Chapter 32—Payton
I have an hour. That’s how much time they gave me to clean my stuff out of Tommy’s place. One hour to collect everything. Honestly? I have one bag. The rest is clothes he bought. Things he had for me. Things I don’t want.
I don’t want a single reminder of him, of this place. Of what happened and what I felt. I want nothing.
With careful eyes on me, the men assigned to “help” me gather my stuff watch as I grab my bag, stuff what I own into it, and then leave the room. I make it as far as the dining room before I go to the kitchen and pull out a notepad I once saw him put in a drawer. I write him a note. One word only.
Sorry.
Sorry for what he thought. Sorry that I was here. Sorry we ever met.
Sorry for thinking any of it was real.
Tears drip onto the paper, and it angers me. I shouldn’t be saying I’m sorry. I did nothing wrong. Nothing.
The old me would apologize. But I’m different now.
I’m not her anymore.
I can’t be the same girl I once was. The one who relied on others to be strong. I have to be strong on my own.
I tear the paper off the notepad and crumple it before tossing it into the trash.
Then I leave. I ride the elevator down with two guards and walk out the entrance we used to drive through. No one stops me. No one follows. They just make sure I go.
And I do. I only look back once to make sure no one is coming for me.
The sun is still rising, but it hasn’t burned off the cold yet.
I almost regret taking off his sweater and leaving it on the bed.
I kept the rest of my outfit on, but not his sweater.
Something that was deliberately his. I should have taken the rest off, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to.
I don’t have a coat to keep me warm. No money.
No place to go. Barely enough clothes to last a week.
But there’s one place I know that has what I need. Well, at least a sweater.
It’s not much, but my gear is at the club.
The sweats I wore last time might still be where I left them.
I took them off after my last performance and never went back for them after my first dance for Tommy.
When I came on his fingers from watching Trixie with some client on the cameras.
He just picked me up, got me to his office, and then we left. I never went back to the changing room.
That was a lifetime ago.
If I’m lucky, they won’t have cleaned out my locker yet.
I quicken my pace and debate if I should text Willow. She’s the only person I know who might let me crash on her couch for a night. Just one. I can’t do more than that. She has kids to worry about, and her place is small enough without me staying for long.
I nibble on my bottom lip for a second before deciding to call rather than text.
“Hello?”
“Willow? It’s Payton.”
“Payton! How are you, sweetie? Everything going okay with that guy of yours?”
“Ahh, sort of.”
“Oh no. What happened?”
I wince at that.
Of course she’ll want to know. But what can I tell her? What should I tell her? That I slept with someone in the Mafia who thinks I stole from them? And oh, they might have killed my parents after thinking they also stole from them? And I might get killed too?
That last part is all on me. No one said anything.
They took me from talking to Tommy to pacing in a room with a bed and nice curtains around a window to look out.
No bathroom—just a pretty cage. And the door was locked.
It was a prison. Made to look pretty, but a cell for me.
I stayed in there for hours. Long enough to tell the time based on the sun’s position in the sky.
When it dipped below the skyscrapers, I gave up hoping he would come to me.
That it was a mistake or something. I lay on the bed, and eventually sleep pulled me under, but the second the door opened, I was up.
Put in a car and driven to Tommy’s place.
Given the instructions to gather my stuff and leave. That was it. For now.
They can’t possibly expect me to think I’m free to go. That everything is fine.
No. There were underlying threats. The number of people who went with me to his place. Who watched me take only what was mine. Everything was a joke. Another falseness in life. A pretense that I’m fine.
But I’m not.
They think I stole from them. I can argue all I want, but I don’t think those who go against the Mafia win.
If they did, you’d see a lot more about it in the news.
Instead, you hardly see anything. Because that’s what they do, right?
They make things and people disappear. My parents’ murder was swept under the rug.
Will mine be written off the same way? Just another random act, nothing worth looking into?
“This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have called.”
Fear that I might cause her and her kids harm rattles me into seeing reality. I can’t go to her. I can’t go to anyone. I need to run. I need to hide. Just long enough for me to accept what’s going to happen.
“Payton, it’s okay. We can talk—”
I hang up on her and walk faster. When the phone rings, I silence the call and turn off my phone. She can worry all she wants. As long as she’s there and I’m here, far away from them, they’ll be safe.
Jesus, when did my life take such a turn? Nothing will ever be what it was. And unlike last time, I have no one to turn to.
I’m running from the Mafia. The freaking Mafia. The Kings won’t help me. Everyone I thought I knew left me when my parents died. And the only person I know besides Tommy needs to keep her family safe.
I only have me.
That’s it.
But will it be enough?
I use the back stairs when I enter. Not because I expect someone to turn me away from the front door, but because it’s the closest to my locker. I want to get in and out before anyone knows I’m here.
Ten minutes. I’ll only give myself that.
That should be more than enough time to gather everything in my locker and go to the scaffolding and remove my rig.
I bought it with the last of the money from the pawnshop before I started here.
I don’t know what I’m going to do next, but I might find similar work at another club.
Just till I get enough money to get out of town.
I should have left months ago. The moment my parents died, really. New York is too expensive for me. I barely survived with what I had before all this. I won’t survive it again.
Maybe I should just pawn the rigging. It might not get me much, but how much is a bus ticket anyway?
