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I opened my mouth to scream when he stepped menacingly over the threshold into my bedroom. But the scream didn’t have time to leave my throat as he pounced on me.
The smell of his breath hit me in the face as he grabbed me by the back of the head. His fingers twisted and pulled, ripping strands free as he jerked me around by the hold he had on my hair and dragged me from my room.
“Manuel, let go!” I cried, gripping his wrist in an effort to at least ease the pain of his hold, if not get him to release me. “Please. What did I do? Why are you so angry?”
“Shut the fuck up, you little whore,” he snarled as he shook my head from side to side while he marched me down the hall to his own bedroom. “Vitucci’s little asshole thinks he can run his mouth? Well, I’ll give him exactly what he wants.”
I gulped, my gaze racing around the entire room in fear. I’d never been in there before. It was a mess. Empty bottles of beer and liquor littered the floor and the bedside tables. The bed itself was unmade, the sheets looking as if they hadn’t been changed in weeks. He refused to allow Maria or any of the maids inside while he was home, so they had to wait until he left the mansion for more than a day to clean.
On the desk near the window was a small pile of a white substance with several lines already measured out. I shuddered, not daring to look at my stepbrother’s eyes to see how blown his pupils were. Not only was he drunk, but he was high. That was never a good combination.
And with Matias not home, I knew this was going to be bad.
Manuel pushed me forward until I was standing at the end of his bed. Then he tightened his fingers in my hair and shoved me forward, tearing my scalp open as I fell facedown on his bed.
I cried out in pain and fear, praying someone would come to help me, but I already knew they wouldn’t. No one ever did. There was no one who cared enough, and even if they did, they would only end up worse off than I was.
Breathing hard, Manuel grabbed one of my arms and pulled me up the bed then flipped me over so I was on my back. He cuffed my wrist to the headboard. I whimpered at how tight the shackles were, but while I was distracted by the pain, he moved down the bed and strapped something around my ankle.
By the time he had all four of my limbs tied down, he was sweating because I’d tried to fight him. Picking up a pair of huge shears, he stood at the foot of the bed and laughed maniacally down at me.
“Now, the real fun begins,” he said with an evil grin.
Cali
Picking up the tray loaded with a pitcher of beer and two baskets of wings, I was about to turn to walk away from the bartender when someone called my name.
“Hey, Lis.”
I shifted my head to find the girl who worked the section beside my own standing a few feet away, leaning her forearms on top of the bar. She was popping gum, with her shorts, like my own that were more like a thong, climbing up her crack and showcasing her ass cheeks. The tops we wore were barely any better. Mine at least covered the majority of my boobs, but she was taller and more well-endowed than me, leaving the undersides of her tits on display as well as her cleavage. I wore a bra, but my coworker didn’t see the need.
Since she got about twice as much in tips as I did, I could understand why she went without the bra, but I had reasons for keeping my bra on that had nothing to do with the embarrassment of a possible nip slip.
“Yeah?” I asked, a little annoyed that she was stopping me from doing my job. Time was money as a waitress. It affected my tips if I took too long to get back to my customers. I wasn’t there to make friends, so I didn’t chitchat with anyone who worked there. Not even my roommate, who was currently on the main stage dancing.
Kim and I weren’t close. She’d gotten me the job waiting tables at Cherry Bomb Gentlemen’s Club, but that was only because it would help me cover half of our bills. When we were at work, she pretended not to know me. We even left separately each night. Normally because Kim went out with some of the other dancers once their shift was over, and I went home to shower and fall into a coma-like sleep until it was time to get up for work again.
The other waitress popped another bubble, taking her time answering. “Just thought I’d warn you that tall, blond, and grumpy is back in your section.”
Goose bumps instantly popped up along my entire body, but I mentally shook myself and shrugged like it didn’t matter to me before continuing on my way. I kept my gaze on the table where the beer and wings belonged, a flirty smile on my face as I walked in my sky-high heels and swayed my hips with each step, something I’d learned early on got me better tips.
The two men at the high-top table watched me come toward them. The dark-haired one licked his lips, and I winked as I placed his wings in front of him first, knowing it would bring me a few extra bills when I brushed my chest against his arm as I moved around him to place his friend’s wings in front of him.
The dancers were strictly hands off unless the customer shelled out the cash for a private dance. For the waitresses, flirty, physical contact was particularly encouraged. I hated to touch or be touched, but giving guys the impression that they had a shot with me earned me enough in tips each night to cover my part of the bills and allowed me to set a little aside for a nice nest egg.
With the pitcher of beer between them, I lowered my tray and touched the redheaded man’s arm. Every inch of exposed skin turned bright red at the contact, in true ginger form. If I had a soft spot for the male population, I might have felt sorry for his inability to hide his emotions. “You fellas need anything else?” I asked, giving them each a pouty smile.
“We’re good for now, darlin’,” the dark-haired one said, his eyes on the low neckline of my top.
I didn’t mind showing off the tops of my boobs. It was the undersides that would freak people out. The scars were hard for me to stomach, so I could only imagine how a complete stranger would feel when he saw the ugly pink lines Manuel had left behind.
The entire time I stood there talking to them, I could feel eyes boring into me, so I lingered, letting the two men get a good look at my front and bottom. If I wanted to stay in NYC, I had to pay my bills, and this was better than getting naked on stage like Kim did. When I walked away, I let my fingertips trail over the dark-haired man’s back.
I could feel the aggression coming from his general direction. I took my time checking on my other customers before finally stopping at the huge round booth where Garret Hannigan always sat.
The first night he came in, he’d been with half a dozen other men in suits. Every single one of them had an air about them that I recognized only too well. The slight bulges under their jackets shouldn’t have made it past the bouncers, who would have wanded them and then patted them down before letting them through the door. Yet there was no mistaking the guns they carried.
It didn’t surprise me, though. They worked for the Vitucci family, after all. And I was all too aware of the power that name carried, not only in New York, but across the entire country. If they didn’t want to hand over their guns, they weren’t going to, and no one was going to make them. I wouldn’t have even been surprised if the Vituccis or the Donatis or even the Volkovs owned Cherry Bomb.
