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My therapist would tell me to get another job, to walk away from this place and the sex that’s on display here in the form of half-naked girls. She’d tell me the nightmares might have a chance of going away if I spent time on myself. Away from this life, away from the domineering men I’m surrounded by.
The thing is, she’s right. But I can’t.
Coming back here after being raped, held captive, and shot was hard. Harder than when I was taken and tortured and used as a carving board.
Hard because of how people look at me. How I look at myself. Like a freak.
At least this last time, they drugged me so they could do what they wanted. The fucking monster—I won’t use his name anymore, anyone with the last name Gheata doesn’t deserve it, and him most of all—call it plausible deniability.
This last time . . . God. Did I really just think that? Like it’s . . . normal?
I laugh.
It’s either that or cry. And if I start crying, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to stop.
I’m not going to do that. I’m stronger than that, and I won’t open the floodgates.
I can’t even go on some kind of revenge vendetta. The monster is dead at my family’s hands, of course. But the monster within me? It is me, and there’s no defeating it.
But . . . I take a breath and stand, smoothing my fingers down my jeans and forcing my head back to the problem on my hands. I need to try and talk the other girls into giving up the name of who’s pushing them to buy. Knowing by instinct is not the same as evidence, and it’s just too easy for this dealer to circumvent me.
This is MC territory, and Reaper—cousin not by blood but through spilled blood—and Angel own this place. We share said blood through their sister, who was killed alongside my aunt.
I used to love it. Loved taking it from sleaze and elevating it, setting rules up to protect the girls and keep it all above board.
Like my family, I’m aware of the crime and the underworld ways that go on. My brother runs the De Luca crime family. I’m versed in that way of life. But I don’t want it here. Not in this place. I understand danger, and I don’t want the girls in it. Hellfire Dancers is meant to be safe for the girls who work within these walls.
Getting up, I leave the office. I’ve got things to do before I come back this evening. But first, I need to have some chats.
I walk through the empty club and lean against the bar where inventory is going on. On the stage, some of the girls are working on a pole dance routine, and a waitress in her street clothes is helping out the barback and busboy in cleaning the tables.
The air is stained with old, spilled beer and spirits and the unmistakable scent of fuel and grease that just seems to linger in the space like a ghost waiting to haunt the inhabitants. It’s black, this place, with some art on the walls that I’ve slowly spent time replacing and upgrading.
It should be depressing, being in the empty, black bar in daytime, but it’s not. It used to be, back when it opened early and the barflies would buzz and watch the girls. I’ve changed all that, and even though Reaper wasn’t sure about the move, he’s happy now.
I’m bringing in more revenue for the business.
Slowly, I make my way to the stage area and into the back to talk to the girls there. But no one wants to tell me anything.
Frustration bites cold.
I catch my reflection in the mirror, and a jolt rushes my blood. That vicious scar that marks me as used goods. The scar that brings pity and not a few offers of sex by guys who have some kind of fucked up fetish.
I was pretty before. I’m pretty on one side. I can see that now. But not full on. Full on, I’m half monster. The scar ripping through previously smooth skin, the scar that is angry, raised, and cutting up to my eyelid.
What did they say? I’m lucky I can use the muscles. I’m lucky I didn’t lose my eye. I’m lucky it didn’t make my eye droop. I’m lucky it wasn’t worse.
Lucky, lucky, lucky.
I don’t feel lucky.
I feel like I’m a walking X marks the spot.
There was a boyfriend, sometime after the kidnapping where I was used for carving practice, who urged me to take up the doctorly advice of plastic surgery and to use hairstyles that covered the mark.
That ended.
And now, after I was taken along with my cousin’s now wife, I . . .