I might not be able to go far enough south that a sweater isn’t needed, but at least out of the city.
To maybe a no-name town that has a place willing to take me on.
I could try harder at the waitress gig. Before, I thought I was desperate. But I wasn’t. Not like I am now.
Before, it was just about getting money to pay off my debt. Now it’s about staying alive long enough to pay off the Mafia. Completely different motivation in my book.
The door’s unlocked. Not surprising; they keep it unlocked when someone is in here.
But what gives me pause is that there’s no one in the dressing room. No music playing from the stage that you can usually hear. No murmurs of people talking. It’s as if we’re closed. But we aren’t. Unless Tommy shut the place down.
It’s early, sure. Most, if not all, of the dancers should have already left to sleep for a bit before their next shifts.
But the cleaning crew should still be here.
The bartenders usually stay late, or early into the morning hours, to get everything set up for the next shift.
To be 100 percent ready the second the doors open for the patrons to come in and look at the dancers.
But no one’s here.
Whatever.
I don’t have time to care. I need to get my stuff, hit a pawnshop, and get to the nearest bus station.
I put my bag down by my locker and start putting everything in it. Even if I don’t know where I’ll use the masks or half of this makeup again, it’s all I have.
This time I’ll do better.
I’ll be wiser.
I’ll make sure not to trust a soul.
Anyone could be a threat. I have to be smarter. No more attacks at my place. No unsafe workplaces. And especially no working for someone I might fall for.
Women.
I need to work for women.
Once I put the last brush in my bag, I stuff it under the chair and head to the ladder I use. There’s something haunting about being the only one in here. There are a few lights on, but nothing that lets me know anyone else is here. I wonder if they just forgot to lock the door or something.
I move quickly. It’s almost second nature.
I already have most of the gear in my bag because I don’t leave it up, but I need to get the hooks that I use to secure me.
It doesn’t take much; I learned early on how to set up the rigging and take it apart each night for fear that something or someone would mess with it.
I only started leaving the main pieces up after Tommy took over.
I’m so stupid for thinking everything was going to start getting better for me. I trusted him and his whole camera thing.
Funny how the cameras worked for everything—except proving my innocence.
They said I stole from them. I didn’t.
Did I look at his books and see the money? Yeah. But either they’re lying to get me out, or they saw something that wasn’t true. Either way, I don’t trust them.
And if I don’t finish this quickly, they’ll probably say I’m stealing this too. Even though it’s mine. Half the reason Carl hired me was because I could bring everything with me. He didn’t have to supply anything or even train anyone to set up the system. I was a one-woman show.
A show that’s over.
“So much for being the Crown Jewel,” I mutter to myself with a last tug of the rigging to get it all down.
A noise below me pulls my attention, and I see that the door behind the bar, the one that leads to Tommy’s office, is open, light spilling out from the stairwell.
The thought of seeing Tommy hits hard, sharp and sudden. Even my knees go a bit weak. But should I go up there? Does he want to see me?
Do I want to see him?
I make my way to the ground floor and move to the dressing room. I don’t know if he saw me, though he could have with the view he has. I grab my bag, stuff the rest of my stuff into it, and turn to the back stairs.
A quick exit. That would be the smart thing to do. To just put this all behind me and never look back. To pretend that my days aren’t numbered. That when a gun goes off, it won’t be aimed at me. That my life will go on for years and not for the short time I have left, determined by Tommy’s family.
I never thought much of the future. Before everything, the plan was just to dance.
Then it was to just get to the next paycheck.
I never saw a future with kids or a home.
Love wasn’t even a possibility. But for a second, I felt that.
I felt that love, and loved with all my heart, for a few blissful moments.
But everything that was Tommy was a dream. A reality that wasn’t meant to be. Something to remember when the world turns cruel again. More so than it already is.
Right now, I’ve been turned out. Told to leave. Ignored by the one person I’d started to trust and seek solace in. It’s painful, but I’m also too close to the moment. I’m numbed by it. Just like when my parents died.
I heard the shots. Movement outside had me look out to see the man running away, but it was only for a second before I raced to find them.
Both dead. I didn’t scream or yell. Didn’t even run to them.
Why would I? Their brains were on the ground.
No CPR or mouth-to-mouth was needed. They were dead, and I just looked on.
I helped the only way I could. I called the cops.
They even questioned for a second if I did it since I seemed so detached till a paramedic said I was showing obvious signs of shock.
Similar to what’s happening now. I’m too shocked by everything to feel more than the movements that keep me moving forward.
But I’m tired of just going through the motions. I want to live in them too.
Before, I would have been too scared to do anything but walk away. But Tommy, despite everything, taught me not to fear him. Not really. And I learned how to speak up for myself. Well, with him only, it seems.
I pull my bag up on my shoulder and walk back to his office. He might not want to see me, but he’s going to deal with it. He might accuse me of stealing, but I plan to tell him he was the one who stole something too.
My heart.
And he doesn’t get to keep what he broke.
He might not care, but it’s something I need to say. For me.
If my life is going to be about something other than survival, then I need to take this time for me. To do what I want. I won’t get a chance again. If this is the last time I can look at a man and tell him I love him, even if he doesn’t feel the same, then I’m going to take it.
I have nothing left to lose.
My heart’s already gone.
What could be worse than that?