Page 74 of Safe Word

Clack. Clack. Clack.

The wig was new. Black, like the last. I didn’t care for it. But it meant she was playing a part.

I had to admit – I liked the notion that my Paula had a dark streak in her.

I stayed back, far enough not to spook her, close enough to pretend I had a line left to cross. She rounded the corner, slid into a cab, and I let her go.

Then I revved my motorbike and followed.

The ride was slow. My pulse wasn’t.

I tried not to grin as my lips were too dry. The therapist had said that was a sign of overstimulation.

The therapist had said a lot of things.

She doesn’t say much any more – tongues don’t work so well when they’ve bitten through themselves.

Paula stepped out of the car like a dream half-remembered, the wig a glowing stain beneath the sleaze of the neon sign.

It buzzed above her: ‘Ossidiana’, its reflection puddling at her feet – sharp pink letters in oily water.

I counted her steps. One. Two – all the way to twenty.

The building was as faceless as every other slab of concrete here, but that small sign burned like a signal fire in the dark – drawing sinners like moths to a flame. If you didn’t know to look for it, you wouldn’t have noticed it at all.

When she vanished inside, I peeled off the helmet. My hair was already damp. The rain had been brief, but the heat hung to every fucking thing. Her scent would’ve clung too – if I had got close enough.

The carpet inside was still that god-awful purple. It offended me. Couldn’t commit to red or blue, just sat there like a bruise. It was missing a good stain of crimson over it.

‘Boss?’ the receptionist said in Italian and looked up. Curvy. Lip-glossed. All sugar. The kind that curdled if you touched it.

And she was holding her phone.

I stopped. My blood nearly boiled over.

She should have known better – no phones allowed during work hours. If someone had caught it, the legal arm of this business – front or not – would’ve flagged a GDPR breach faster than she could lock the fucking screen.

As I extended my hand in silence, she swallowed. She had bent over for me several times, crying by the end but had never told anyone.

Knowing how thin the line was, she placed the phone in my hand without arguing.

I pocketed it.

If she were Daniela, I would have shattered it against the marble tiles. But this one had arrived with the new batch of women. And I needed order more than a spectacle tonight.

Stepping up to the side panel, I keyed in my code. The interface lit up.

The management system listed the names of tonight’s sinners. Numbers. One of them hers. The alias hit like a gunshot.

‘Scarlett.’

The name glared back at me from the screen like a fucking joke.

I stared. Blinked once.

And then I laughed.

A quiet, sharp sound – like glass cracking under pressure.