30. Lucia
Lucia
“Wow-wee, sweetheart. Aren’t you a treasure?”
“Don’t be shy, honey. We don’t bite.”
I duck my head low and hurry down the street as a third tormentor joins the duo who recently finished desecrating the sidewalk with urine.
“We don’t want to hurt you, sweetie. I just want you to sit on my face. You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you? Do you want me to eat your pussy?”
Gagging, I quicken my pace. The trio follows for half a block, groping themselves as a crowd of homeless people mill around.
They’re creepers who can’t afford the drink cover charge of the local strip clubs, so they target homeless women, hoping their desperation for a meal will lower their morals enough to accept their offer.
I’m not that desperate. Yet.
I might not be able to say the same if Dante ruins my performance tonight like he did the last two times.
Suddenly, the trio backs off, their fear from more than a threat to tell their wives how they spent their Friday nights.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath when I spot the cause of their concern.
Across the street, Marco leans against a lamppost, pretending to scroll on his phone.
Part of me appreciates his support. I’ve softened a lot over the past four weeks.
But I’m also terrified. If Dante knows where I’m going and what I plan to do when I get there, he could steal the only chance I have of seeing my son this month.
He could even stall our contact indefinitely if my anger boils over too rapidly for me to contain all my secrets.
I can’t let that happen, so when the opportunity arises, I slip down a narrow alley between two buildings and duck behind a stack of crates at a takeout shop. Through the back door, I’m swamped by the smell of frying oil and old spices.
The workers ignore me as I hurry through the kitchen and out the front. I blend into the crowd before Marco can double back, then remove my cell phone battery and store it in my backpack.
By the time I reach the venue thirty long minutes later, my pulse has calmed. It’s a pity I can’t say the same about my nerves.
Even though the night has barely begun, the residence is loud and full of drunk men. Their predatory grins follow every woman who walks past—even the ones fully clothed.
Luna wasn’t lying about it being a high-end gig, but that must only apply to the clothes, not the clientele.
“Cici?” a woman in the foyer asks when she spots me.
I nod, and she drags her eyes down my body. “I thought you were brunette?”
“I will be,” I reply. “Do you have somewhere I can get ready?”
The skin under her chin wobbles when she jerks it up. I follow her into the residence with multiple rooms, antique furnishings, and floors scattered with dollar bills.
“You’re a special order, so you’ll be in the library.” She plucks a cigarette from a man’s mouth, takes a long draw, and then passes it to another. “There’s a pole upfront, but no stage.” My stomach churns when she murmurs, “These clients prefer up-close performances.”
I wet my lips to ensure my following question comes out clearly. “It’s a bachelor party, right?” She nods, but that’s the start and end of her reply. “Do you have a description of the groom for me?”
With her head thrust back and her narrowed eyes peering at the ceiling, she laughs. “You’re not here to critique our clients.”
“That wasn’t my intention. I just want to make sure the groom gets his money’s worth.
” Stop giving me that look. I’ve been in this industry enough to say what needs to be said to keep the gig.
“It’s not often friends fork out ten thousand for a stripper.
I want to make sure he’s a repeat customer when whatever marriage he’s entering ends in divorce. ”
See? I mention the amount simply to see if shock registers on the payee’s face.
It doesn’t. Mercifully.
“He’s six one and has tattooed hands and a porn stache.” She opens the door of a broom closet next to a massive library with wall-to-ceiling bookshelves. “I’ll take a sneaky pic while showing them into the library. Do you have a playlist?”
I nod before remembering I can’t turn on my phone if I don’t want it tracked. “I can work with whatever you’ve got.”
She smiles as sleazily as her guests, then leaves me to get ready.
After putting on a chocolate wig, I slip into the dress Dante bought me. It fits perfectly but clings to my skin like a lie I can’t shed.
I can’t stop thinking about him. Not all my thoughts center on how he seems to know my schedule before I do, or how he shows up in places he shouldn’t be.
They don’t even pertain to his lipstick-smeared mouth last week, and the guilt that filtered in his eyes when he told me I couldn’t accept Camille’s invitation to her dance recital.
They’re of the way his pupils dilated when I pranced off the stage in the Viper Room, and how he couldn’t catch his breath when he entered me the first time.
