Chapter One
Diana
“I don’t like this,” my father said, looking around my new home for the next four years as my mom helped me make my bed. “She’s too close.”
“She will be fine, Lucas.” My mom sighed. “Diana is a smart girl. She knows the rules. She won’t do anything stupid.”
“Mom’s right, Dad,” I said, walking over to the hulking man who stubbornly refused to look at me.
“Dad, please understand. I love you. I love you all, I really do, but I can’t take a piss in Texas without one of the club brothers breathing down my neck.
The brothers watch me twenty-four seven.
They’ve run off every boy I’ve ever liked. ”
“They weren’t good enough.”
Rolling my eyes, I groaned. “I’m allowed to have a life, Dad.”
“Not this damn close to them, you’re not!” my father roared. Mom rushed over, wrapping her arms around the larger-than-life man who’d been my protector, my confidant, my hero my entire life.
“Lucas. We agreed. It was NYU in New York or Berkeley in California. You said NYU would be safer with everything currently going on. Now go give your daughter a hug goodbye.”
Grumbling, my father walked over to me and sighed. “You remember everything me and the boys taught you. Any sign of trouble, you run. Don’t ask questions, just run.”
“I remember, Dad. And there won’t be any problems. I promise.”
“And never go out without your gun or phone in your purse. Keep your phone charged at all times and carry an extra clip in your bag. And cash. Don’t forget to stick two hundred in your shoes.
I mean it, Diana. That money will make the difference between sleeping on the streets or in a motel.
At the first sign of trouble, you run and call when it’s safe. ”
“Jesus, Dad,” I huffed. “It’s only college.”
He shook his head, his jaw clenched, eyes glistening with a storm that he refused to let fall. “Maybe for you, but not for me. Your world’s about to get a lot bigger, Diana. I can’t protect you from everything out there.”
I reached up and squeezed his calloused hand, feeling the tremor beneath the bravado. “I know, Dad. But you taught me how to protect myself. All of you did.”
A silence stretched between us, thick with unspoken words and the weight of all his fears. Finally, he pulled me into a crushing hug, the kind that smelled of leather and motor oil and old cologne. The kind that had always made the world feel safe.
“Promise me, baby girl,” he whispered against my hair, voice breaking in spite of himself. “Promise me you’ll come home.”
I nodded, my own throat tight. “I promise, Dad.”
“Oh! I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”
Releasing my dad, I turned and smiled at the young girl standing in the doorway. Walking over to her, I greeted her. “Hi. I’m Diana Cooper. You must be Angelica Morales, my roommate.”
December 2002...
“Come on, Diana.” Angelica sighed as I walked out of the bathroom. “You’ve been couped up on this campus since school started. You’ve studied enough. If you don’t know it by now, you never will. Let’s go out and have some fun.”
“I can’t,” I replied. “I’ve got my Romeo and Juliet paper due next week for English Lit. It’s twenty-five percent of my grade, and I have my final in algebra I need to prepare for.”
“Oh, please,” my best friend groaned, throwing herself back on her bed in dramatic fashion.
“You can recite that stupid book in your sleep. Romeo and Juliet were idiots. They killed themselves instead of playing the field. I say, take the night off and live a little before you end up just like them.”
“I’d have to be in love to end up like them, Angelica.”
“Exactly!” She chuckled, jumping from the bed. “And that’s never gonna happen if you stay locked up in this room and don’t experience life. There is a big city out there just waiting for us to venture out into it.”
The city. The thought sent a shiver equal parts excitement and terror down my spine.
I glanced around our little dorm room—the clutter of textbooks, half-empty coffee cups, Angelica’s neon scarves draped over the backs of chairs.
Beyond our window, the city lights pulsed in the dusk, promising chaos and possibility in equal measure.
Angelica caught my hesitation, her eyes lighting up. “C’mon, Diana. One night. No tragic endings, I swear. Just cheap pizza, terrible music, and maybe a little harmless trouble.”
I hesitated, fingers twisting the edge of my notebook.
Dad’s words echoed in my mind, heavy and warm.
Come home. Be safe. But Angelica was grinning at me like the very idea of staying in was impossible, and some wild, unfamiliar part of me wanted to know what might happen if—for just one night—I said yes to something reckless.
I closed my laptop and squared my shoulders. “Okay, one night. But if I end up on a milk carton, it’s your fault.”
Angelica squealed, already pulling on her boots. “Deal. Now hurry up before you change your mind!” She tossed me my jacket, her laughter bouncing around the room like sunlight through an open window.
