3. Elle
ELLE
My lungs burn as I scramble up the metal spiral staircase, my boots slipping on the treads. I don’t look back. I don’t stop when I hit the velvet door and shove through it into the empty room. My skin feels tight, coated in a layer of cold sweat and the invisible weight of Lorcan Keane’s eyes.
I burst through the heavy steel door and into the London rain. The cold air hits me, taking what little breath I have left, and I choke on a sob.
My legs shake so hard I nearly collapse on the pavement.
I force myself to keep moving under the stone archway and sprint toward the main road.
I feel like a marked woman. I don’t even know what I walked into, but whatever it was, it was a mistake I’m pretty sure I’ll regret for the rest of my life.
Lorcan fucking Keane.
I reach the main road and keep going. I don’t have money for a taxi, or even a bus.
The promised five hundred pounds is gone, and for nothing except humiliation and terror.
My stomach twists into a knot as I think about what I just did.
I touched myself in a fighting ring for a man who treats the world like his personal playground.
I can still feel the heat of his gaze on my skin, and the memory makes me want to scrub my body with steel wool until I bleed.
My phone rings, and I jump a fucking mile before yanking it out of my coat pocket.
Tia.
I slide my finger over the screen, and she is talking before I even get it to my ear.
“Where the fuck are you? Mack is fuming.”
“I got lost,” I mumble, remembering Tiernan Keane’s eyes. I’m not saying shit about anything to anyone.
“Got lost? You were right fucking there. He is threatening to cut me off. I was getting paid commission.”
Oh, really? I raise an eyebrow, the indignation cutting through my fear. “Well, tough fucking shit,” I growl and hang up. I’m in no mood for hissy fits from little bitches.
I shove the phone back into my pocket and keep walking.
My damp jeans chafe against my thighs with every step, a constant reminder of the way I just trembled for those men.
I should have turned around the second I saw that steel door.
I should have stayed home, eaten cereal for dinner, and not been greedy.
Instead, I’m trudging through the dark with nothing but a bruised ego, the aftershocks of a forced orgasm, and a terrifying secret.
Every car that passes makes me flinch. I expect one to pull up and drag me back to that basement. Lorcan’s voice sticks in my head like a burr, low and rough, demanding things I never thought I’d give. I didn’t just strip. I gave him a show I can’t take back.
By the time I reach my flat an hour later, my toes are numb.
I fumble with my keys, my hands still unsteady.
I get inside and lock every bolt, leaning my forehead against the wood.
The silence of my tiny, cramped flat usually feels lonely, but tonight it feels like a sanctuary.
I strip off my wet clothes and throw them in the washing machine, desperate to get into the shower.
I need the heat to wash away the shame and humiliation.
Turning it on, I wait for it to heat up before I step into the stall.
The hot water hits my back. I don’t use soap yet.
I just stand under the spray. Steam fills the small room.
My skin still tingles. I close my eyes and immediately see Lorcan’s blue eyes, the tattoos on his torso, the way he adjusted his cuffs.
He hit that man so fucking hard that he fell through the ropes and landed at my feet, bleeding.
What the fuck? What the fuck was that?
I scrub my skin until it turns a raw, angry red.
The soap doesn’t feel like enough to get the memory of that basement off me.
Every time I blink, I see Tiernan standing there like a tower of violence, watching me fall apart.
My body still feels the echo of that forced climax, a physical betrayal that makes me want to scream at the tiles, but that would just alert my neighbours, and I don’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with a police call-out.
I turn the water off and wrap myself in a threadbare towel, shivering as the cold air returns.
I want to turn up the heating, but the money is about to run out on the prepay card, and I’d rather have a hot shower than heating.
I move through the shadows to my bed and crawl under the duvet, pulling it up to my chin.
My flat feels flimsy. The door is just wood and a cheap lock.
It wouldn’t hold for a second if Lorcan Keane decided he wasn’t finished with me.
I lie awake, staring at the cracks in the ceiling as the streetlights cast orange slivers across the room.
Every creak of the floorboards makes my heart beat faster.
I’m not just a stripper anymore. I’m a witness.
I saw the blood on the floor and the violence in Lorcan’s eyes.
Men like that don’t just let people walk away with their secrets.
I roll onto my side and curl into a ball, the thin mattress offering no comfort.
My mind keeps looping back to the way he held my chin.
His skin was warm, his grip firm. He didn’t shake.
He didn’t hesitate. He knew exactly how much power he had over me, and he used every ounce of it to make me crawl.
My rent is due in three days. I have four pounds and sixty pence in my account, and the tenner in my purse, and I just pissed off the only person who can get me enough cash in three days.
I’m not due back at the club until the day after tomorrow unless someone calls in sick, and no one calls in sick because every girl in there needs the money.
I’m fucked. Completely and utterly fucked.
I grab my phone, unlock it, and pull up a search on the Keane brothers.
There’s a third one, the youngest, Fintan.
He wasn’t there earlier, or he didn’t make a show of himself as the other two brothers did.
Lorcan is the eldest, thirty-five according to his bio.
Billionaire property developer, inherited wealth but built on by his own smarts and business acumen.
The press loves him. Glossy shots of him at film events, awards ceremonies, the opening of the new wing at the children’s hospital on the other side of the city—which the article tells me he funded.
Of course he did. A philanthropist with a dark side.
No photos of him with any women except one from a few years ago. She is dark-haired, tall, gorgeous. The exact opposite of me. Tiernan is more subtle; there is hardly anything about him except that he is thirty-three and the middle child. Fintan is thirty and barely has a digital footprint.
I toss the phone onto the mattress and stare at the ceiling again. The orange light from the streetlamps mock me. I’m a nobody living in a box, and I just gave an erotic show to a man who owns half the skyline. The rent won’t pay itself, and my stomach rumbles, reminding me I skipped dinner.
Again.
I close my eyes, but every time I drift, I feel Lorcan’s hand on my chin. My skin prickles with a heat that has nothing to do with my shower and everything to do with the way he looked at me—like I was a toy he hadn’t decided to break yet.
Dread presses down on me. I know how the world works for girls like me.
We don’t stumble into the private business of monsters and just walk away.
There is always a price. I just don’t know if I’ve paid it in full or if tonight was just the down payment.
I pull the duvet tighter, listening to the wind rattle my window frame, praying the morning brings a sense of safety that I know is already gone.