I tell myself I imagined the sheer euphoria that pumped from him every time we were together, that he doesn’t care enough anymore to worry that I dance naked for money. But the truth is, he’ll be disappointed in me.
That hurts more than wondering what he and the mysterious brunette did last weekend.
I don’t know what I want more. For him to stay away, or for him to show up and drag me out of here like he has some kind of claim to me. It should be the former, but when you’re on the verge of disappointing the only person who’s ever truly seen you, it’s hard to remember your objectives.
I want to succeed for Gabriele, but I can’t deny how much I long for Dante’s approval. Even while resenting his controlling nature, it burns through me.
I’m doing this for Gabriele, I murmur to myself on repeat as I apply a risqué makeup palette and place in moss-green contacts.
Within minutes, I barely recognize myself in the mirror, meaning I’m ready.
When I step out of the broom closet, the hostess gives me an approving nod before signaling for the music to start. After freeing a handful of butterflies from my stomach with a quick exhale, I brave the blinding lights bouncing around the room and sashay toward the pole.
Cigarette smoke and spilled alcohol linger in the air of the stuffy, crowded room, and the heat is cranked up to an almost ghastly level. I wipe my hands down my dress to keep from slipping before circling them around the gleaming pole.
I haven’t even twirled around the pole once when a group of men crowds in too close. They’re loud and heavy-handed while attempting to stuff bills into my lingerie, which is still concealed by my dress.
I try to tease them back into their seats with the playful finger wiggle I give while performing the naughty teacher routine, but they continue to surge forward. Fingers grope my legs, arms, and waist as they attempt to fast-forward my routine to the strip tease part of my performance.
Every time I push one man back, another takes his place. Their laughter grows uglier when one brute tears my dress off my body, their intentions clear.
This was a mistake.
A terrible, stupid mistake.
Fear snakes up my spine, icy and paralyzing, when one man clamps my wrist hard enough to bruise. I yank away from him, but he lunges, and suddenly ten more surround me. The music pounds in my ears as fear that I might be hurt tonight in ways I’d rather not imagine filters through the fog.
“No!” I shout, pushing back.
Imaginary birds fly around my head when an elbow collides with my nose, stunning me so well that I freeze long enough to be pinned to the makeshift dance floor.
“Stop! No!” I scream as dozens of fingers grope, jab, and bruise me.
As two men hold my shoulders down, and another two anchor my ankles to the dance floor, I glance in the direction of the door I pranced through only minutes ago, searching for help.
The hostess is where I left her, smirking like this was the plan all along.
I’ve never hated someone on sight, but I can unequivocally say I hate her.
She has no clue what she’s doing. Not only is she staging a gangrape, but she’s also leaving my son defenseless to a world as corrupt as her morals.
I won’t mention who else flashes through my head, or I’ll hate myself even more than I already do.
Even with blood threatening to drip from my nose and terror clawing my throat, I continue to fight. I thrash against the hands pinning my legs, and roar no on repeat.
When one leg is freed, I smash my foot into the face of the man fumbling with his belt. He stumbles back with a groan before his tattooed hand shoots up to capture the blood staining his seedy porn stache.
He glares at me like he hates me.
The feeling is mutual.
“You fucking bitch. I was going to get this over quickly for you, but now I’m going to take my time with—”
Everything stops when the light in his eyes disintegrates in less than a nanosecond.
He slumps to the floor with a thud, his expression as lifeless as the uncomfortable fold of his body.
I dart my eyes to the left when a crash follows the panicked shriek of a woman in fear.
The hostess is on her knees, begging to be spared.
A man with inky-black hair and eyes as dark as death pays her pleas no attention.
He takes her out with a direct kill shot to the head, ending her life as swiftly as someone did the groom’s.
Then, just as fast, the man holding my right ankle gargles through the blood flooding his esophagus from the large gash running from one ear to the next.
I know who’s standing behind him before my vision clears enough to see through the madness.
I can sense him.
Every line of Dante’s face is carved with fury as he and the four men behind him move through the room with the tenacity of a storm breaking loose.
The drunk men barely have time to react before a brutal fight erupts.
It’s fast and violent. Bodies slam into tables, glass shatters, and more than fists fly.
One of the men who arrived with Dante swings a baseball bat like he’s in the batter’s box, seeking a homerun.