2. Bindi
TWO
BINDI
The bass in the club tonight is so loud—crawling into my skin, pulsing in my bones. I’m sure it could probably crack a rib if it got any louder. You’d think after a year of this shit, I’d be immune.
I’m not.
I have always hated loud music, parties, anything that even remotely resembles chaos.
Yet, I chose to work at a nightclub, where every strobe light hits like lightning behind my eyes.
The Santoro’s club is hell in heels. All chrome and shadow and sweat—settled in the heart of Miami.
Vegas doesn’t hold a candle to the sins I’ve witnessed in this city.
The spotlight swings past my face, and through the smudged mirrored walls I can see a faint flicker of myself—smeared red lips, tangled copper hair, skin-tight dress clinging like desperation.
I should go back into the breakroom and fix myself up a bit, but luckily it’s dark enough, and the lights change so often that almost no one notices.
Speaking of the dress . . . whoever designed this clingy, glittering piece of masochism needs to be dragged into the street and sliced open with their own tape measure.
It’s too short, too tight, and has the structural integrity of a wet paper bag.
I’ve pulled the straps up more times than I’ve blinked tonight.
Every time they slip, the neckline threatens to show the world my slightly larger-than-mosquito-bite-sized titties.
The club is packed tonight with sweaty bodies and the stench of overpriced cologne and VIP drunk assholes who think tipping twenty-two percent means I owe them my soul. One room specifically requested “the pretty redhead.” Lucky me.
Men like that want two things:
Something warm to sink into.
Something pretty enough to make them feel like kings.
And because I can at least do one of those things, I stuff my sad excuse for tits into this dress, smear on the brightest red lipstick I can find, and slap on a smile.
Sell the fantasy .
Fake it like I don’t loathe every second.
I smile when Penny passes me the Grey Goose bottle.
She doesn’t say anything, already elbow-deep in shaking a martini for a bachelorette party that’s three tequilas past dignity.
Jalon gives me a half-smirk, half-nod from the dish station.
Both of them know I’m about to go back into the lion’s den and he’s low-key hoping I may decide tonight is the night to stab a motherfucker in the neck with a bottle opener.
With my tray balanced, a bottle nestled in crushed ice, I make my way upstairs. The bouncer doesn’t even glance at me. He’s too busy arguing with a girl crying into a phone—something about how her boyfriend left with the car keys.
I slip into the VIP section and into room three.
Ringleader sits at the center, tanned from the Miami beaches, blazer open just enough to give a hint at his chest hair. He spots me and immediately lights up. “There she is!” he calls. “The pretty redhead herself!”
Jesus. Original.
I paste on the smile. “Gentlemen,” I say, sliding the tray onto the low table. “Your Grey Goose, as requested.”
Stocky Guy leans back in the booth, his eyes dragging over me like molasses. “We were just saying this party needed a little more . . . sexy.”
He thinks he’s charming, and that I haven’t heard that same line five hundred times from five hundred mouths I wanted to break. I pop the cork with a flick and focus on my pour, counting the seconds until the liquor is just shy of the rim.
A hand brushes my waist, causing me to shift slightly before the hand retreats. “Careful,” I say, like arsenic-laced syrup.
The third guy with them laughs as if my tone is flirtatious, but the only thing I’m attracted to is the Amex peeking out from his wallet as he leans forward to grab the tumbler I just poured for him.
It would be so easy to sit on his lap, get him good and buzzed, then take the wallet.
I could be halfway to somewhere new by morning.
“Relax,” Stocky Guy says, smirking. “My friend’s just being friendly.” His gold chain swings as he leans forward. It would take one simple lap dance to steal the necklace without him noticing. He’s shitfaced.
“You’re working too hard. Have a drink,” Mr. Handsy purrs.
I move to pour another drink, but his fingers ghost over my hip again, and bile climbs the back of my throat. “I’ve got a lot of customers to keep happy,” I say tightly, setting the bottle down before I put it through his eye socket.
Wildcard leans in, his hand touching the back of my thigh. “Don’t be such a tease.”
“Oh, I’m not teasing, I’m working. Big difference.” With my fingers clenching the tray, I turn to leave, their eyes burning into my ass through the sheer fabric of my dress.
Someone whistles.
Another mutters something about my legs.
Their laughter follows me down the stairs.
The bass devours their words as I hit the floor again, but the anger stays—crawling under my skin. I want a cigarette. I want to black out. I want to disappear.
“Spraying Icy Hot before my shift did nothing. TikTok lied, yet again!”
Penny laughs at me as she wipes down the counter. Jalon’s loading glassware into the dishwasher while I’m slumped on a stool, clutching my last ten functioning brain cells, and counting tips. Twenties. Hundreds. Stack neat. Break off a cut for Penny and Jalon. They earned it.
Until I see Anthony stumbling down the stairs, his loud and cocky laugh floating down with him. The sound grates my nerves.
He’s drunk off of his family’s money and whatever powder he snorted between shots tonight. His hair his slicked back like he recently went to the restroom to run water through it to clean himself up after most likely fucking some new bartender in the back.
I mean . . . I get it. The man is built like a Greek god and I was also a na?ve girl who fell for his charm. In his eyes, I’m still that girl.
His girl.
“Bindi!” he yells, spreading his arms wide, as if I’m supposed to run into them. “Baby girl, come home with me tonight!” His words are sloppy and even through his tanned skin I can see the pink flush of his cheeks from the liquor.
