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"Did who?—"
"Mr. Greco, he— shit." A girl swears, and I feel her hand on my elbow. I flinch away. My skin is still crawling. That guy grabbed me, said things I could barely hear, but the look on his face was pure disgusting evil. And then he tried to get his hands up between my thighs... I close my eyes, feeling like I’m going to vomit.
"Let me help you," someone else says, and there’s a huddle of girls around me as I blink away tears in the shadowy dark of backstage. I’m pulled toward the changing area, the sound of the stage and the bar beyond it fading away as curtains and doors close behind me.
"You’re okay, sweetheart," someone soothes, and I’m pushed down into a chair. "That’s just the adrenaline," another voice says, and someone pulls a robe around my shoulders, cinching it tightly.
"Get her water."
A bottle is pressed into my hand.
"Drink," a firm voice orders, and I do. A cool trickle of water runs down my chin and throat, and I take a long swallow.
"What happened?" I ask, my voice raw and cracked, and there’s a chorus of voices, talking all at once.
"He won’t be allowed back in, I can guarantee you that, and Heather’ll make sure he doesn’t get into a single club in the area. We don’t let customers touch the girls."
"Luca went crazy," someone whispers, and the name makes my stomach lurch. "He punched the guy so hard, and the guards didn’t even stop him. He was beating that shitbag to a pulp." Someone’s safety pinning my underwear together at my side, a small act of mercy I’m immensely grateful for.
"Who’s Luca?" A girl near me, with red hair, asks. She’s newer too.
"A regular," Heather’s voice cuts through, "doesn’t put up with shit. I’ll give him a bottle of our best as a thank you. Girls? Cut it out. She needs air. Go get ready, show goes on once the blood is mopped off the floor." Heather steps out from behind the other girls, coming toward me, and she kneels down in front of me. "Are you hurt? Any cuts?" She inspects my skin for blood, even as I pull my legs together tight.
God.
My first night here on stage, and I’ve fucked this up so badly, creating a scene like that.
"I-I-" Get it together, Ash. "I got too close to the edge, he grabbed me, I—" I shake my head. "I’m sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry about," she assures me. "We have security, and our customers are usually well behaved. I’ve never seen him go after someone like that. I’m sorry." She brushes a tear off of my cheek. She frowns when she sees something in my expression she doesn’t like.
"Let me take you to my office, let you calm down. There’s a couch there, you can lay down if you like?" She offers me a hand up, and a shiver rolls through me. I’ve lost my job. I know it. I’ll lose the money, the building, I’ll lose?—
"You’re still working here," she says, reading my expression. "Don’t worry, I’m not kicking you out. Rookie mistake, yeah, but that’s why you’re on rookie probation. It’s my call whether to can you or not, and I know you didn’t mean to play with fire. You weren’t begging for more tips, it was just a fuck-up."
I follow her as she turns, grabbing my bag before I go, pulling it close to my chest as we leave the room through a back door, entering a stairwell.
"Upstairs," she says, and starts walking, I follow her up two flights, into another small hall, and then she opens a black-painted door. Beyond it, there’s wall-to-wall windows along one side, a view of the club below, the stage, the bar, the tables. There’s a leather couch, a coffee table, a mini fridge, and a computer, sitting on a desk with a big comfy looking chair behind it.
"Have a seat, relax, there’s water and snacks in the fridge. Have something with protein," she says with a pat of her hand on my shoulders. "I gotta go wrangle the chickens back into sanity so they can do their dances without freaking out."
I give her a confused look.
"We almost never have a girl grabbed here," she says with a tired smile. "Most people know better because—" She shrugs. "Well. I’ll come check on you in twenty. Put your feet up."
I nod, and she closes the door behind her.
I sit down on the couch, and lean forward, pressing my head between my knees, trying to take a deep breath. I’m not gonna be sick, I tell myself.
A soft hum fills the air, a light coming on, and I open my eyes, glancing up over at the desk. Just as the bottom drops out of my stomach. Her computer. Heather’s computer. My mouth goes dry. My fingers fumble for my duffle bag, shaking hands, making it hard to get the zipper open.
The key-logger. I’ve been unintentionally dropped into the perfect situation to get it loaded onto the computer I’m hoping holds all the keys to the Greco crime kingdom. My fingernails scratch at the deodorant’s powdery product, pulling it out of the hollow core of the packaging. Underneath is the key-logger: small, compact, matte black. Not likely to catch an eye for anyone not looking for it. I dust some deodorant off of it, smearing the residue on my bare leg.
My heart thudding uncomfortably in my throat, I mince toward the desk and computer, keeping my eye on the door, and listening hard for the sound of footsteps. At the same time, I glance around the room, looking for any hint of a camera.
But no, they’d never be that stupid. Putting surveillance in a room where criminal activity is conducted, right? They couldn’t be.
I’m trembling so hard that I almost struggle to get the USB for the keyboard unplugged, thanking every god that exists it’s not connected by Bluetooth. I slip the key-logger, a small rectangle that’s not even an inch long, onto the end of the USB cable. I reattach the keyboard to the computer and breathe out.
