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Chapter 1
Molly
I’m going to rob the first guy who tries to take me home.
It’s nothing personal. Just a fact of life. I’m on a mission at this seedy dive in a bad neighborhood, and I’m determined to follow through. The guys in this place won’t be rich, but they’re not exactly saints, either. That makes it morally acceptable somehow. Flickering lights, a sticky floor, guys smoking cigars inside even though that was banned years ago. The bartender has more tattoos than a prison yard. The Sterling Duck isn’t the kind of bar I’d ever go into on a normal Thursday night, but I’m out of options. Which means I’m going home with someone tonight.
But I won’t have sex with him. No, I’m going to rifle through his wallet, his underwear drawer, under his mattress, behind his dresser. I’m going to take everything: cash, wallets, jewelry, phones, anything I might be able to sell.
I cross my legs and feel sick. My stomach’s on the verge of emptying. Bile fills my throat. I wash it down with a big glass of wine, hand shaking.
I’m going to do it. The first guy who sits down next to me and tries some lame pick-up attempt, I’m going home with him, and I’m going to steal everything he has.
The thought makes my stomach twist.
My feet are numb.
I’m going to do it.
I’ve been here for half an hour and so far, nobody’s tried. I’m not sure if I’m insulted or relieved. A little bit of both. I want to get up and run the hell out of here, forget about this awful plan, pretend like my life hasn’t smashed right through rock bottom and plummeted down into the lowest recesses of hell, but I can’t. Nana’s still at home. Jason’s still with her. If I walk now, nothing will change.
Maybe I could skip all this crap and start an OnlyFans. Except I don’t see why anyone would want to pay good money to see my boobs when there are like a hundred thousand pretty girls with nice boobs charging less than I’d need. Plus, I’m not very good at online stuff. Maybe I could quit kidding myself and charge for sex directly—but there’s still a voice in the back of my head that wants to avoid the worst of the worst. I’m desperate, but at least I’m not a hooker. Not yet, anyway, because if this doesn’t work?—
It’s going to work. I’m going to do it.
The clientele tonight is subdued. The Philadelphia 76ers are playing on TV and most of the people around me are watching. I like basketball better than other sports. I can relate to how much they love shoes. There’s an older couple in their fifties, a few guys clustered in a booth in their forties, a few loners sipping drinks, but nobody comes near me. Like they know I’m trouble.
I expected a certain kind of guy when I came here tonight. Rugged, angry, dangerous, the sort of guy who spends a lot of time out on the corners getting into trouble, the kind of guy who works at the docks but doesn’t actually have a job. There are a lot of guys like that in deep South Philly where the Irish clans control most of the streets. I’d know because I’m related to a couple of them. My cousin Mickey sells pot to college kids and gets in fights outside the stadiums. My uncle Seamus is serving a life sentence for murdering the head of a rival crew.
Being a lowlife piece of shit runs in my family.
Which is why I can pull this off.
But the place is empty. There are only normal people tonight. No assholes flashing gang signs, sitting around with gold chains, showing a peek of the gun they have stashed in their waistband. Just normal working folks. Not the people I want to rob.
I take another shaky sip of wine and steady my breathing. I wish I had beer, but that’s not the image I’m going for right now. I want to scream classy and available. Also a little fuckable. Like I’m a great meal just waiting to be scooped up. I want to look like the kind of girl who’ll be excited to get into some lowlife asshole’s stolen Lexus.
This is who I am. Or at least it’s who I’m meant to be. I spent all my life avoiding these people, pretending like I’m not them, like I’m better. I waitressed all over town, at diners, strip clubs, fancy bars. It was never enough. Now I’m twenty-four and what do I have? Debt, a Nana on disability, and a sick brother. My two years of community college to get a cute certificate in hospitality don’t look great right about now.
Because I’m going to do this.
I finish my first glass of wine and start on my second. I’m wearing a tight black dress and every time I move, the hem pulls up my thighs. I catch a few guys looking and think, don’t do it, please don’t do it, but none of them approach. The top is cut low and I’ve got the cross necklace Nana gave me for my sixteenth birthday sparkling between my tits like a honeypot. Go ahead and stare, it’s practically screaming. I want to rip it off.
After my second glass, I’m ready to get out of here. Forget desperation. I’m an ugly bundle of nerves. This is worse than that time I played the snowman in a school play. I had, like, ten pages of lines to memorize in fourth grade. I remember sweating through my white turtleneck backstage so bad my brother, Jason, laughed and said I was melting. I can keep telling myself that I’m strong enough, that I can turn off my brain and set aside my pride for one night if it means survival, but I’m lying to myself. I’ve never been able to turn my chattering skull off. At night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling as my brain babbles in languages I don’t even know. Images, sensations, songs whirling through my skull a million miles per second.
I shove back from the bar and I’m about to stand when the door opens.
Two guys walk inside. I freeze, not moving. They’re big, both of them, dressed in shirts, jackets, no ties, with the top buttons undone, their dark hair shoved back. Watches glitter on their wrists. They scream money and power. The room stares in silent surprise as the pair survey the rundown tables, the peeling laminate floors, the water-stained ceiling, before they walk to the bar.
And sit down one stool away from me.
I don’t move. My heart’s racing in my chest. Slowly, I push back and nod at the bartender. Once he’s done with the newcomers’ drinks, he brings me another glass of wine. I sip it, mouth watering.
They’re not the kind of men I expected tonight. They’re not the Irish thugs that normally hang around a dead-end like this.
But they’re just as dangerous and much richer.
The man sitting closer to me is the larger of the two. He has a straight nose, square jaw covered in stubble, and shoulders like a linebacker. Everything about his clothes suggests a serious businessman with means, except a serious businessman with means would never sit down in a place like this. Which means he’s something else.
