Prologue #2
I pushed through the emergency exit, and the night air hit me like a slap.
Cold. Clean. Sharp with the smell of spring rain that hadn’t fallen yet, that electric ozone scent that promised a storm but hadn’t delivered.
It was late July, but summer in South Dakota was a fucking tease.
Warm during the day, freezing at night, the kind of weather that couldn’t make up its mind, that left me never knowing whether to grab a jacket or leave it behind.
I looked exactly like what I was: a hooded stranger fleeing a crime scene.
A victim who had become a criminal in the span of five minutes.
Get on your bike. Don’t think. Run.
My Ducati was parked in the back lot, tucked between a dumpster that reeked of rotting food and stale beer and mystery liquids I didn’t want to identify, and a chain-link fence topped with razor wire that glinted dully under the single flickering streetlight.
I had chosen the spot deliberately—out of sight of the security cameras, away from the main entrance, away from the lights and the prying eyes of customers stumbling out into the night.
Old habits I had learned a long time ago to always have an exit strategy, always know where the doors were, always park where I could leave quickly if I needed to, always keep my keys in my hand and my pepper spray in my purse.
I just never thought I would need it like this.
I never thought I would be running for my life from the man who smiled at me every Friday when he handed me my cash, who had seemed like just another run-of-the-mill guy until tonight, until I saw what he was really capable of.
The keys shook in my hand as I stuck them in the ignition, throwing my leg over my bike. The metal felt cold against my palm, even though the afternoon sun had been beating down on the parking lot all day. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
I sat there, gripping the handlebars so hard my knuckles turned white, trying to remember how to breathe.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Count to four. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight.
The way my brother used to tell me when I would have panic attacks as a kid, back before the pills and the men and the inevitable descent that drove me away from the one person who really loved me.
Seventy-five million dollars.
The number was incomprehensible. Impossible. Unreal. The kind of number I had only ever seen in movies or on the news when they talked about lottery winners or Wall Street criminals or tech billionaires buying islands. Not people like me. Never people like me.
I had grown up poor, and now I had seventy-five million.
Blood money. Dirty money. Money soaked in exploitation and violence and God knew what else.
Money that belonged to him and whoever he was working for—the Russian mob, maybe, or Mexican cartels, or just homegrown American criminals who had figured out that strip clubs were perfect for washing cash.
Perfect for moving money through the system, making it clean, making it legitimate, turning blood and suffering into something they could deposit in a bank without raising eyebrows.
Money that could get me killed.
Money that had probably gotten other people killed already.
Money that came with a body count I refused to think about.
But also money that could get me out.
Out of Rapid City. Out of South Dakota. Out of this frozen hellscape where winter lasted eight months and summer was just a cruel joke.
Out of this life where I took my clothes off for strangers and pretended it didn’t hollow me out a little more each night, didn’t chip away at whatever was left of my soul.
Out of this endless cycle of makeup and G-strings and fake smiles and men who thought twenty dollars entitled them to put their hands wherever they wanted.
I could disappear.
The thought took root, grew, and spread through my mind like wildfire, consuming everything else.
I could disappear. Change my name, change my hair, change everything about myself.
Get on a bus or a plane and go somewhere he and whoever he worked for would never find me.
Somewhere they wouldn’t even think to look.
Somewhere warm, where the sun actually felt good on my skin instead of mocking me through the bitter cold.
Somewhere with an ocean I had never seen, waves I only watched in movies, sand that didn’t freeze solid half the year.
Somewhere I could start over, be someone new, build a life that didn’t involve taking my clothes off or letting men touch me for money or pretending to enjoy their attention while I counted down the minutes until my shift ended.
Someone who wasn’t Alexandra Jones, a stripper, victim, thief, and murderer—because taking his money was the same as killing him.
Really, because once whoever he owed came looking for it, once they figured out the money was gone and he couldn’t produce it, they would make an example of him and send a message to anyone else who might get ideas about skimming or stealing or running off with what wasn’t theirs.
My phone buzzed in my purse, and I nearly jumped out of my skin, my heart slamming against my ribs like it was trying to break free from my chest. The sound cut through the silence of the night, sharp and accusatory, making my breath catch in my throat.
I pulled it out with shaking hands, my fingers fumbling with the zipper. The screen’s glow illuminated my face in the growing darkness.
Crystal: Where’d you go? Cade’s looking for you.
Ice flooded my veins. Cold and sharp, and terrifying. The kind of cold that started in my gut and spread outward until my whole body felt numb.
