Chapter 23
Silas Drake
The new strip club in Clovis was still wet around the edges, a scabbed wound on an otherwise featureless strip of highway.
I’d kept the original neon—tacky, pink as bruised gums, spelling out “Eden’s” with the E burned out so it always read as “Den’s” after midnight—but the rest was gutted and rebuilt, all dark glass and steel.
Inside, the air reeked of broken dreams and bad decisions.
It fought a losing war against the ghost of cheap perfume, tequila sweat, and fresh blood from where the new doormen got a little eager.
I was juggling several things at once, so the main room had doubled as my war room and office for a while.
Stage lights shone a cycled mix of purple and red lighting over the silver pole on the center of the platform.
The concrete floor had a high-gloss epoxy finish, which would make the spills and fluids that would soon cover it easier to clean.
The tables and booths were an eclectic mix of this and that, but it worked with the rest of the aesthetic.
I wasn’t going for high-end, necessarily, just nice enough to keep the clientele coming back for more.
The girls were what sold a joint like this, and I intended to pack the place with the roundest, sexiest, and most willing I could wrangle.
I watched the stage from a high-backed chair, something meant for a degenerate CEO or a Bond villain, and ran my finger along the cold rim of a whiskey glass.
First round of auditions and already the place felt like mine.
The promise of money and notoriety had drawn the usual horde: girls with dead eyes and worse stories, predators looking to be put on salary.
I’d told Rook to bring only the ones who could handle real work.
I had plans for this particular business. None of them involved a nice night out.
Vex stood to my left, clipboard in hand, her bleach-blonde hair tied off in a scalpel-sharp bun.
She wore leather pants and nothing above the waist but a men’s undershirt, rolled so tight around her chest it could have doubled as a tourniquet.
The way she ticked off each girl’s “stats” was both clinical and faintly gleeful, like she’d finally landed a job that let her be herself.
I’d have to keep an eye on her, but for now, she was useful.
First up: a bottle-blonde in stripper heels so tall they made her knees wobble. She stepped onto the stage and tried to make eye contact, which was mistake number one. Her name was Cherry, or Cheyenne, or some other C-word; it didn’t matter.
“Walk to the pole and back,” I said. She did, but even from here I could see the tremor in her calves, the way her knees threatened to pop inward with each step. I looked at Vex. “Two months clean, tops.”
Vex snorted, jotting it down. “Could do private rooms, if you want high turnover. She won’t last a week.”
The girl reached the end of the runway and looked down at us, waiting for her instructions. I held up a finger, savoring the pause. “Take off your top,” I said. “Slowly.”
She obeyed, but her eyes never left the exits.
The breasts were work; the rest was luck and genetics.
There was a patch of bruising on her left hip, the kind you get from either a lover or a fall.
I preferred not to guess. She tossed the top aside, revealing a tattoo of a pistol over her ribs.
I liked the art, hated the skin. I beckoned her down off the stage.
She shuffled over, past the pit, to where we sat. I waited until she was within reach before speaking.
“You’re new,” I said. “Probably hoping this is just another club, and the worst thing that happens is some asshole grabs your tit.” I drained the whiskey. “But this isn’t Bumfuck. And I am not some asshole.”
She made a noise, not quite a question.
I gestured for her to turn around. She did slowly, revealing the knife-edge of her back. I reached up and gripped her by the wrist, pulling her closer.
“If you want to work here, you will do everything I tell you,” I said.
“There’s a room in the back for customers who want more than a dance.
You will not say no. You will not cry. You will not threaten to call the police.
” I squeezed her wrist harder. “If I catch you skimming, if I catch you lying to me, I will break your fingers one at a time. Do you understand?”
She nodded, just once, but it was enough. I let her go. She stumbled back, mascara threatening to run.
“Now,” I said, “pull down your panties. Let’s see if you’ve got anything worth selling.”
She hesitated. Vex’s pen tapped the paper, then stopped.
“Do it,” I said, voice low.
She obeyed, tugging the flimsy string of black cotton down her thighs. The skin underneath was pale, marred by a strip of scarring high on the inside, maybe from a childhood surgery or something less accidental. I stared for a moment, then gestured for her to put them back up.
“Not bad,” I said, though I didn’t mean it. “Go wait by the bar. If you need to call your sponsor, now’s the time.”