“No, thanks,” I say flatly, sweeping my tips off the counter and into my bag.
He stumbles closer, eyes glassy and mean, pupils blown wide. He’s sweating through his designer shirt, top buttons undone like he thinks anyone wants to see the patch of chest hair he probably trims with a fucking pair of scissors he shares with his ego.
“C’mon, Bindi. You don’t really wanna go home with that faggot bodyguard of my cousins’s—what’s his name? Justin? Jason?”
My eyes close with a sharp intake of breath as I try to clear the amount of red that fills my vision. Yep. Nope. I can’t quell this. I rip off one of my heels and hurl it directly at his smug face, but the bastard dodges it.
“Jordyn,” I snap. “And say that word again, I fucking dare you.”
Anthony grins wider. “What? I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking. You spend every night in that queer’s apartment, parading around in his shirts like his little pet. Are you seriously telling me you’d rather cuddle with him than crawl into bed with me?”
I raise the other shoe. I’m barefoot now, on this nasty-ass floor. My chest heaves, fists curled.
“Come on, babygirl.” He reaches out, grabbing my hips and pulling me flush against him. “You know I fuck better than he ever could.”
I shove him—hard—causing him to stumble back, stunned, blinking like he can’t process that I pushed him away in such an aggressive way.
His eyes turn dark, then he charges toward me.
His hand snaps out and wraps around my throat.
The air leaves my lungs in a sharp wheeze as my back slams against the edge of the bar.
There’s a startled gasp from Penny behind me, but the metal rail digging into my spine causes pain to bloom, drowning out her protests toward Anthony’s outburst.
It’s fine, Penny. I can handle this.
He leans in, breath hot, lips near my ear. “You think you can touch me? You think you can embarrass me in front of everyone?” His grip tightens. The room starts to spin as the blood flow to my brain becomes restricted. “I own you, Bindi. Don’t fuck with me.”
Someone clears their throat. Anthony freezes and his hand loosens and eventually drops me.
The co-owner of Santoro’s, Dacre, is walking down the stairs with his partner Alina.
She has a look of concern in her blue eyes, but I look at the ground quickly to avoid her seeing any bit of fear in my eyes.
He leans on the banister, one brow raised.
Hands in his pockets, he asks, “The fuck are you doing?”
Anthony straightens, sneering to cover his stumble. “She’s got an attitude problem. Disrespecting her boss . . . or whatever.”
Alina whispers something into Dacre’s ear and he nods then rolls his eyes. “We told you that you weren’t allowed to manage the bottle girls. Alina will handle them from now on.”
“Dacre . . . cousin . . . You and I both know that she doesn’t know how to run things?—”
“Get out, Anthony, before I call Dimitri.”
Anthony glares at me one last time, something feral flashing in his eyes. For a second, just one, I think he might hit me again. His nostrils flare. His fists twitch at his sides.
“Bitch.”
“Rot in it,” I spit.
He turns and storms off, shoulders tense, muttering curses under his breath.
Dacre descends the remaining stairs and walks over to me. “You good?”
I nod, even though I’m not .
“Jalon, take her home.”
Great. Babysitter time. Because nothing says independence like needing an armed escort just to get from Point A to Point B without being manhandled by your sleazeball ex-situationship with rage issues.
I don’t argue, though. Dacre gives an order? You follow it. Even if it’s stupid. Even if you’re bleeding pride and humiliation all over the floor. Even if what you really want to do is scream.
Anthony’s voice still rattles around in my skull like a bat in a cage. Along with that smug snarl of his, the way he said babygirl , like it was still his to use. Like I was still his to use.
My throat stings where he held me, my pulse point throbbing against the bruises that haven’t bloomed yet, but I can feel fingerprints ghosting in the shape of his ownership.
Jalon’s already grabbing his keys from under the bar, his jaw tight, eyes flicking to me.
Penny slides a water bottle across the bar and flashes me a smile—that knowing one that all women understand. The one that says, men are trash .
Dacre doesn’t move—doesn’t speak again—just watches me as I follow Jalon out of the bar.
Dacre Santoro is . . . different.
He’s not like the other Santoro men I’ve met. He’s silent, still, always watching those around him. His baby-blue eyes track every breath I take, like his mind is filing every movement I make into some hidden ledger to use at a later time. He’s not arrogant, he knows his place in the hierarchy.
People don’t talk about him like they do Anthony.
There’s no trail of scandal, no tabloid fodder, no club fights gone viral.
He’s quiet and precise with both words and actions, but I’ve seen what happens when someone crosses him.
He never shouts, or puffs out his chest, waving threats around like confetti.
He just acts. And when Dacre does? People disappear.
He’s the youngest Santoro brother—the quiet one. The one Luciana Santoro begged her husband to adopt after her lover was murdered. Rumor is, her husband pulled the trigger and gave her Dacre as some fucked-up sympathy prize.
Jalon takes me back home without much talking, which I’m thankful for.
Everyone knows Anthony treats me like I’m something to possess and how much I despise it.
Dimitri, the owner of Santoro’s, even sees it, and one time he pulled a gun on Anthony for slapping my ass as I walked by.
So now Anthony tries to hide it as much as he can.
If I could ever get rid of the leech that is Anthony, maybe I could find someone that could look at me like I’m more than just a pawn in their games. But men? They just want to claim, own, and destroy. Always wanting something in return for a sliver of their affection.
And the shittiest part is . . .
I always give in.