An hour later, I was sitting at a table watching Angelica laugh and dance with anyone she could find.
The girl had more energy than a jackrabbit.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep up.
Nor did I want to. What I wanted to do was head back to the dorm and get a head start on my Lit paper.
I wasn’t lying when I told her that paper was twenty-five percent of my grade.
Unlike Angelica, I didn’t have the luxury of partying my college years away.
While my parents agreed to pay for my schooling, they demanded straight A’s, and while I was a decent student, I was struggling in math.
The one class I always had a problem with, and this time, I didn’t have my brother Kane to help me.
No, I was on my own. I had already taken a portion of my spending money and hired a tutor to help me understand the logistics of algebra, but I might as well be learning a different language.
The music thumped through the sticky floor and up my legs, vibrating in my bones.
I watched the swirl of bodies, half-dazzled by the neon flashes and half-wishing I could disappear into the wallpaper.
Angelica was a comet, blazing through the crowd, and I was some satellite orbiting her joy, always slightly out of reach.
A guy with a lopsided smile leaned over, trying to catch my eye. “You look like you’re calculating quantum physics,” he said, shouting above the din.
I snorted. “Just the probability of me passing my next algebra test.”
He grinned, undeterred. “Well, hope you solve for X tonight.” Then he was gone, swept away by the current of students dancing, living, not worrying about variables or grades or what their parents expected.
I chewed my lip, glancing at my phone. The minutes ticked by, each one carrying me further from my comfort zone.
Angelica rushed over, cheeks flushed, eyes wild. “Are you having fun yet?” she demanded, pressing a slice of greasy pizza into my hands.
I took a bite, trying to taste what she tasted—the freedom, the recklessness, the promise of something new. Maybe this is what college was supposed to be: not just surviving, but living. And maybe, for just one night, that was enough.
“Wanna go with me to a private club?”
Sighing, I shook my head. “No. I need to head back.”
“Oh, come on, Diana,” she whined. “We agreed on a night of fun.”
“Fine, but after you have to help me study for my algebra test.”
“Deal!” she smiled, grabbing my arm as she rushed me from the club and onto the next.
After hailing a cab, I frowned as it pulled up in front of a large black building. The line waiting to get inside wrapped around the block.
“The Gentlemen’s Club?” I muttered as Angelica paid the cabbie his fare.
“Yep.” She smiled, reaching into her purse for a tube of lipstick. “It’s the most exclusive and private club in New York City.”
“How did you learn about this place?” I asked as she opened the back door. She just winked but said nothing as she grabbed my hand and yanked me from the cab.
Inside, the air buzzed with an energy different from anywhere else we’d been—velvet ropes, dim golden lights, laughter echoing off marble floors. The bouncers eyed our IDs with the skepticism of seasoned gatekeepers, but Angelica’s confidence carried us through.
The crowd inside was a tapestry of velvet gowns and tailored suits, the music a heartbeat too high for comfort, and every table seemed to be a world unto itself. Angelica led me past couples murmuring over glasses of something sparkling, past a spiral staircase that twisted upward into shadow.
“Relax,” she whispered, sensing my hesitation as we found a table near the back, half-hidden by a curtain of orchids. “Tonight, there are no study groups, no tests to worry about. Just fun.”
I wanted to protest, to remind her about algebra and tests and all the rules that kept my world spinning straight. But the thrill of anonymity shimmered in the air, and I let myself dissolve into the possibility of a night without boundaries.
I said nothing as an older man walked over to the table and greeted Angelica. “Angie! What are you doing here?”
Jumping up, she hugged the older man. “Hey, Barney. I brought you someone new.”
“Really?” The old man smiled, then looked at me.
Extending his hand, he said, “I’m Barney, the owner. Welcome to the Gentlemen’s Club.”
Shaking his hand, I muttered, “Diana Cooper.”
“Freshman?”
I nodded, looking at Angelica, who beamed happily. “Barney, Diana needs to loosen up a bit. She studies way too much, and she’s missing out on life. You got room for one more?”
“I don’t know, Angie,” Barney said, taking a better look at me. “She doesn’t seem like my other girls.”
Angelica threw her head back and laughed before leaning toward Barney and whispering something in his ear. The second she said whatever she told him, I watched the man’s eyes widen as he grinned.
“Well, that changes everything,” he muttered, then reached into his coat for a business card. Handing it to me, he said, “I always have a need for more beautiful girls.”
Confused, I said nothing, but took his card.
Had I known what it meant to work for Barney, I would have stayed in my dorm room and studied.