Chapter 9
NINE
Estrella
I don’t know what it is about these glowing lights that makes me feel so at ease, but the second I push the door open and step foot inside Seda, it feels like a five-ton weight is lifted from my shoulders.
I close my eyes for a second and just bask in the sensation. I would’ve stood right here for a long while if I hadn’t just heard someone sniff in the corner.
My eyes fly open, and I turn in that direction. A woman with braids flowing down her back lifts her head to stare at me.
“What the hell are you looking at?” she asks, full of attitude. When I spy the small glass mirror in her lap lined with white powder, I look away. I don’t know how high this woman is, but I’m not trying to get into an argument with someone who’s clearly not in the right frame of mind.
There are only a few other women sitting in the room, all of them staring at me like I’m a new piece of art they can’t decide if they love or hate.
The door behind me bursts open and Coca comes in. She looks me over and shakes her head. She grabs my hand and starts pulling me in the direction of a closed room.
We stop just before she opens the next door, and she looks to the woman who had a few words with me earlier. “What did I tell you about that shit? This is your last damn warning, Dulce. Stop bringing that crap in here.” Coca snaps at the woman, who’s struggling to get the area cleaned up.
Coca doesn’t wait for Dulce to finish. Instead, she continues dragging me behind her into a room.
“Estrella, lo siento mucho, I had no idea that was going to happen. The guys can be a bit much at times, but I would’ve never expected Oro to act like such a jackass.
This isn’t like him.” Coca looks away and reaches into her pocket.
When she pulls her hand back out, she’s holding a rosary, and I watch her fingers slowly, almost instinctively, move from bead to bead.
“It’s okay, it wasn’t that bad.” I shrug, pulling the throw blanket tighter around my body.
“It was that bad. It’s like he had it out for you or something.” Her fingers stop and she narrows her eyes slightly. “Does he have it out for you? I didn’t want to ask him, but it seems like you two have some sort of history.”
I sigh. “We do. It won’t be a problem, though. If he agrees to hire me, I’m sure he’ll treat me the same as everyone else. No special treatment or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Special treatment? Diablo! That wasn’t special treatment, that was mental war.
I don’t know what the deal is between the two of you, but I’m warning you now, these guys are close.
If one of them doesn’t like you, the rest will always side with the patched member over one of us.
It’ll make your time here very difficult.
You might want to think about that before you agree to take the job. ” She raises an eyebrow.
Panic crawls up my spine. She’s going to suggest that I work somewhere else.
“No, it’ll be fine. I promise you. Everything is going to be fine. I want to work here. It’s perfect.” I lay it on thick.
“Estrella, honestly, you should take some time to—” Her words are cut off by the sound of the front door banging open.
“Where is she?”
I hear Oro’s voice booming from the other room. Both Coca and I look at each other, expecting the other to come up with an answer for what’s about to happen.
We both come up blank.
The footsteps come closer, and the door to the room swings open. I’m ready for whatever comes. Lifting my chin and pulling my shoulders back, I wait for the blow.
It doesn’t come, but what’s more surprising is that Coca steps right in front of me as if she’s about to protect me.
Someone wants to protect me? I don’t think that’s ever happened.
“Oro, cálmate.” Coca continues to stand in front of me until Oro seems to visibly relax.
“I’m calm. I just need to talk to her. You can send the next girl in for the interview.” Oro gives her a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
She turns toward me. “You okay? Do you need me to stay?” she asks.
“What the shit? You act like I’m going to murder her and chop her up in pieces or something.” Oro scoffs before backing up and leaning against the wall.
“If I’m honest, I’m not sure what you’re capable of.
The Oro I know and love would never humiliate a woman for a damn interview.
If you can do that, who knows what else you can do.
” Coca seethes at him, and suddenly I’m worried that I might have caused yet another rift between him and a woman in his life.
Before my father and I came into his life, Oro and his mother were close, survivors together. That relationship shattered when my dad and I came into the picture. More than Oro realizes, I suspect.
“It’s fine. We’ll be okay.” I tap Coca on the shoulder, trying to soothe her. She regards me one last time before walking out of the room and closing the door behind her, leaving Oro and me alone.
The second the door opened, the air in the room thickened with animosity. The moment Coca stepped out, the warmth she carried with her disappeared right along with her.
Oro fills the room with silence sharp enough to cut. If I thought one dance was enough to get Oro to let bygones be bygones, I was sorely mistaken. In fact, I’m starting to think I might have made things worse.
Oro takes a step into my space, but I don’t back away. If he sees that he can scare me, he’ll hold that over me. At least that’s been my experience with other men.
“You wanted to talk to me?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything for a few seconds.
“I want answers.”
My stomach clenches again. Answers. I promised myself that I would never tell him the truth of what was happening behind his back in the house he was so desperate to call home. I promised that I would never put that on him.
But if he wants answers, I’m not seeing a way out of telling him.
“Answers?” I echo.
“You move well, work the room well, like you’ve done this type of work before.” He leaves the statement open-ended, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.
“I have,” I admit.
“So that only leads me to question what your real motives are for coming here looking for work. There are dozens of places that will hire you to strip.”
“I’m not a stripper,” I snap back at him.
“You just said you had experience doing this kind of work.”
“I do. That doesn’t make me a stripper. My skill set comes with what you asked for. Selling the dream. Making fantasies come to life. I’m good at that.”
Oro squints at me, clearly more confused than before. I’m praying he doesn’t try to dig deeper into this. He doesn’t need to know how or where I got my experience.
“Whatever. I don’t give a damn how you got these so-called skills. I want to know what it is you think is so fucking hard about your life that this is your so-called last chance.” He chuckles humorlessly. “What, don’t tell me you’re not Daddy Dearest’s little princess anymore?”
The stranglehold around my heart squeezes even tighter. It feels like I can’t breathe.
“My father is dead.” The words taste bitter, like rust on my tongue.
“Do you think I should say I’m sorry?”
I glare at him. Who the fuck says something like that? “No. I don’t care what you say. I’m just letting you know I can’t be Daddy’s little princess since he’s dead. I don’t have any family. I told you that already.”
He leans forward, his mouth close to my ear. “You could’ve had family. We could have been family, but that wasn’t good enough for you. Instead, you chose to screw that dream up didn't you?”
I move back, struggling to take in a deep breath. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t want to be part of my family.”
“You’re right, I don’t. What I want is for you to go back where you came from.”
I push my hands through my hair, tugging on the strands hard. “I can’t. What don’t you understand? I fucking can’t, Oro!”
“Why the hell not?!”
“Because if I go back, I’ll wind up just like… I don’t know anyone here. My whole life was my father, his business, his orders. When he died, I was alone. I thought I found a friend. She’s not. I can’t go back.”
The tears that I thought I was doing such a good job of holding back spill from the corners of my eyes.
Just when I realized I had the chance to start my life over, to live for myself, I met Sina. She was charming, intelligent, well-off, generous. She let me confide in her, made me believe she was my true friend.
She’s my father reincarnated. A devil with a different face.