Chapter 4
FOUR
Sitting in the parking lot, white-knuckling my steering wheel, I try to convince myself this isn’t as bad as life could be. I could be without a home. I could have no job.
I could be dead.
I could have to live with the guilt of not fulfilling my duties to Kieran, and Hannah could get kidnapped and sold.
That sobering thought gets me moving out of the car and into the club. Trey answers the door when I knock, wearing acid-wash denim and a solid black shirt.
“Good evening, Your Highness,” he coos, dragging his eyes up my figure.
“Not in the mood, Trey,” I snap, pushing past him.
He laughs and follows me in, the door slamming behind him. “Fair enough. One day, you’ll realize you’re in love with me.” I scoff, shooting him the bird as I walk away. “Puck was looking for you earlier.”
I don’t stop walking, but look at him over my shoulder. “I know he was. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. I don’t get in until seven on Fridays.”
He holds up his hands. “Hey, I’m just the messenger.”
I stop at my locker to grab a tiny plaid skirt and a black lace bralette, eyeing it with disdain. I’m not keen to have my thighs on display while I’ve got the tattoo wrap on, lest Kieran notice and say something, but it’s high up enough that the skirt should disguise most of it.
I follow the stairs to the pleasure den to prepare for my shift. The women of the dens are kind, but if I spend too much time thinking about how they came to work here, I’ll lose what’s left of my sanity.
While some ended up here out of pure need because it paid well, and some, like Tati, chose it because they love what they do, others were taken from those they loved and forced to work here to pay off debts.
It’s a position I could’ve found myself in if Kieran hadn’t taken a special interest in me.
All of them are kind women, and they don’t deserve this life.
But how can I save them if I can’t save myself?
“You know you could make a lot more money down here, Queenie,” Tati says, pulling on her high black leather boots. It’s been a constant conversation over the years, but now that she knows my power was shut off, I fear she’ll never stop suggesting it.
I smile at her through my reflection in the mirror as I twist my hair around a curling iron. “I know, but I don’t mind the main floor. Besides, I am not nearly as fun in bed as you.”
Tati snorts before reaching over me to grab her red lipstick. “Please, that cute little doe-eyed Omega thing you have going on? Someone would love to chase you through the forest.”
“There’s a forest down here?”
“Hah!” she barks. “Metaphorically, I mean. The primal room is more like a sexy laser tag course.”
I can’t think of anything that sounds less sexy than laser tag.
I always forget what goes on down here. It’s easy to ignore it when I’m several floors up, pushing drugs to businessmen. The private pleasure dens below Prism have a little something for everyone. Tati works as a femme domme, helping the people who come to her explore their submissive sides. Outside of the dens, she’s funny, kind, and whip-smart. I have been on the receiving end of many of her lectures about the psychology behind domination.
“I’ll keep it in mind, but I was able to pay my power bill. They just can’t turn it back on until Monday.”
She leans against the wall, crossing her arms over her ample chest. “I’m sure if you told Kieran, he’d let you stay here.”
“I can’t owe Kieran anything else.” The idea of making myself vulnerable to him is too much for me to handle. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Okay, but he’s not that bad if you just talk to him.”
Tati came down here to seek a job after hearing whispers about the club. She has no idea who Kieran is or what he does, so she approaches a lot of this with a naivety that I envy.
I’m unsure how she hasn’t realized that her coworkers aren’t here of their own volition. Ignorance must really be bliss.
“I’ll think about it. And thanks for letting me borrow your station to get ready.” I pull her into a loose hug. I should try to maintain a friendship with her, but I barely have time to breathe, much less make friends.
Today’s tattoo pit stop is the one time and money luxury I allow myself.
Gage has grown so much as a tattoo artist since I first sat for him. He’s also really good at reading my moods and knows when I don’t want to talk. I appreciate that about the bearded, handsome Beta.
That, and the fact that he hasn’t pried into the why behind the tattoos.
