Chapter 14
Mia
All of those submissive smiles and giggles as I held back bile while Dagger leered at me.
All that time playing obedient little server, while wearing a fucking dress that I wouldn’t usually be caught dead in.
Even letting that prick touch me, order me around like he has some sort of say in what I do? Just to get sent away?!
Fucking controlling cocksucker.
I will admit that Dagger gives off total psychopath vibes.
But in this place, with all the people around, I could have handled him just fine.
The longer I stood at their table, the more information I gathered about the places they’ve visited over the last few days and the roles they all play.
I cataloged everything. But now, I’ve been banished to the VIP room, watching two douchebags fight their raging hard-ons as Cara dances for them.
“Fuck yeah,” one of them says, reaching up to grab Cara’s ass and squeezing it hard as she bends over in front of him, baring her perfectly waxed pussy to him.
She swats his hand away. “No touching, tiger,” she says as she continues her dance.
This guy is wasted. Like, can’t-even-keep-his-eyes-open wasted. He’s overweight and sweating as he waves a stack of cash at Cara. “How much for, uh…touching. You know, a really private dance?”
“Bro, you’re getting married!” His buddy laughs, just as drunk.
I wait for Cara to tell him off, but instead, she climbs into his lap.
“Eight hundred for ten minutes. Anything goes.” I look up at her in shock.
“Fucking done!” he says.
Cara locks eyes with me as she stands, tossing her auburn hair over her shoulder and moving toward me just as the other guy high-fives his friend who’s about to cheat on his fiancée.
“It’s okay. We used to do it all the time,” she offers.
“And something tells me it’ll only take five. ” She snorts, looking back.
“I thought…”
“We have a code. We don’t tell,” she whispers, placing a finger over her lips.
Cara looks over her shoulder and discreetly reaches into her high-heeled boot, pulling out a tiny clear vial filled with white powder.
She keeps her back turned to the guys and taps a good-sized bump of coke onto the back of her hand, snorting it so subtly I wouldn’t have even noticed if I hadn’t been looking right at her.
She holds it out to me, but I shake my head.
She shrugs and pinches her nose for a beat then puts the vial back into her boot.
So, the idea that Aiden keeps his girls safe, that there’s no sex, is all bullshit? Why am I not fucking surprised?
“Okay, fuckers, get out!” The drunken groom-to-be starts unbuckling his pants, and his buddies laugh but obey, pulling out some ones and fives to take out to the stage.
“Ten minutes,” Cara says firmly, running her pinky finger over her upper teeth.
“The doors don’t lock, so keep watch for me, bitch.” She winks playfully. “Stay close.”
I reach out and grab her arm, which is covered in glittery cream. “Does Roz know this?”
“Listen, we have a code,” she says, not really answering my question. “We don’t break it.” The other guy heads out onto the floor, and Cara nods toward the door.
I huff out of the room. Gentlemen’s club, my ass. It’s a fucking brothel?
Nope. Uh-uh. Not a fucking chance I’ll be a part of this every night.
I stand outside the room and set a timer on my phone before I move over to the bar to grab the guys at the stage another round.
Even though they aren’t in the VIP rooms anymore, they’re still my customers.
My hands shake as I load shots onto a tray and weigh my options.
I’m either going to be the girl everyone hates, or if Cara gets caught and Roz finds out I knew and went along with it, I’m gonna get fired on my first day.
Unless Roz’s “we don’t touch” was bullshit too.
I keep myself busy serving and talking to the guys from the rooms as they watch a girl I haven’t met yet dance on stage in front of them.
Seven minutes later, I decide to make my way back to the room.
This place obviously isn’t what I was told, and now I have to shift and work on another way to figure out the truth about my sister, because brothel worker is not happening.
“Ow… Slow down… You’re hurting me.”
I freeze outside the door of the VIP room when I hear Cara’s voice, not knowing what to do, straining to hear over the music pumping through the sound system.
“You’re hurting me!” The words are choked and garbled.
I don’t think, I just react, swinging the door open as old trauma takes over, my sister’s face flashing through my mind.
I move in a blind rage toward the asshole who’s fucking Cara from behind, his tie wrapped around her throat while she gasps for air.
I’m on autopilot as my training takes over.
I reach him in a few short strides, first breaking his hold on the tie with the strength of my forearm, then sliding my hand down to secure his wrist so he can’t strike me as I pull him off her.
In his drunken stupor, he tries to twist out of my hold, so I strike him with the weight of the right side of my body. My elbow hits him in the jaw.
“Mia!” Cara calls my name, distracting me. That’s all it takes for him to get free, turn, and push me into the wall. A mirror shatters onto the floor beside me. My high heel flies off, sailing out the open door as I land.
“You fucking cunt, I was just about to come!” He still has the condom on his tiny, hardened dick.
Cara is telling him to calm down as she rushes to stand over me. “What the hell are you doing? I said ten fucking minutes!” she shrieks over the thumping beat of the music.
“You were crying out that he was hurting you!” I yell up at her.
“We were fucking role-playing. I told him anything goes. He wanted to choke me. We had a safe word.”
Fuck.
The guy is pulling at Cara. “Come on, baby. We can finish,” he slurs. “I still have time…”
But the words die on his lips, and before I know what’s happening, a shadow is looming over us. When I look up, I see Aiden’s face as he stands in the center of the room, holding my high heel. It seems so small in his large hand, and he looks like he’s about to kill someone.