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"Can't count on him for anything," Joey brooded, his chest tightening with the familiar ache of abandonment.
His father's apathy towards him had always stung, but now that he was in debt to the Mafia and working his ass off just to settle his dad's debt, it felt like a slap in the face.
"Hey, you okay?" Done with her first set of dances, Gina made her way to the bar, her eyes glinting with concern. Her glossy black hair framed her heart-shaped face, and her tight, sequined dress left little to the imagination. To the patrons, she was just a sex doll, but Joey had found that beneath her seductive exterior lay an empathetic soul.
Still, she had her own shit to deal with. Joey didn't want to burden her with his mess—hell, he didn't want to think about it himself. "Uh, yeah," he lied, forcing a smile as he wiped down the bar. "Just tired, I guess."
"Let me see if I can pep you up." Gina slipped behind the counter and pulled out the ledger. "Do you want to see how much you've squirreled away?"
"Usually, no… But right now, yes, please. I need every win I can get."
He braced himself for the answer. It wasn't going to be anywhere near sixty thousand, that was for sure, but that didn't matter. He'd been busting his ass to get every dollar that he could. Every bit helped.
Gina flipped through the notebook, her lips pursed as she scanned the pages. After what felt like an eternity, she looked up at Joey, confused. "You've been here for two months now, and you've only earned eight hundred bucks? Wow, and I thoughtIhad some bad tippers."
Joey's stomach lurched. "What? That's not right." He grabbed the ledger from her, staring at the page in a panic. "It had to be at least three thousand…"
The figures stared back at him. The numbers were right—but they weren't all there. "It's missing some nights!"
"What do you mean, missing some nights? It looks like they're all there to me."
Joey tapped the dates. "Yeah, the entries are all there for the nights where you did my ledger. But the nights that Sasha did them—"
"Sasha?" There was an edge in Gina's normally-sweet voice. "What does she have to do with this?"
Oh. Ohno. "She said she'd do my ledger on the nights you weren't here…"
"And you gave her your money? Did you unlock the safe while she was watching?"
Shame welled up in Joey's chest. "Yes."
The look on Gina's face said it all. "Honey, I told you not to trust anyone in a place like this."
"Shit!" Joey forced himself to breathe. "It's—it's fine," he said. "The next time she comes in, we can sort this all out…"
"Honey, she's stolen five grand. She's not coming back."
"Gina!" one of the other girls called. "Your turn on stage!"
With a reassuring pat on the arm and a sympathetic look, Gina left Joey alone.
And despite the mass of people in the room, he truly was alone.
His dreams of escape, of a life beyond the confines of this strip club, was like distant echoes fading into nothingness. The money represented his chance to break free from the chains that bound him, to start anew and create a better future. Now, it was ripped away, leaving him trapped, caged within the confines of his own despair.
He slumped against the bar, his hands trembling with a mixture of anger and sorrow. The weight of the world seemed to bear down upon him, suffocating any glimmer of hope that had once burned within his soul. It felt as if the universe had conspired against him, mocking his dreams and pushing him further into the depths of his own self-imposed prison.
The patrons around him carried on, oblivious to the storm raging within Joey's heart. The music played, the laughter echoed, but all he could hear was the sound of his dreams shattering, like fragile glass, scattering into irreparable fragments.
It had all been a joke, anyway. Pooling together tips from beer money wasn't going to get him out of this place any time soon.
If he wanted his freedom, really, actually wanted it… he'd have to do something else.
Something more.
In the fathers' day crowd, most of the men were ogling the girls.
But some of them clearly had other tastes. Across the floor, a man at a table had been rebuffing the girls' advances all night.