I collect tonight’s wares from Ricky, who I suspect handles most of the drug operation for the Conglomerate, before heading to my station for the evening. The club doesn’t pick up until eleven, but because I cover the VIP area, I tend to get clients earlier as they finish whatever business deals they’re working on.
The nightclub portion of Prism is three stories high and open in the middle. VIP booths line the walls of the second and third floors. Crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling, and colored lighting hits them, refracting light across the massive space and casting prisms throughout. The first floor is a dance floor broken up only by multiple bars.
My section is located on the third-floor back wall of the VIP area, also known as the high rollers’ area. This station is another reason why Kieran thinks he is spoiling me. Sure, I’m not running around the lower levels getting bumped into and covered with sticky drinks, but some nights, there is no one here, and I have to act as a floater for anyone who wants fizz.
My chance of getting tips goes to nearly nothing when that happens.
It’s like I’m constantly treading water. Something happens whenever I have a good night and get some tips. My car breaks down. Hannah needs new shoes. The water heater has broken down, and Eve has no money to repair it. Suddenly, the grand I made that night is now two hundred bucks.
I could move somewhere cheaper or get a roommate, but with my unusual hours and the nature of my work, I don’t want to bring someone else into my mess. I also don’t want to leave the nice neighborhood I’m in. It’s within walking distance of Eve’s place and safe.
I spend enough of my time feeling unsafe. I don’t want to feel that way when I sleep.
After counting the tabs, I store the box of fizz under my workstation at the back of the lounge.
Fizz.
It’s a stupid name for a very popular drug.
Called that because it carbonates any beverage you put it in, fizz is a euphoric party drug with a horrible crash. It’s said to imitate, on a small scale, the haze an Alpha goes into during a rut or an Omega enters during a heat.
It makes the user horny and uninhibited. That’s why everyone loves it.
I’ve seen hundreds of people use it, and for the most part, they end up close to fucking someone in minutes.
That brainless, hazy sensation from a heat isn’t awful. I can see why someone would want to use it as a party drug.
But then you crash and fall into a heavy depression. I recommend anyone who buys from me buy two doses, and they take half of one the following morning, a quarter at lunch, and another quarter that evening to wean themself off of it.
The ones who take me up on that offer always come back and buy more the following weekend. The others? Who knows if they recovered from their crash?
“Queenie,” Tyler, the Alpha who has worked beside me for two years as my bartender, says in greeting. He’s one of the employees of Prism who appears to know about the criminal ties to the Conglomerate and chooses to look the other way. “Looking cute! Are we expecting some businessmen tonight or something?”
It’s gross, but the more professional the men, the younger they want me to look. Puck and Kieran vet anyone in my section and pick out my outfit for the evening based on the clientele. This outfit only comes out a few times a year.
“Must be,” I say, uncomfortably pulling at the skirt that barely covers my ass. “I didn’t see Puck, so he didn’t brief me.”
Tyler leans his chin on his hand. He’s devastatingly handsome, with piercing green eyes and shaggy blonde hair. His nose is pointed, and his lips are thin, giving him a fairytale look.
“That man is always looking for you,” he says dreamily, but his eyes don’t stray from my face. “I don’t know why you haven’t gone there yet.”
“Maybe because, unlike you, I have standards,” I say, shoving his shoulder lightly.
“Hey, I resent that implication!” he scoffs, resting a hand on his chest. “I’ll have you know that even low standards are standards.”
I snort as I reach over the bar to grab a bottle of water. “You got me there.”
After I went through a painful heat alone, where I came back looking “halfway in the grave,” according to Tyler, he begged me to let him help me during them. So we gave it a shot a few times with his then partner, a Beta named Atlas. It was fun, but he and I couldn’t be more than just friends. The chemistry wasn’t there beyond being an Alpha and an Omega, and I called it off after the third heat we spent together.
Still, he smelled nice and had a knot, which was all I needed for a comfortable heat.
The door to our lounge opens, and Puck stands there with a scowl. His dark eyes trace over me before locking with mine. “Good evening, Queenie. Your subjects are here.”