She pulled her clothes back on with shaking hands and hurried off, eyes locked on the floor.
Vex looked at me, a question in her expression.
“Too soft,” I said. “We’ll keep her for numbers, but she’s not the type I want.”
The next girl came in before I finished the thought. Taller, brown hair, straight and sharp. Eyes so dark I couldn’t place the color in the light. She wore a cheap dress, but it fit her body like she’d been sewn into it. She walked to the center of the stage and stopped, waiting.
“Name?” I asked.
“Alexis,” she said, voice level.
I gestured her down. She took the stairs two at a time, confidence in her stride. This was better. Vex grinned, showing too many teeth.
I looked her over, arms crossed. “What did you do before this?”
“Waitressed. Drove for Lyft. Nothing steady.”
I nodded. “Drugs?”
“No.”
“Busted for anything?”
She smiled, a flash of wolf, even if she wasn’t one. “Not that stuck.”
I liked her. I told her to sit on my lap.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t hesitate. She straddled my knee, her scent—generic store perfume and something rawer—hitting my nose like a slap. I slid a hand up her thigh, watched for a shiver or a twitch. None. Good.
“Turn around,” I said, and she did, back to my chest. I bent to her ear and whispered: “If I told you to take three men in the back, you’d do it?”
She didn’t move. “If you paid me enough.”
“Money’s not the only thing,” I said. I let my hand rest on her ass, fingers digging in. “I want loyalty. I want silence. I want a girl who won’t ask questions about what happens in the VIP rooms.”
She nodded, hair brushing my cheek.
“You think you’re that girl?”
“I can be.”
I looked at Vex. “She’s better,” I said. Vex grunted, made a note.
I let Alexis go and stood up, feeling the rush of adrenaline through my chest. I towered over her, and she didn’t shrink.
“Now, take off the dress,” I said, gesturing to the back office, where the real interviews happened.
She looked at Vex, and then back at me, and in that half-second I saw the calculation, the cold math of survival.
She unzipped and let the dress pool at her feet, standing in just a black bra and nothing else.
“Turn,” I commanded.
She did, slow and steady, letting me see every angle.
“Good,” I said. “Now kneel.”
She dropped to her knees on the newly painted concrete.
I circled her, boots echoing in the hollow room. “You will call me sir. You will not question my orders. If a customer asks you for something, you give it. If they want to tie you up, you let them. If you need help, you ask Vex, and she will decide if it’s worth my time.”
I knelt, bringing myself to her level, and put a hand on the back of her neck.
“Say you understand.”
“I understand, sir.”
I grinned. The world was full of broken girls, but this one wasn’t quite finished. That was the fun part.
I stroked her hair, then grabbed a fistful and pulled her head back. I leaned close and ran my tongue along her jaw, just to watch her skin goosebump.
“Last test,” I said, voice soft. “If I fucked you right here, would you come?”
She smiled, not with her mouth but with her eyes. “If you’re any good.”
Vex cackled behind me. I let go of Alexis’s hair and stood.
“Put your dress back on and wait with the others. Don’t talk to anyone unless I say so.”
She obeyed. I watched the muscle in her calves as she moved. She didn’t look back.
I sat back in the chair, ignoring the hard-on pressing against my zipper. Vex wrote a note and tore off the sheet, flicking it into my lap.
Her handwriting was ugly, all block capitals: “THIS ONE WILL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT.”
I looked up. “You think she’ll last?”
Vex shrugged. “She’s got enough wolf in her to survive. But if you want her to do the really sick shit, you’ll have to train it in.”
“Noted,” I said, folding the paper into my pocket.
The rest of the auditions blurred together. Some were barely legal, some too old to care. I picked three more, but none with the promise of the brown-haired one.
I watched them go, then signaled the bartender for another double. The glass was in my hand before I finished the nod.
The world was full of tiny possibilities, but there was only one I wanted to cage. When the time was right, I’d bring her here. I’d chain her to the stage and let her watch as I trained the others. She’d learn. They all learned.
The whiskey burned down my throat, hot and mean. I liked the pain.
I closed my eyes and listened to the hum of the lights. The world spun, and I spun with it, anchored by the promise that soon, very soon, I’d have everything I wanted. All I had to do was wait.
But I was never any good at waiting.