Another text.
Crystal: Girl, he’s PISSED! What did you do?
My stomach twisted into knots. I could picture Crystal’s face, confused and concerned, probably standing in the break room or hovering near Cade’s office, watching the drama unfold.
She had no idea what I’d done. No one did.
Crystal: Alex, seriously, where are you? He’s freaking out.
Crystal: He’s calling people, IDK who, but this is bad.
The messages kept coming, each one more urgent than the last, each one sending another spike of adrenaline through my system. My hands were slick with sweat, making the phone hard to hold.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. What would I even say?
Instead, I turned the phone off, held down the power button until the screen went black, then pulled the battery out with trembling fingers that barely cooperated.
I threw both pieces into my purse, burying them under receipts and lip gloss and all the other detritus of my former life.
They could track phones. I had seen enough crime shows to know that. Seen enough episodes of Forensic Files during countless sleepless nights to know exactly how people got caught. It was always something stupid, something small, that they overlooked.
I wasn’t going to get caught.
Not yet. Not ever.
I started my bike, hands still shaking as I pulled out of the parking lot too fast, tires squealing on the asphalt. The sound echoed off the nearby buildings, drawing attention I couldn’t afford. A man loading groceries into his trunk looked up, watching me speed away.
I didn’t care as I revved the engine.
I didn’t know where I was going.
I just knew I couldn’t stop. Not at a red light longer than necessary, not at a gas station, not anywhere that would give me time to reconsider.
If I stopped, I would think.
If I thought, I would panic. If I panicked, I would do something stupid, like turn around, drive back to the club, fall at his feet and beg for forgiveness. I would confess everything, return the money, and pray he wouldn’t press charges, or worse, kill me.
No, I couldn’t let that happen.
Behind me, the Prancing Pussycat’s neon sign flickered in my rearview—a pink silhouette of a woman on all fours, tail curved suggestively, the words “GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS” flashing underneath in electric blue.
I hated that sign from the first day I saw it, three years ago when I rode into town with nothing but a tank of gas and fifty dollars to my name. Hated what it represented, what it reduced me to. Hated the way men would point at it and laugh, the way it made me feel like I was an animal in a zoo.
Now I watched it shrink in the distance, getting smaller and smaller in my rearview, and I felt something crack open in my chest.
Not relief. Not yet.
But maybe the beginning of it.
Maybe the first breath after drowning.
I drove through Rapid City’s empty streets, past closed shops and dark houses, and the gas station where I bought cigarettes yesterday.
Was it yesterday? It felt like years ago.
The streets were nearly empty except for the occasional truck or cop car, and every time I saw headlights I had to fight the urge to floor it and run.
I was heading east on I-90 without really deciding to, just following some instinct that said, “Run. Get away. Don’t look back. ”
I didn’t know who he worked for. Didn’t have the faintest clue.
Didn’t know what kind of organization had seventy-five million dollars sitting in a strip club’s accounts, hidden behind layers of corporate shell games and offshore transfers.
The kind of money that didn’t show up on any legitimate balance sheet.
The kind of money that bought silence, loyalty, and when necessary, violence.
But I knew enough to understand that people like that didn’t forgive debts.
Didn’t accept excuses or sob stories, or promises to pay it back with interest. Didn’t care if I was beaten or broken or begging on my knees with tears streaming down my face.
They had heard it all before. They had seen every desperate play, every pathetic attempt to buy more time.
They just collected.
One way or another.
Whether it was cash or blood, they always got what they were owed. Always balanced the books. That was the only rule that mattered in their world.
He was a dead man walking.
He just didn’t know it yet.
And I was a ghost.
The highway stretched out before me, dark and empty, nothing but asphalt and painted lines and the occasional reflector post catching my headlights. I revved my engine and shot forward.
I had seventy-five million dollars, a flash drive full of evidence that could bring down half the corrupt officials in western South Dakota, and nothing left to lose. Just me, my bike, and seventy-five million reasons to disappear.
I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t go back.
Not ever. Not to the Prancing Pussycat. Not to my apartment. Not to the person I had been, dancing on stage and pretending everything was fine.
As the lights of Rapid City faded behind me, swallowed by distance and darkness, I rode into the night, leaving Alexandra Jones behind with every mile. Shedding her like a snake shedding skin. Letting her die in that office with his computer and the last shred of my innocence.
Whoever I was going to be next, she would be smarter and stronger.
I would be someone who didn’t get hurt.
I would become someone who hurt back.
I would be someone who survived.