you in my space?”
Politeness is a ten-dollar bill tossed onto the stage. But for this, stalking and holding open the door in a parody of gentlemanly manners, he can get out of my personal space. He can stop making my heart beat too fast and my skin feel clammy and hot.
After a pause, he steps back. Not far, but enough that I can breathe again. I turn to face him—and again I’m struck with that sense of déjà vu, of recognition. Have I met him before? I would remember that face, the hardness of his features, the hint of vulnerability in his dark eyes, but all I have is a strange feeling, like I trust him even though he’s a stranger.
Obviously it’s a feeling I can’t trust.
I consider running for it, as useless as that would be. He’s too fast for me. And I don’t want to see what he’s like when he gets rough. And besides, I’d run the risk of leading him to the motel room—and to Clara.
It’s not like I could call the cops on him—at least not without answering a lot of other uncomfortable questions. Instead I let him ease the duffel bag away from me when he moves to take it from me. Without asking, of course. He slings it over his shoulder in a dark parallel to chivalry. He’ll let me go when he’s ready to.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” His gaze remains on me as we stand in front of Candy’s shit-hole apartment building. This building, this ground had seen violence before. I can feel it vibrate through the concrete. And it probably will again—I just hope it won’t be today.
I press my hands together, hating how helpless I feel. “Then let’s walk. In public.”
When he doesn’t answer, I head back toward the club. He falls in step beside me.
Public is a generous term for the street. No one would come running to help if I screamed. But it’s better than letting him follow me home. A whole lot better.
“Relax,” he says, somewhat dry and almost sad. “If I wanted to fuck you, I’d have met you in the club.”
And if he’d wanted to kill me, he could have done it a hundred times by now. He’d followed me here. I’m still alive. But I can’t relax. Not while I’m wondering whether he followed me any other night and what he saw. Who he saw. “Plenty of guys would like a freebie.”
Has he followed me home? I have to assume he hasn’t. I have to believe she’s safe, otherwise there’s no point to any of this.
“I’ll always pay,” he says, and I know he’s teasing a little. But a little bit not. “Cross my heart.”
It’s more than money now. It’s also distance. He’s drawing a line in the sand. He’s telling me he needs that line just as much as I do. “And tip,” I add. Because I can tease too.
His smile always dawns like the morning, slow and warm, wiping away the night’s chill. “Not just the tip, though.”
Oh my God. I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling too. “So what did you want to talk about?”
“Lots of things,” he says, catching my hand. “Like who you’re afraid of.”
I flinch. I’m afraid of Byron. I’m afraid of my father. I’m afraid of everyone. “What makes you think I’m afraid?”
“I know a girl in trouble when I see one. And you’re it.”
“So you’re here to save the day?” More likely he’d get himself killed. Yeah, the man is obviously tough—but my father has a fucking army at his command. Kip should find some other girl to stalk and harass. A different one to use. He should find a different girl to protect. “I can’t be what you want.”
A grim smile flickers over his face. “You really don’t know what I want, sweetheart. You’d be a lot more scared if you did.”
* * *
Six months ago
I’m still facedown on the desk, being pounded, when I hear the door open. I tense. What if it’s a guest? But then I hear the cadence of my father’s gait—one light step, one heavy, one creak of his cane.
Oh God. I pray that he leaves.
Byron doesn’t stop fucking me. His thrusts don’t change at all, not faster or slower. He fucks me like he has forever—and he does. My father can’t stop him. My father won’t stop him.
One light, one heavy, one creak of his cane. My father’s coming closer.
He must see me by now, must know what’s happening. And yet he keeps walking nearer to us. He rounds the desk. Light, heavy, creak.
And stops.
“Sir?” Byron’s breathing is heavy, the word clipped short. It’s a parody of respect, the word sir, as he fucks the man’s daughter over his desk. As his cock invades me, splitting me open.
“Byron.” My father sounds tired and impossibly old. “Our documents. Look at them.”
The documents are crushed in my hands. They are smeared with my mascara that smears across my cheek. They are ruined.
“Almost done,” Byron says on a grunt.
I shiver from disgust, that my father is here watching this, that my fiancé doesn’t seem to mind. I am something worse than a future wife or a beloved daughter. I am a pet, forced to beg and roll over for my dinner. And it’s not even disgust at my father or at Byron that hollows out my stomach—it’s disgust for myself. I let them do this to me. I don’t fight. I can’t fight. It’s not on
ly me who’ll get hurt if I do.
