Chapter 29 #3
“You know why.”
Gianna shook her head quickly. “Fuck you!” She grimaced. “I’m not fucking doing any of this shit, and you can’t fucking make me!”
“I can and I will. It’s already set up. Someone will pick you up in the morning, take you here, and bring you back home at night. Your phone calls will be monitored. Your browsing history. Your emails, texts, everything. You’ll do this for six months. Or the strip club. You decide.”
Gianna placed her elbows on the table and dropped her face in her hands, sobbing again. I gave her the time she needed to let it all out, wondering why she was crying now and not when she altered the course of people’s lives.
“There’s always the third option—I take you out into the middle of the ocean and shoot you in your fucking ugly heart.”
Gianna wailed again. “W-what did I ever do to you?! I l-loved you! I loved you with all my heart! All I wanted was for you to b—”
“Shut up, Gianna. I don’t want to hear your shit. You’re going to make the decision or do you want me to decide for you?”
Gianna cried. She cried and cried, unable to stop, powerless to pull herself together. “Who—who are you? Why’re you doing this?” Gianna repeated, like the answer would make her understand anything.
“You took something very important from me.” I breathed in deeply, stopping myself from exploding. “You fucked something up so colossally—” Gianna’s cried out eyes looked up at me then, as if realizing.
But she didn’t fucking realize shit. She was too dense, too spoiled, too fucking self-involved to understand the consequences of her actions.
“And I want you to fucking pay. You said you’d go to the cops because I abused you?
” I leaned in suddenly and Gianna jerked back, her face all red.
“Well…you’ll see the real thing now. You’ll volunteer here and listen to the stories of these women.
” I lowered my voice, making sure she heard me.
“And you will do anything Marilyn tells you—I paid her enough to make sure she keeps an eye on you. She tells you to clean toilets? You do it. She tells you to stay overtime? You do it. She tells you to sit here and take notes on how these poor women and children were battered? You fucking do it.”
I opened the file and inhaled again, walking myself back from the edge.
The six-month volunteer contract was already filled out with her information. “Sign on the last page. Or I’ll take you back to the strip club and you can start tonight.”
Gianna shook in the seat, her sobs echoing in the small room. I waited. Watched her pain and waited.
She reached for the pen, but then slumped over the file, trying to say something. It was incoherent and I wasn’t interested in deciphering it. She took a minute to compose herself and then signed on the last page with a trembling hand, just as my patience was about to run out.
“Good. The man assigned to you is named Alexei. He’s a contract killer in Russia, but he’s taking a break here in sunny Miami.”
I chuckled at the shock in her eyes but was so ready to get out of there and never see her again.
“He reports directly to me. He’ll pick you up at seven in the morning, Monday to Friday. You work until six in the evening. No pay. You get your weekends off. You can continue your influencer shit in the meantime, but…remember—” I shook my finger at her, “—you’ll be watched every step of the way.”
“H-how am I supposed to survive with no pay?” Gianna whispered, glancing briefly my way.
I shrugged, uninterested in her troubles. “You have a savings account. There’s enough in there for six months. Live frugally. Don’t buy expensive shoes.”
“How do you know how much money I have?” she asked incredulously.
I moved closer to her—for the last time. “I know everything about your shitty little life, Gianna. And you know what I’ve come to realize?” Gianna blinked at me, about to start her waterworks again. “No one has ever taught you a fucking lesson. It’s always been hair salons and expensive vacations.”
Our last vacation together flashed in my eyes, the memories repulsive.
“It’s only six months. I’m being very nice. Very generous. Unless of course you’d rather work for Nikolai, which is also a viable option,” I proposed, putting the contract back in the file and closing it.
I stood from the chair, but Gianna didn’t move, just sat there and cried quietly.
“Why don’t you want to do the strip club, Gianna?
” I asked, perfectly aware of her thoughts.
“Because you don’t think sex work is real work?
Every single one of those strippers earns her money—fair and square.
A lot of them have kids and elderly parents they take care of.
They contribute to society, but what do you do, Gianna? ”
My hand was already on the doorknob, and I was about to step out of the room when she finally said it, “I-I’m sorry, okay?! I’m sorry I told him where she was, Alex, I’m sorry!”
There it was—that apology I so wanted to hear, but it was too late.
It was way too fucking late for all that.