Chapter 3 Bianca
BIANCA
I finish my set. It wasn’t my best singing, but I’m going to forgive myself given the gruesome discovery I made not forty-five minutes ago.
Hearts.
Hearts.
Who did they belong to?
Someone who certainly didn’t consent to their organs being removed from their body.
Rouge is running an organ harvesting ring.
The patrons and servers who disappeared from Aces, from the Jade Sanctum, from Second Star and the rest of my sister’s clubs…
These are their organs.
And I bet they end up inside of Rouge’s friends.
The club patrons who hold influence. Cale Calloway, the man who died on top of me a week ago, was in his late nineties.
Most people that age are confined to their homes.
They’re certainly not going out every weekend and bedding lots of young women.
I’ll bet he’s been through a few of those hearts.
Hell, he probably died with the heart of a woman he’s fucked inside of him.
The Seven of Spades. May, her real name was. The girl whose head Alissa and Maddox found buried in that Forest Park reserve.
It could have been her heart. Calloway liked her.
Or perhaps it was Timothy Mann, the friend of Aus Waverly’s at the Jade Sanctum who went missing. Aus told us he lost everything in pursuit of a woman who didn’t love him back. And now he’s literally lost his heart.
She’s on the board of Harrison’s hospital. She could easily use that position to sell the organs she harvests to them. I’m not sure how organ donation works, but there must be a connection there.
I retreat to my dressing room and splash cold water on my face. It’ll mess up my makeup, but fuck it. I have much more to worry about right now than maintaining a perfect smoky eye.
I glance at my phone. I haven’t checked it since I went back onstage for my last set.
A text from Harrison.
Thank God. He made it home.
He left his phone there, so the fact that he’s texting means he’s okay.
And… Wait. Oh my God.
He didn’t have his phone on him when I threw him out of the ladies’ restroom. He didn’t have his wallet either. The shorts the male waitstaff wear have no pockets in them.
But he somehow made it home. Maybe he walked over to the hospital, had Dinah get him a ride home.
I unlock my phone and read the text.
Made it home safe. Let me know how you are.
A sigh of relief escapes me.
Harrison’s okay. His heart is still beating in his chest.
Same can’t be said for countless other innocents, thanks to my sister.
But he’s all right.
For now.
I quickly text him back. Better keep things vague in case anyone is tapping into our messages.
I’m okay. Will be leaving Aces soon.
I feel terrible, throwing him out on the street wearing next to nothing. But I still think he was safer out there than he was in here.
I’ve never felt unsafe at Aces.
In many ways it’s been my sanctuary.
I’ve never been head over heels in love with my position here, but it’s better than working a nine to five.
I’m getting paid a living wage to sing, to perform.
It wasn’t exactly what I envisioned when I first got off that plane in NYC all those years ago, but it’s a hell of a lot closer to the dream than a lot of people get.
I’ve worked here nearly five years. The Reflections callback was in early summer, and I started at Aces soon after that.
I’ve seen so many people come and go. I’ve made very few friends here—the one time I tried to do so, it failed catastrophically—because of how impermanent everything is. Once a server fulfills their contract, they go off into the world.
Or so I thought.
Just like the waitstaff at Rouge’s other clubs, we never see them again.
And now I know why.
A cooler of human hearts hidden away is damning evidence, but I have no hard proof that they’re connected to the disappearances. It could be circumstantial. They could have been planted.
But how the fuck is a cooler full of hearts circumstantial?
Ugh. But how can I know for sure?
I almost slap myself in the face when I realize how simple it is.
Harrison works in a hospital. The same hospital Rouge sits on the board of.
He can look into this. See if any unexpected organ donations made their way to him.
Alissa mentioned an older couple who got organs that were perfect matches out of the blue.
They had signed a form indicating they’d refuse treatment if a match wasn’t found in a month.
Then, miraculously, a heart and a pair of lungs showed up.
