Chapter Three
Morena
The apartment was always too quiet when I came home.
I stood in the dark kitchen with the collar around my throat because taking it off felt like more effort than leaving it on.
The lace outfit Dario made me wear was shoved into a plastic bag by the door.
I would wash it in the sink tomorrow the way I always did.
The same black lace. The same thin straps that dug into my shoulders.
The same empty look in the mirror before every shift.
Twenty-one days. I had been eighteen for three weeks and already felt a hundred.
Twenty-one days of Dario making me work at After Dark, of the soft watches I could feel but never see, of photos that arrived later and later each night.
The apartment still smelled like the neighbor’s cigarettes.
The mattress was still on the floor. The only difference was the collar that never came off and Dario taking the life right out of me.
The only thing keeping me alive was Camilla, and the promise I made to Mama to protect her.
I filled a glass with tap water and drank it standing at the sink. My feet ached. My lower back ached. None of it mattered.
The door opened without a knock. Dario stepped in holding his phone like a weapon. He didn’t bother with hello. “New photo. Look.”
I took the phone. Camilla sat on a bare floor, thinner than the last picture, holding a half-eaten apple. Her eyes were flat.
“She’s still breathing,” Dario said. “That’s the only update you get until the numbers improve. And they better improve. Remember, Morena. I got big plans for you. Numbers don’t improve, you don’t make money. You don’t make money, you don’t see Camilla.”
I handed the phone back. My voice came out flat, almost bored. “I’ll dance. I’ll hand over the money. Anything else?”
He studied my face for a second, then smirked. “That’s better. Dead eyes are easier to work with.”
Later, sleep came in thin, restless scraps. I dreamed of small hands and the sound of Camilla saying my name the way she used to, soft and certain. When I woke the sheets were twisted and my face was wet. I did not remember crying. Night came again, the way it always did.
I arrived at After Dark through the staff entrance and went straight to the small changing room the newer girls shared.
The air smelled like body spray and nerves.
I stripped without looking at the other women.
Looking invited conversation, and conversation invited questions I could not answer.
I pulled the black lace on, and checked my reflection only long enough to make sure nothing was out of place.
Dario noticed when things were out of place.
The main floor was filling when I stepped out.
Amber light. Low music. The soft clink of glasses and the quieter sound of money changing hands.
I kept my eyes down the way I had been taught and moved toward the secondary stage.
The one for girls who were new enough to draw curiosity but not important enough for the main spotlight.
That weight. The same one that had followed me for weeks.
It sat between my shoulder blades. Not the usual hungry stares.
Those were easy to ignore. This one was different.
Focused. Patient. It did not feel like a man deciding whether he wanted to buy a few minutes of my time.
It felt like a man who had decided something much larger.
I climbed the three steps onto the stage and let the music take over. My body knew the movements now. Slow roll of the hips. Arms lifted just high enough. Chin tilted down. I had learned how to look available without looking eager. Available earned money. Eager invited the wrong kind of attention.
The presence stayed. I should have been terrified of it. Instead a small, stupid part of me wondered if the man in the shadows was the only one in this building who saw the collar and still looked at the girl underneath it.
I crushed the thought. Hope was how girls like me got broken worse.
I let my gaze travel the edges of the room the way I sometimes did when the feeling got too strong.
Most faces blurred together. Masks. Expensive watches.
Hands that had hurt people and would again.
Then, near the far column that stayed in shadow even when the lights shifted, I found him.
The man from before. I had only seen him clearly once.
A week ago. Maybe longer. Time moved strangely in the club.
But the memory stayed sharp. He was very tall.
Broader through the shoulders than most of the men who came here.
Dark hair that looked almost black under the amber lights.
A face that belonged on someone who never had to ask for anything twice.
Sharp jaw. Mouth set in a line that could have been boredom or restraint.
Tattoos covered the backs of his hands and climbed his forearms where his sleeves were rolled.
More ink showed above his shirt, dark shapes against the side of his neck.
He was handsome in a way that felt unfair, almost. Not soft. Not approachable. The kind of handsome that made the air feel thinner. Scary in the quiet way. The way a held breath was scary. The way a locked door was scary when you were on the wrong side of it.
He was watching me. Not the way the others watched.
They looked at the lace and the skin and the performance.
He looked like he was taking something apart in his mind and putting it back together differently.
My stomach dropped. Heat that had nothing to do with the lights that crawled up the back of my neck.
I looked away first. My heart was beating too fast for the slow song playing.
I finished the set without looking in his direction again.
When I stepped off the stage my legs felt unsteady.
I collected the tips that had been left on the edge of the stage, kept my face blank, and moved toward the small hallway that led to the changing room.
The presence followed. I did not turn around to confirm it, I just knew.
I used to love the way my body felt when I danced for no one.
Not for money. Not for survival. Just the stretch through my spine, the clean line of an arabesque, the second the music and my breath matched.
That girl felt very far away now. Sometimes I wondered if she had died in the same restaurant as Papa.
Other nights I thought she was still in there somewhere, waiting for the collar to come off long enough to breathe.
I crushed the thought the same way I crushed everything else that wasn’t useful for survival.
Dario was waiting near the staff door at the end of the night.
He always timed it that way. Close enough to the end of my last set that I had the flush of performance on my skin.
Far enough from the main floor that no one important would see him handling his property.
He held out his hand. I put the folded bills in it without being asked. He counted in front of me, lips moving slightly, then nodded once.
“Better,” he said. “You’re learning.”
I said nothing. Talking gave him more to work with. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned the screen toward me.
“Your sister is fine,” he said. “Eating. Sleeping. Doesn’t ask about you much anymore.”
He watched my face, feeding on whatever he found there. “I make sure she gets treats. Keeps her quiet. Keeps her happy. You should be grateful I’m not the kind of man who lets a kid go hungry.”
He was lying. I could feel it in the careful way he chose the words, in the too-bright satisfaction in his eyes. But the photo showed her eating. More importantly, the photo showed her smiling. It was the only proof I had that Camilla was alive.
“Keep the numbers up and maybe next month you get a call. A real one,” Dario smirked. “Her voice. Would you like that?”
I stared until my eyes burned. Dario let me have five full seconds before he turned the phone away and locked it. My throat closed. I nodded once.
“Use your words.”
“Yes,” I said. The word came out rough. “I would like that.”
He watched my face while he said it. Looking for the flinch. I gave him nothing. Or tried to. He smiled, satisfied, and patted my cheek the same way he had the night he took her. The gesture made my skin crawl. “Good girl. Go home. Sleep. You’re back tomorrow.”
I left through the staff door and walked the six blocks to the apartment because the bus felt like too many people and too much noise.
The city was cold. My coat did not close properly over the bag with the lace outfit.
I kept my head down and my keys between my fingers the way I had learned years ago.
The presence stayed with me the whole way.
Not footsteps. Not a shape in the reflections of dark windows.
Just the same heavy awareness that I was being observed by something that did not need to get close to make itself known.
By the time I reached my building, my pulse was thrumming in my throat.
I took the stairs two at a time, locked the door behind me, and stood with my back against the rackety door until my breathing slowed.
I had no explanation why the tall man with the tattoos and the quiet stare had looked at me like he knew the ending of a story I was trapped inside. It certainly didn’t feel like a happy ending.
I peeled the offensive collar off my neck and set it on the edge of the sink.
Red marks circled my throat. I pressed my fingers to them until they hurt in a way I controlled.
Then I showered under water that never got properly hot, pulled on an old grey sweatshirt that smelled faintly of the detergent I used when Camilla lived here, and lay down on the threadbare mattress in the dark.
Sleep felt far away.