Chapter Fifteen Joshua
Chapter Fifteen
Joshua
We pulled up to the club, neon lights spilling across the sidewalk, bass thumping through the walls. The line outside parted the second the bouncer clocked us. He let us through.
Inside, it was worse. Dim lights. Perfume thick in the air. Men’s laughter too loud, too eager.
Alex froze first. His hand came up to grip my arm. “Holy fuck. Tell me I’m seeing shit.”
I followed his gaze.
Aurora.
A tray balanced in her hands as she weaved through the crowd. My fists curled so tight at the sight that my nails bit deep into my palms.
Before either of us could say anything else, the manager appeared, wiping sweat from his brow as his eyes widened. “Mr Lockhart, Mr Grayson—welcome, welcome. Right this way.” He practically bowed as he led us upstairs, into a private VIP booth with leather seats and a perfect view of the floor.
“What would you like tonight?” he asked, smiling nervously.
My jaw flexed. “Aurora.”
The name came out flat, leaving no room for argument.
The manager blinked, startled. “Oh—ah—of course, sir. The… Mute Angel?”
Everything inside me went still.
Next to me, Alex straightened, his face twisting like he’d just heard something rotten. “The what?”
The manager’s smile faltered. His Adam’s apple bobbed as his eyes darted between us. “It’s—it’s what the customers like to call her. You know, she’s… quiet. Mysterious. They also call her Silent Doll, Pretty Prop—”
The plastic menus on the table cracked under my grip.
They made her a fucking thing. An object. A prize to toss money at. My girl.
The manager swallowed hard, clearly realising the temperature in the room had dropped ten degrees. “I’ll, um—I’ll fetch her right away.”
He scurried off, leaving the weight of that name behind him.
Mute Angel.
I wanted to burn the whole place down.
And then she appeared.
Tray hugged tight to her chest, eyes wide, face pale as if she was already one breath away from breaking. Her gaze flickered from me to Alex, back to me, panic written in every line of her body.
Because this wasn’t some stranger seeing her like this. This was us. University. Class. Her secret life was bleeding into the world she fought so hard to keep separate.
Aurora looked like she was on the edge of shattering. And I was right there with her. They turned her into something men threw money at, like she wasn’t real. Like she was a decoration.
And then I saw it. Down below, men waving bills, shoving them high into the air. Cash fluttering like bait. Their mouths open, laughing, shouting, trying to catch her attention.
Alex cocked an eyebrow beside me. “They must be looking for her.”
I didn’t need to look at her to know it was true. I could feel it. Her shoulders had gone stiff, her hands tightening around her tray like she was holding herself together. She didn’t even have to say anything; her silence was the confirmation.
This wasn’t new. This had been happening. For how long? How many nights had she been forced to watch vultures wave money like she was a fucking toy?
The fury didn’t just burn; it scared me. What had she been through? What had she put up with in order to keep her job, her rent, her life running?
“Drinks,” I bit out. My voice was sharp, cutting through the heavy bass pounding from the speakers.
Her wide eyes flicked to mine.
“The best,” I added. “The most expensive you’ve got.”
She blinked once, then scrambled for her notepad, writing in quick, neat strokes. If throwing away my money meant buying her time, buying her safety, then so fucking be it.
She gave a quick nod, clutching the pad to her chest like a lifeline before spinning on her heel. Running. Actually running in those ridiculous heels, tray nearly slipping as she vanished into the crowd. I watched her go, something raw and ugly twisting in my chest.
Next to me, Alex let out a low whistle. “Her shirt’s so tight it’s practically painted on. You see how low those buttons are? Her tits are—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I didn’t need Alex narrating what I already saw, what I couldn’t fucking unsee. Every curve on display. Every inch of her body offered to eyes that didn’t deserve to look.
It should have been for my eyes only. But it fucking wasn’t. Every part of her I’ve been patiently waiting for… everyone else gets first.
Voice. Alex.
Smile. Miles.