As soon as I finish up here tonight, I’ll go to Harrison’s and we’ll figure out how he can investigate this further. He’s an attending physician in the hospital, so he must have access to records my sister would rather keep private.
Now I just have to keep my head—
A knock at the door.
Oh, God. Please be an old creep wanting to fuck me.
Anyone but—
“Bianca!”
Damn it.
It’s her. My sister. It’s like she’s clairvoyant. She always shows up at the worst possible moment.
I take a deep breath in. She doesn’t know that I know. She doesn’t know that I know.
The mantra does nothing to ease my nerves.
I paste on a smile and open the door. “Good evening, Rouge.”
She bustles into the room, brushing past me. She takes a seat at my vanity and crosses her legs. “I just had the most fascinating conversation with Mona.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Mona?”
“Mona Roth. One of our patrons.”
Right. Mrs. Roth. The woman who was trying to get into the bathroom.
Time to think on my feet.
I crinkle my eyes in a way that I hope looks like innocence. “Of course. What did you two talk about?”
Rouge cocks her head. “She said you locked yourself in the ladies’ restroom. That you blocked off the entrance, kept her waiting on the outside for several minutes.”
I force a laugh. “It was all a big misunderstanding.”
“I told her as much,” Rouge counters. “I asked her why you would possibly be using the ladies’ restroom when you have your own private toilet here in your dressing room.”
“There’s a logical explanation, as I told her.”
Rouge curls her lips. “You told her your bathroom was out of order, and you were experiencing a particularly turbulent menstrual cycle.”
“Well, I was a bit more discreet than that—”
“Even though”—Rouge’s eyes shine with amusement—“you and I both know you’re not due to bleed for another week or so.”
I widen my eyes. “You and I both? Have you been tracking my period?”
She sniffs. “Don’t act all surprised. I keep track of the cycles of all my female employees, especially those who sell their services to the gentlemen of Aces in the private suites.
I need to know when one of my workers will be out of commission for a few days, unless of course the patron in question prefers it that way. ”
I almost gag at her words, but I swallow it down. “Fine. If you must know, I ate something that didn’t agree with me. I was experiencing some…gastrointestinal distress.”
“Then why not wallow in your own private toilet? Why take it public? I know as well as you that your bathroom is not out of order.”
I think fast. “It was on my break. You know that sometimes the musicians hang out in my dressing room during the break. I was afraid it would be noisy. I didn’t want them to make fun of me.
And the feeling hit out of nowhere, so I panicked.
Ran into the ladies’ room. It was empty, and I didn’t want anyone else walking in, so I pushed the chaise against the door. ”
She clasps her hands across her lap. “That’s an awfully big chaise for a petite woman like you to handle all by yourself.”
“I scooted it. It’s not that heavy. I’m stronger than I look.”
Rouge narrows her eyes. Then she gets to her feet and glides to my dressing room door, glancing dismissively over her shoulder. “I hope you feel better, Bianca.”
I blink. “I already am. Thank you, Rouge.”
She opens the door slowly, keeping her eyes on me until she’s finally departed.
I lock the door and lean against it.
She didn’t buy it.
I gave her an answer to every question, but she’s my sister. She knows when I’m lying.
But what she doesn’t know yet is why I was lying.
There are lots of reasons I could have gone into the restroom and not wanted anyone in there with me. Maybe I took a lover in there and hooked up with him. I couldn’t have used my dressing room because the musicians were in there.
Maybe I was shooting up some illicit substance. I wouldn’t be the first Aces patron to do something like that in the bathrooms. We’ve dealt with a lot of overdoses.
The least likely explanation is that I was uncovering my sister’s organ harvesting ring.
At least that’s what I’m hoping she’ll think.
Rouge is smart. Smarter than I am. I’ll be the first to admit it.
But she underestimates my intelligence. She couldn’t possibly think I’d uncover her deepest, darkest secret.
God willing that’s the case.
I look at my watch.
Thirty minutes until closing.
One more set and I’m home free.