Chapter 13
The road out of Monticello thinned the farther I was driven away in my taxi. It was hard enough to find a damn taxi in the boondocks, so I was enjoying the town lights as they dissolved behind me until it was like distant halos. It was like they were ashamed to be seen following someone like me.
Couldn’t blame them.
Forty minutes wasn’t far enough to feel safe, but it was far enough to feel unrecognizable, especially in those damn stuffy acolyte dresses. It had been a week. A week of trying to pretend like I wasn’t drowning in the billions of tasks Gloria made up for me to do.
Entire days of Jedidiah dodging me every time he saw me coming. It had been like that since the first day I arrived at the church.
The second he got an erection in his precious church from putting a stupid cracker in my mouth, I thought I had him. But no. The bitch kept slinking off to his office, busying himself daily until he eventually left the church entirely.
How the hell can I seduce a guy who won’t sit still?
The strip club announced itself before I could see it fully in the dark lighting of the evening sky. The bass was vibrating through my seat.
It was so loud, with the neon fluorescents bleeding red and violet across the wet pavement.
The Velvet Chapel.
How fucking fitting.
A joke, really.
Everything sacred turned cheap when you put it under the right lights—even me. I didn’t have great memories with neon lights.
Until Jed…
I sat in the car longer than necessary, ignoring the impatient grunts of the driver. I hadn’t said more than two words to him. He probably assumed I didn’t speak English. I told myself this wasn’t desperation.
It was a strategy.
I needed to save a nest egg.
I had to. There was no way of being truly free without it. I couldn’t dream of getting him back with lint in my pockets. I wasn’t excited about being in a strip club, but…Money was money. A bar was a bar. Men would be men.
That lie tasted old on my tongue and reminded me of my mother. She used to say the saying, “Otoko gokoro to aki no sora.”
A man’s heart is like the autumn sky.
It appeared steady, but rain can tear the seam of the sun in an instant.
So too does a fucking man…so emotionally unreliable.
“You gonna get out?”
I nodded, with a sigh, and left the car, watching the driver speed off in a huff. I didn’t have much money left to cover the hotel I was in. This was my only option. Being a stupid acolyte made pennies.
Guess ‘sky daddy’ was only content on letting his prayer boys have any kind of profit.
I stepped out into the cold air, and the smell hit my nose—cigarettes, rain, sweat, perfume that was trying too hard, and…sex.
What am I doing here?
The building squatted low and wide, with the windows blacked out, and the door guarded by a man built like a grizzly bear and just as hairy.
Jed was tall, but this guy had even more inches on him. I stood on my tiptoes trying to get some fraction of control. He didn’t bother to look at me, just stood like a statue as I walked inside.
It was darker than I expected, and I had to blink to let my eyes adjust from the dusky sunlight to this weird, false lighting and strong strobe effect. It wasn’t the intimate type of dark. It was the grimy kind of dark.
The one where men could sneak their greedy hands up your skirt, and no one said the wiser.
Red lights washed everything in the color of bruises, and the stage ahead looked like it was covered in blood.
The women glittered with their bodies that moved like they’d learned to dance from cheap YouTube tutorials of twerking.
I approached the bar, not having the stomach even to try to be a stripper. In my head, I was rehearsing neutrality, trying to remain calm and polite.
Invisible.
The man polishing glasses didn’t look up right away when I approached him with my version of a smile.
When he did, his eyes slid over me like I was an inconvenience he didn’t have time for.
“You lost, China doll?” he said.
“No,” I said, clearing my thoughts. “I’m looking for the bar manager. I’m here for the job application.”
He laughed, not loudly and not to me. He ignored my existence and snickered with the woman beside him. She was a dancer who dropped on the stage and was now leaning on the counter, chewing gum with her mouth wide open.
My mother would call her an ushi, a cow.
“Yeah?” the dancer said. “Sorry, we ain’t hirin’.”
I ignored the fact that she had flipped the hiring sign toward them and took a deep breath instead.
This is for him. Just get through it, Sayuri.
“I have experience,” I said. “I know how to make any alcoholic beverage, stock inventory, till balancing, and closing shifts.”
The man pulled the gum out of the woman’s mouth, twisting it with his fingers and pulling her closer for a kiss.