A hand hovers over my head, shaking, trembling. Not Byron’s hand. It’s my father’s.
He always shakes now. The doctors say it will only get worse. It started in his hand, then moved to his legs. That’s when he started using the cane. He would have lost his life too. In his business any sign of weakness can be fatal. Competitors move in, take over. But no one came to kill my father because Byron stepped in.
With my father’s blessing, he’ll take control of the family’s businesses. His marriage to me will solidify the deal in the eyes of the more traditional mafiosos, smooth the way so less people fight it. And my father will get to live out his life in the empire he built, safe and sound and stroking the hair of his daughter as she gets fucked over his desk.
Every cell in my body revolts against his touch. But I remain still and outwardly calm. It’s a skill I learned early in life—facing a monster and showing no fear.
I’m surrounded by monsters.
Byron grunts and digs his fingers into my flesh. He pulses inside me, and I know he’s coming. Finally.
He pulls out with a wet sound. A warm swipe against my ass cheek quickly cools as he wipes his dick dry on me. The sound of a zipper fills the quiet room, then rustling as he puts himself to rights. My dress flips down.
As I lift my face, a piece of paper flutters back to the desk, unstuck from my cheek. My father strokes my hair one last time, and then his hand falls away. It feels like a strange ceremony has just taken place, the weight of it heavy in the air. The way a regular father would hand his daughter to her new husband at her wedding. But my father isn’t normal. He’s a Mafia don. The last in the line of the prestigious Moretti family. And he’s given his blessing to the union.
I stand and catch myself on the desk before I fall. My legs are weak, like a baby deer struggling to hold myself up. It’s Byron who pushes me up with a soft pat on my ass.
My father doesn’t meet my eyes. Instead he busies himself straightening the papers on the desk.
Byron sits and gives me a bland smile. You’d never think he was inside me one minute ago. “Go back to the party. We have business to discuss.” He pauses, then adds, “Enjoy yourself, darling.”
We aren’t in love. I hate him, and I think he might hate me too—for being born into the right family. Just with the wrong gender. If I’d been a man, I would have taken over the business in my own right. As it is, the other families require a man to lead, to respect. It’s not only my cunt that keeps me docile, though. I don’t have the heart to fight, to lead, to kill like they do.
Like Byron does. I’m terrified of him, but we’ll be married in a matter of months.
Chapter Six
Kip prepares my coffee.
Of all the things that have happened in my life over the past twelve months, over the past twenty years, this is the thing I find strangest. He not only orders my coffee, but when it becomes clear I am not moving to take it, he pulls the little packet to his side. I’ve never been served, never been helped by people who weren’t paid to do it. Never been helped by anyone who didn’t have something to gain. So what is he after?
“Cream?” he asks.
I nod my head, and he tears the lid off the little cup of nondairy creamer. We’re sitting at a corner booth in a crappy diner. Everything is dirty here, including me. But not him. He’s not exactly clean either. He’s something else. Something dark and serious and solemn. His hands mesmerize me, so large and strong and yet careful. He’s stone, rough-edged and impenetrable. And I am air, already blowing away.
“Sugar?”
My nod is surer this time, quicker, because I want to see him do this.
He doesn’t disappoint. Broad, square-tipped fingers rip open a single blue packet. He pours sugar into the black liquid and stirs. He gives me this, when all the other men just take and take.
I have experience with big, strong men. Careful ones too. I know they are the worst kind. But somehow I don’t think he’ll hurt me. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Maybe he’s a mirage. I could open my eyes and find myself in the middle of a desert, dying of thirst. But that’s where I’ve been. Even if he’s an illusion, it can’t hurt worse than the truth.
I wrap my hands around the ceramic, trying to soak up the warmth.
As if he notices, as if he cares, he says, “Want my jacket?”
“No.” Every kind thing he does makes me want him more. And makes me push him farther away.
Weary amusement flickers over his coarse features. “I appreciate you coming here with me.”
“You didn’t give me much of a choice.”
“No.” He sobers. “No, I didn’t. And I imagine you’ve had your fill of men pushing you around.”
