DOMENICO

Two

A few hours and a few dances later, I was ready for a shower. I washed the makeup from my face, happy to have the layers and the weight of the false eyelashes gone. I was hooking up with Mac later, and he liked the natural look more than my painted-up face.

I liked it better as well.

I pulled on my jeans and sneakers, along with a tank top and my favorite oversized yellow sweater. Outside of Castle, I’d long ago moved from designer dresses and stiletto heels in favor of something more practical.

Every day I sat on edge, wondering if it was the day to run, and I couldn’t run well in heels. Plus, dressing casually helped me to blend in better. No different than anyone else around me.

“Hey, Ella, you heading home?” Angel asked as she entered the dressing room.

As with my past, nobody knew my real name, only the name I’d given them. Many of the girls went by their stage names. Al had named me Belle the first day I came in for a job.

Eight years of ballet had given me skills that came in handy. However, I’d never stripped in front of someone who wasn’t a doctor or a lover…or my father.

The memory was a sour one and sat heavily in my stomach.

“Yeah. I’m dying to finish this book, then take a nice long nap before my landlord comes calling for rent.” She didn’t need to know my actual plans, especially since there were a few girls who wanted to hook up with Mac with no success. Besides, what I told her was an average day for me anyway. Just me and my books.

“Those two suits looked like they’d pay well. What happened?”

She was fishing for Al, ever the little side piece, but I wasn’t going to give her what she wanted so she could get another hit while she rode his d**k.

“Turns out they were looking for a gang-bang girl.” They didn’t need to know the reality of the men.

Her eyes were wide, lips parted. “Oh.”

I nodded and gave her a thin-lipped smile. “Yup.”

Unlike most of the girls at the Castle Lounge, I hadn’t grown up on the wrong side of the tracks. No trailer parks or low-income parents. No debt or drugs or any of the other stereotypical reasons girls became topless dancers.

The only stereotype I had was daddy issues. Deep-seated ones.

Tyrants demand loyalty, respect, and that you follow every word as law.

Daddy was a lawyer. High powered in one of Chicago’s biggest crime families. I was expected to act and look perfect at all times. To behave and be nothing but a pretty doll to display.

Too bad for him, I had too much rebellion in me.

Things weren’t always tense between us. Once upon a time I was very much a daddy’s girl, but as I got older his hugs became chains. When my mother took her life, they were no longer free but came with a price I was expected to pay.

His quest for power had become a noose around my mother’s neck until there was only one way for her to be free again.

“Don’t let him cage your spirit,” she’d said. “You aren’t made for bowing before false kings.”

She took her life that night. Over the following months my father’s affections became non-existent and though there were spots of the man who once looked at me with adoration and love, his thirst for money and power was stronger.

One day I went to the mall, lost my guards, and walked away. That was three years ago. Three years of scraping by, of dancing for dollars, but I was free.

On my way out, Mac caught my eye and I gave him a wink, making sure to flash him a piece of the blue fabric in my bag from the dress he wanted. I wasn’t even out to my car when my phone went off.

I’m coming for that p***y—Mac

A shiver rolled through me, and a smile spread as I bit down on my lower lip. When I’d left home, I’d thought freedom would include s*x whenever and with whomever I wanted, but I realized once I was out on my own that my escapades were a form of rebellion. s*x wasn’t what I wanted. Freedom was.

In the three years since I left home, I’d had a very few select partners, usually months apart. Mac had been a steady partner for two years.

They were there to scratch an itch. Nothing more.

There was no room in my life for more. The life I’d fled was filled with the death and destruction that accompanied the power-hungry high of men.

Maybe one day I would find a good man to have a normal life with, but the guards who popped in and out of my life made even that idea a difficult one to entertain. It would mean telling someone the truth behind my mask of lies.

My p***y is hungry. Don’t stall—Ella

Fuck. Keep up with that s**t and I’m going to nut in my pants—Mac

Just trying to keep you wanting—Ella

No need. I’ve been dying for another taste of you for weeks—Mac

I blinked at the screen. Maybe things weren’t as casual for him as they were for me. That could be a problem, but I would come back to that after.

