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I tip a sleeping pill out of the bottle I keep in the cupboard and wash it down with a sip of hot chamomile. The ceramic clinks on the counter as I stare out of the window again. The roads are empty. I probably shouldn’t text her back what I really think, which is that those men standing guard while women sleep with clients is exactly why I’m not sure I can go back. The Club isn’t the real world. It’s too involved with illegal shit.
The safer thing is to send her back a heart emoji, which I do before heading to the living room.
Then I pull the blanket over my lap, settling back into the sofa, and reach for the TV remote. I’ve got the TV set up on a little console, but the living room is full of stacks of boxes just like every other room in this place. Not much is unpacked yet, just like the bedroom.
I flick through the channels one after the other. It’s a bunch of infomercials and late-night stuff that doesn’t catch my attention. It’s too hard to tell what’s on, and I can’t focus anyway, so I turn it off and sip my tea.
My laptop’s on the coffee table, plugged into an outlet across the room. It’s a long enough cord to pull it into my lap. When I open it, all my old searches are waiting for me in the tabs of my internet browser.
It’s just like that day at gym class. I’m looking for him, but I can’t find him. There’s not much on the internet about Declan Cross or his brothers. If you ask anyone on the street, they could tell you more than what’s available online.
The only concrete information that’s searchable are the deaths he endured, one after the other. His mother passed while we were in middle school. His brother, Tyler, in high school. Shortly after, his father died. I skim through their obituaries, which are sterile funeral home notices without much of a personal touch. It’s as if someone has left these records just so there’s something to find. It’s weird, in today’s day and age, to find nothing but an obituary online, especially for people like the Cross brothers. I run a few more searches. Declan Cross. Carter Cross. Cross brothers and Fallbrooke.
They went from poor kids on the bad side of town to the men who run it, seemingly overnight. My mind reels, wanting to know what happened. What happened to Declan Cross?
Scarlet: I know it’s late, I just hope you know it’s good money, and the Cross brothers have helped me before.
Scarlet: You know, some men are bad, but others are just bad for bad guys, know what I mean?
I let her messages sink in before responding and turning back to my laptop.
Braelynn: I’ll sleep on it <3
There’s a long pause. I entertain myself by going back through my searches one more time, even though I know there will be nothing new to find.
The only way I’ll find out anything concrete about the Cross brothers—and about Declan—is to go back to The Club for another shift.
I close my laptop, put it in its place on the coffee table, and lean my head back on the couch. The chamomile is kicking in. The sleeping pill too. But my uneasiness doesn’t go away.
It’s one thing to work at a place that’s adjacent to the shady underground of the city. Oh, who am I kidding—it is the underground, if they have sex rooms in the basement. It’s another thing to go down there yourself.
And yet that’s where Declan Cross has his office. The Club is his world. I feel that same pull to him that I did on the playground all those years ago. It’s a dangerous, forbidden curiosity. We’re not kids anymore, and I know better than to trust men like him. Especially men with power.
My phone pings again.
Scarlet: Promise me you’ll give it one more chance. Okay? One more shift?
I hesitate to type out the message. Part of me wants to be easygoing and make the promise. But then … that’s why it took me so long to untangle myself from Travis. And even that’s not fully done. If it was, he wouldn’t be texting me from new numbers and saying the shit he does. Life, Travis—it’s all relentless.
Braelynn: Sleep well, I’ll message you in the morning :)
There. Not so hard. No promises made. I can sleep on my decision tonight, like a responsible adult. I’ll make my decision in my own time without recklessly agreeing to anything.
My head is hazy from the sleeping pill as I go back into the bedroom and tug the corner of the sheet down on the bed. I remember to plug in my phone, which is good, because this pill is well on its way to knocking me out. My head has barely hit the pillow before I can feel myself floating.
I dream of The Club. It’s all endless black tablecloths and couples in expensive outfits and an imposing red door. I’m not afraid of the door. I go to it, knowing I’m supposed to be there, and it opens easily, like I’ve been invited. Chills spread down my body as Declan looks up from his desk. There are no dark circles under his eyes. They’re the same stunning shade they always were. His gaze roams down my body and the door closes behind me, trapping me there, with Declan Cross.
DECLAN
There’s faint bruising on the knuckles of my right hand and I run the thumb of my left over it as I watch the show. The dining room is nearly always packed on Thursdays.
Men in my line of work and the everyday patron have a certain addiction in common: sex. The phrase “sex sells” is timeless and there’s a reason for that.
The lights are dim, and my gaze moves from the stage to the corner booth of the dining room. All eyes are focused on the two women, bound tight with coarse rope and suspended from the ceiling … all eyes on them save two men in tailored suits.
The deal is almost done and as if on cue, a woman is spun, her back arched, her body covered in striations from the ties of the rope. The audience applauds the demonstration and the two men stand, buttoning their jackets and shaking hands.
Marco’s gaze meets mine and with the raise of my tumbler, he gives a short nod.