I shift on the hard plastic cushion. I’ve been pushed around in the literal sense. Does he know that? Is it possible he knows where I’m running from—who I’m running from? But the more likely answer is he means the men at the strip club. “I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t doubt that.” There’s a pause while he seems to be debating how much to tell me. “I’ve been watching you.”
How much do you know? “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, gaze intent on mine. “I’m not planning to hurt you. I just want to get to know you.”
My chest tightens. “Where I come from, that’s the same thing.”
His eyes darken. “But you can take care of yourself,” he says, the words a challenge.
The smile that comes out is more a baring of teeth. It’s either that or cry. “I’m gone, aren’t I? And I’m never going back.”
He’s not impressed. “You’re dancing in a strip club and walking down the worst street in Tanglewood. You have no defenses. You have nothing to protect yourself.”
I flinch. “Is this how you get to know someone? By insulting them?”
Regret passes over his face. “No. I’m an asshole. I just meant maybe you don’t have it all figured out. And that maybe I could help.”
“No one can help me.” No one goes up against the Moretti family and lives.
Which is why I know that one day they’ll find me. And kill me. As long as they don’t touch Clara, I’m okay with that. That’s enough. It has to be.
“Maybe not,” he says, “but I have a confession to make. I do want to help you. But I also need your help.”
My laugh comes out unsteady, almost breathy. Afraid. “I bet you do. I bet you have a very big, very serious problem that I could smooth right out for you. Soften you up.”
He doesn’t crack a smile. “Honey,” he says with warning.
But it sounds ridiculous. The name is ridiculous. His low, serious voice just makes it worse.
I laugh then, for real. I think this is the funniest thing I’ve heard in days, or weeks. Or months. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard, this fake name and fake smile and fake relationship I can’t have. And help? That’s not real either. That’s a story he’s telling, whether he knows it or not. You know what’s real? Sex. That’s all I have to offer him.
I might become a little unhinged as I sit there laughing. I expect him to get all serious and angry, but then something crazy happens. He starts laughing too. First it’s just a quirk of his lips and a soft exhale of breath. But then he chuckles alongside me, shaking his head.
His smile fades. “You don’t belong in that place.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “And why’s that? My tits aren’t big enough? I don’t use the right songs?”
“You keep thinking it’s not going to hurt,” he says gently. “The dancing. The fucking. You’re still surprised when it does.”
Pain is a wide chasm in my gut. “What do you know about dancing?”
“Not much,” he admits. “Just what I see. I see you expecting the best from the men that come through there. It’s a kind of suicide, sweetheart. It hurts just to watch you.”
“You’re wrong.�
� Anger is cold as ice, numbing all the other feelings. “I’m exactly right for this job. Because I don’t give a fuck.”
His smile is sad. “Then tell me your name.”
My lips tighten. “Never.”
He nods once. “I’ll see you on Saturday, Honey.”
“And I’ll suck you off,” I warn, though it’s the strangest warning I’ve ever given. “That’s all.”
“We’ll see.” He drops a twenty on the table and stands to leave. “Take care of yourself until then. This isn’t a safe part of the city.”
* * *
Watery daylight breaks over the city just as I reach the extended-stay motel.
Not quite as run-down, not quite as terrifying as Candy’s building, but still depressing. Red brick faded to pink. Iron bars on the windows. Palm trees in the courtyard do little to make the place more tropical or cheery. Neither do the Christmas lights wrapped around them. It’s a colorful prison.
Heavy curtains in my room’s window block my view inside. I pull out the key card and slip it into the reader, already looking forward to a long day’s sleep to help me forget what I did at night. Clara. The name is on the tip of my tongue, ready to call out in greeting. But some deep-seated instinct keeps me cautious.
I struggle with the heavy duffel bag that has my work clothes and shoes. The heavy door is like a rat trap, trying to snap closed, jarring my shoulder in the process.
The motel room is dark.
And the little Madonna statuette stands in the window.
It’s a figurine made of thin plastic, with a white cord attached. It’s designed to light up, but the lightbulb inside has long since died. It was actually in the motel room when we got there. Clara fished it out of the trash and put it on the window. She claimed it would protect us. And it has. It’s our way of signaling that something is wrong. If we’re ever found out, if the room is compromised and one of us is forced to run, we’ll take the Madonna out of the window. It’s a relief to see it each night, standing small and gaudy and proud in front of the drapes.