Body. Fucking creeps.
I can never win. I just end up getting burned over and over again.
From up in the booth, I couldn’t stop watching her. She was trying. God, she was trying so hard. Tray balanced, that polite little smile plastered across her face like armour. But men kept leaning in, kept stopping her path.
One grabbed her wrist, another brushed his hand around her waist, and another blocked her way with a lazy arm. And she let them. Not because she wanted to, but because she had to.
The drinks came late. I knew it wasn’t her fault. She’d been caught in that hellhole of hands, forced to manoeuvre through like prey dodging predators.
When she finally appeared on the stairs, climbing back up, I felt my jaw unclench just a fraction. She made it.
But then she knelt.
Knees to the ground, tray set carefully at our table, each bottle placed with precision.
Her hands trembled as she gripped the edge of the table, her shoulders rising and falling too fast. She didn’t look at me.
Didn’t look at Alex. She stared at her knees, breaths shallow, like she just run a marathon.
“Jesus Christ,” Alex muttered under his breath. For once, even he wasn’t smirking.
I clenched my fists under the table. Every instinct screamed at me to stand up, go downstairs, and make sure none of those fuckers ever had hands to grab her with again.
But she was already here. Already kneeling in front of me. Already broken by a night I couldn’t fix. I couldn’t do anything about it…
The manager appeared at the edge of the booth, hesitant, like he already knew what kind of reaction he’d get. “Sir,” he said carefully, eyes flicking to me, then Alex, then back down at Aurora. “Customers are asking for her. They’d like—”
“They can want all they fucking want,” Alex cut in, leaning back with a scoff. “She’s not going anywhere.”
The manager blinked, startled. I leaned forward, voice low, final. “I’ll pay whatever you want. Thousands if I have to. She stays here. With us. We want her company.”
The manager looked stunned, like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Because that wasn’t how this place worked. Men fought for her, requested her, tipped her obscene amounts just for a drink and a smile. But no one had ever dropped a fortune just to keep her away from the crowd.
The manager swallowed hard, nodding quickly. “I’ll… I’ll inform them she’s unavailable.” And then he scurried off, leaving her where she was, still on the floor, trembling, clutching the edge of the table like it was the only solid thing left in the world.
“Up,” Alex said, softer than I’d ever heard him. He jerked his chin toward the couch. “Go sit. Take a breath.”
She obeyed, slow and hesitant, tugging the tray with her like a shield. She lowered herself onto the couch across from us, tray balanced on her lap. The sight of her bare legs, her skirt riding up, had my chest tightening again.
Without thinking, I shrugged out of my jacket and tossed it across the table. It landed right in her lap.
“Cover yourself,” I said.
She blinked, startled, but her hands closed around it instantly, dragging it down over her thighs like she’d been waiting for permission to hide. Her knuckles stayed white around the fabric, holding on like it was her lifeline.
“And your shirt,” I added. My voice came out rougher than I intended. “Button it.”
Her cheeks flushed, embarrassed, but she nodded. With shaky fingers, she worked each button, all the way up to her collar, until she wasn’t on display anymore. Finally—finally—she looked like she could breathe again.
I slid a bottle of water across the table. “Drink.”
Her hands shook so badly the cap nearly slipped from her grip. But she managed, tipping the bottle to her lips, gulping down slow, uneven sips. Watching her, I felt my chest ease for the first time all night. Because she was calming down, inch by inch. Because she wasn’t down there anymore.
And I wasn’t moving until I was sure she’d stopped shaking. Alex, of all people, didn’t complain either. At first, he hadn’t wanted to come out tonight at all. But now? He leaned back, eyes flicking between her and me, his expression tighter than usual.
Aurora didn’t belong here. I knew it, and Alex knew it. Not in this place. Not in that uniform. Not with men clawing at her like she was a prize. She was too pure for this. Too soft. Too goddamn innocent.
“When does your shift end?” I asked, eyes still on her.
