AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pull up in a dark parking lot with the marquee for Whip lit and glowing red across the street. Unlike the Velvet Underground, this place lives loud and proud out in the open. The sign pulses like a giant waving banner pointing the way to a rave that promises the time of your life.
What is it about this place that makes her hesitate?
She goes pale, every muscle in her body tensing.
I’m temporarily distracted by two people walking up to the front door, leaning hard on each other and laughing as though they’re already high. The man wears nothing but a pair of tight leather pants practically painted to his skin, and the woman’s bikini is so small she might as well have nothing on at all. She’s thin, too thin, with bruises on the back of her arms in the shape of fingerprints.
I huff out a breath and turn back to Layla.
“Well, enjoy sitting in the car. I can’t promise I’ll come back with any information you’ll be able to use but at least I’ll get a little rush from whoever I take onstage.”
Pocketing the key, I get out and it’s only a matter of moments before Layla hurries out as well, falling into step beside me. She marches ahead with the heels of her boots clicking dully against the pavement, striding like she’s ready to march into battle. Good.
She’s going to need that armor regardless of what happens.
FOURTEEN
layla
I haven’t experiencedthis kind of fear, the kind I can taste in the back of my throat and along my tongue, since I was a child. The red neon of the sign is exactly the same as the convenience store sign, the dull red light illuminating the stiff lines of my father where he lay broken on the street.
I wasn’t supposed to go looking for him.
I was supposed to stay at home.
But I was a child, and when he didn’t come back, what was I to do?
I disobeyed and left to search for him.
I found him.
And my life has never been the same.
And yet walking toward the doors to this godforsaken place beside Gabriel triggers a terror I’m powerless to face.
Or flee.
Every instinct is telling me to turn around and get the fuck out of here, and I have to plant my feet to keep from turning and bolting back out to the street. The man at my side, with his solidity, has to physically crowd me to keep me moving forward.
It’s not him I don’t trust. It’s myself.
It’s everything about me that’s being triggered to the point where my palms go clammy and my head spins. I know that once I walk fully into this place then I’ll have no control, the same way I had no control that long-ago night.
The sex isn’t the problem.
The eyes on me won’t be a problem.
Willingly handing over my future, my safety, to someone who might drop the ball?
No.
I’m not sure about any of this but I know logically that I have a part to play. I’ve just aligned myself with Gabriel Blackwell, and I’m about to prove it in a very real way. And a single look from the bouncer inside the door to the club says Gabriel is not only known, butwellknown. Here. Everywhere.
The fear is a tangible bitter taste on my tongue and there’s no forcing it down or pretending it doesn’t exist.
This is the type of club even the hardened players avoid. Gabriel is right on that front.
The only clientele are those fluent in death or those too stupid to know better, like Mario Martinello. The Subs he must find here…it has me thinking about what kind of women our deceased hookers used to be. What brought them to this place and kept them here?