Come and get it—Ella

There was a chill in the late September air, and I was happy to have a heavy cotton sweater on. While it wasn’t flattering, it was warm. My car took a few minutes to warm up and sweep away some of the cold.

After midnight there weren’t a lot of cars on the road, which was always nice, especially in this part of town. In the rearview mirror were two pinpricks of light keeping even with my speed. At the stoplight, the lights blinded me so I was unable to see anything inside.

When the light changed, I stepped on the gas to get some distance from the van or truck that was behind me. It sat higher, and the more I increased my speed to lessen the blinding lights, the more they kept up.

It was a feeling I’d had before. That itch of suspicion, the tickle of paranoia at the back of my brain.

I told myself it was the paranoia instilled by the guards who’d said it wasn’t safe.

Each turn I made, so did they. Every increase of speed they matched.

That feeling wasn’t going away. My breaths increased, and my hands tightened on the steering wheel. After a few miles with no other cars on the road, it was no longer paranoia.

There really was a car following me.

My heart slammed in my chest, beating harder with each second. My foot pressed down on the accelerator, and I blew through a red light.

So did they.

Fear spiked through me, but I kept my focus. Get away.

Run.

Fight.

Don’t let them get you.

As we approached the bridge, a car swooped out from the back of the car behind me. It flew past me too fast for me to see anything other than that it was a panel van.

Suddenly he was in front of me and laying on the brakes. I was careening into him with nowhere to go.

“s**t!” I swore as I slammed on my own brakes. I didn’t want to slow down, but we were in the middle of a two-lane bridge, and there were cars coming in the other direction. To the right was a river, and to the left was a head-on collision.

The car behind me also slammed on his brakes, and I was trapped, almost bumper to bumper, sandwiched between them.

Frantically I moved through my list of options, but before I could come up with any sort of a plan, a motorcycle appeared beside me. My eyes widened at the bat in his hand. He swung back and I leaned over, arms raised to shield myself from the spray of glass as my window shattered.

I stomped my foot on the gas, which only propelled me into the back of the much-larger van in front of me, jerking me to a hard stop. The cars coming from the other direction slowed and a spark of hope lit only to diminish without fully forming as they stopped, and a throng of men jumped from the back of two more vans.

“f**k!” I reached in my bag for my pepper spray, finding it just as my door opened and a hand grabbed my arm and pulled me from the car.

I didn’t even look, only turned and sprayed. He cried out and I thrust my foot into his stomach, sending him to the ground. There were at least ten men descending on me, and I broke off into a run, heading for an opening between two of the cars.

I made it only two steps before hands were on me, but I didn’t stop.

The driver of the car that had followed me slid out to block the small opening between the cars I was aiming for.

He was tall with broad shoulders and an imposing aura, but I was too busy struggling against the hands on me to notice anything else.

I managed to spray one of the men touching me as I cried out for help. It was futile, I knew, but I wasn’t going to stop.

A slam of my foot into someone’s crotch, twisting, refusing to go calmly.

I would not go calmly into the night.

I’d trained my body, strengthened it for that moment, but there were so many of them.

The mouth of the man in front of me twisted into a smirk as he watched.

I’d thrown one man off me when a cloth was pressed over my mouth. My eyes went wide as I tried not to breathe in, still fighting.

The imposing figure stepped forward but with each step, whatever was in the cloth began to pull me under. My arms were locked, held out on each side as another man held me by the waist. One of my knees was kicked out from under me, and I slumped in the arms holding me. My vision turned fuzzy when he got close enough for me to see his face.

His hand wrapped around my neck, forcing me to look up at him. I continued to struggle, but my limbs had become sluggish and I knew they’d won.

The only thing I saw was a deep scar—and silver eyes that stared deep into mine.

“Nighty night, princess,” he hissed condescendingly.

The last of my strength left me, and I was unable to fight sleep anymore.