His drink on the bar top was half empty, and I studied the contents. It was dark, like a cloudy amber with a golden hue. It was richer than lemonade but lighter than straight whiskey. There was lemon present, not the classic egg, because there wasn’t a foam cap on top.
“Whiskey sour is your poison, huh? Why not go classic with the egg white? Are you allergic or just like puckering your lips?”
The man finally broke his gaze and lips from the girl and eyed me down.
“Did your boyfriend teach you how to make college shooters? So what. That doesn’t mean you can work here. Bein’ a bartender here requires a certain…vibe. And you ain’t it. You get it right.”
“My vibe,” I repeated, sucking my bottom lip into my mouth to avoid the words popping up like vomit.
“You know.” His eyes flicked to my face, my hair, and my eyes. “Customers have preferences.”
Racist bigot bimbos with fake tits?
The dancer smirked. “They want someone who can see their drink order, Geisha. Ain’t they got soap houses in your country you can go back to?”
Fucking bitch. This was pointless.
Talking to these rednecks was like trying to explain quantum physics to a toddler with less of an attention span.
“I’m applying to bartend,” I said. “Not to dance.”
“Yeah, well, as a dancer here, I can promise we don’t want you scaring away our customers,” she said, and laughed again.
Another staff member drifted closer, pretending to wipe the counter while really just eavesdropping. He leaned in too close and knocked over the drink from the counter. It splashed all over my clothes, and the trio laughed.
“You wanna bartend but can’t even see a drink right in front of you? Ha. Nah, sweetheart, try somewhere else.”
“I am not, sweetheart. My name is Sayuri. And I didn’t spill your drink, your friend did while he was trying to overhear your racist remarks.”
They’d mispronounced my name. Twice. On purpose.
“Whatever. Look, I am going to write down my number. Please give it to your manager.”
The man shrugged as I quickly scribbled down my hotel number and handed it to him.
“Yeah, sure thing, babe, we’ll call you.” He snickered, using the note to wipe the liquid from the spilled drink.
I didn’t argue anymore. I didn’t care. I nodded once and turned away before my hands could shake and give them another reason to mock me. Instead, I pulled another note free from my pocket and began to write.
It had been so long since I wrote him a letter. I knew he had to be angry with me, and I worried if he even got a single one I had written all these years without him, but I had to try.
Hello, my sweet moon,
I hope you are doing well. I am resolving many important issues, and I promise I will come back for you.
Remember, through the anger and hurt, all I do is for you.
I love you so much, and I am forever sorry for the pain I have caused.
My absence isn’t forever. I will come for you.
It isn’t safe. I need you to know I will never give up on you.
You are my life and my light. Without you, I see nothing but dark skies. Be well, my darling.
All my love,
Kimi No Hoshi
Your Star
The music followed me to the door as I shoved the letter in my pocket, debating whether another silent response would shatter the remainder of my heart.
The door hit my shoulder on my way out, and the laughter inside followed me.
I turned my back to scowl and flip them all off.
They could think I was some porcelain china if they wanted.
It would hurt them worse when I came back to take what I wanted.
“Oof!”
I smashed into a figure so hard my ass slammed into the ground.
I cursed, instinctively mumbling apologies and continuing to walk forward toward the payphone to call another taxi.
I almost made it.
Almost.
My hair was wrenched backward, and I cried out. The deep baritone of the voice I could never forget hummed into my ear, and I felt my blood go cold.
“Well, Well, Well. What do we have here? You really fell from grace, didn’t you, fucking vagrant.”
No. It couldn’t be. Not him.
The voice came from behind me, my hair tightly wound into his fist, my back bowed to accommodate his stance. That tone was low and amused.
I froze.
“No mouthy comeback? Aw, come on, Sayuri, where is that spice I miss so much? You left us so lonely, you know. The boys and I hadn’t had a play toy quite as breakable as you for a long time.”
I couldn’t breathe.
He stepped into the spill of neon light, yanking me with him by my hair.
I could see his body through the building’s warped metal.
He was wearing a black trench coat that hugged his body like an evil glove.
His thick hair was tied back in a short ponytail, and his sadistic yellow eyes were calculating and amused.
Kaito.
Jayce’s brother is the second in command of The Crimson Carrions.
In other words.
My brother-in-law.