Her hands lifted again, small and shaky this time. She put two of her index fingers next to each other. Eleven.
“Then we’ll stay until eleven.”
The words left my mouth before I could think about them.
And what killed me wasn’t that she argued.
It was that she didn’t. She didn’t lift her hands to push me away.
She just… stayed quiet. Small. Like the thought of us leaving terrified her more than keeping us here. And that—that split me in half.
She doesn’t like me. She’s made that clear enough. Half the time, she won’t even look me in the eye, and when she does, it’s usually timid. She thinks I hate her. Maybe she’s right.
But tonight? She didn’t stop me. Didn’t stop us.
Before I could think twice, I pulled my phone out and leaned over, placing it in her lap. Her head jerked up like I’d just thrown her a grenade.
“Pin’s 0-8-0-8,” I muttered.
Her eyes widened, confusion flickering there. I didn’t explain. I didn’t need to. August eighth. My birthday. If she remembered later, fine. If not, whatever. It was probably a one-time thing, anyway.
“Use it. Scroll. Whatever. Use it as a distraction.”
For a second, she didn’t move. Just stared down at the black screen, her hand hovering like she was afraid to touch it. Then, finally, her trembling fingers pressed against the glass, slow, careful, like it might shatter under her skin.
The numbers lit up. Wrong once. Then right.
Unlocked.
She exhaled, so soft I barely caught it and started scrolling. Aimless. Just flicking through my apps like the motion itself was enough to calm her.
Her shoulders dropped, just a fraction. The way her hands still shook, but not as violently now that she had something to hold on to.
The way her eyes stayed glued to the screen, refusing to look out at the men in the crowd as if she did, it’d all cave in again. She wasn’t bored. She was surviving. And my phone, my stupid, replaceable phone, was the rope she was clinging to. So I let her.
And while Alex and I talked about nothing, I kept glancing over, watching her small frame sink into the couch, watching her chest rise and fall like she was finally catching her breath.
It made something tighten in my chest. Because it shouldn’t take me handing over my life in a device to make her feel safe. She should’ve been safe the second she walked into this place. But she wasn’t. Not until now.
—
It hit 10:54 p.m., and I told Alex we were leaving. He didn’t argue, probably because he was already a couple of drinks in, a lazy grin plastered on his face. I drove. Didn’t touch a drop all night. Didn’t need to. Not when the whole point of tonight wasn’t drinking. It was her.
The bill was disgusting. Thousands on shots I didn’t even sip, bottles Alex barely touched. But I’d ordered them anyway. An excuse. A cover. A way to tip her what she deserved without making it obvious. So I signed the slip, scrawled the tip line: 100 per cent. Cash.
Thousands more. Straight into her pocket. And that was after what I paid the manager to keep her upstairs. After the buyout, just to make sure no one else got to put their hands on her.
After all of it, I still felt like it wasn’t enough. She deserved more. Way more than cash. More than numbers written on slips of paper. But it was all I could give her tonight.
When I glanced back before leaving, I glimpsed her heading toward the back, shoulders tense as she disappeared into staff corridors.
Alex said something as we walked out, some half-assed comment about the night, but I barely heard him. My head was still in that upstairs booth, watching her tug my jacket over her lap, hands trembling while she tried to breathe.
My battery was down to nothing; she’d been on it for hours. And on the screen? New icons I didn’t recognise.
Games. Little colouring apps. Puzzle blocks. Kids’ shit, bright colours and soft music. She’d downloaded five of them. Five. And I pictured her, shoulders shaking, hands trembling, clinging to my phone like it was a lifeline, opening these stupid, mindless games just to keep herself grounded.
I should’ve deleted them. They weren’t mine. But instead, I pressed down, dragged them into a folder, typed in her name. Aurora. A small, glowing box on my screen. Her space.
This is all I could give her after being an asshole. After breaking her down. A folder with her name. A night of money thrown like armour around her. It wasn’t enough. Not even close. But it was all I had.