Page 1 of Branded

1

LENNOX

The apartment smells like cheap wine and Janie’s coconut shampoo when I walk through the door after my shift. I kick off my heels, the ones I wear to smile at rich guests in The Drake’s marble lobby, and call out.

“Janie? You home?”

No answer. But her purse is on the counter, her jacket thrown over the back of our thrift-store couch. She has to be here.

I find her in the bathroom, sitting on the closed toilet lid with her knees pulled up to her chest. Mascara streaks down her face in black rivers, and her whole body is shaking like she’s freezing despite the warm California evening.

“Jesus, Janie.” I drop to my knees in front of her. “What happened?”

She looks at me with red, swollen eyes and shakes her head. “I can’t do it, Lenny. I can’t.”

“Can’t do what?” I grab her hands between mine. They’re ice cold. “Talk to me.”

“Tonight.” Her voice cracks. “There’s this thing tonight, and I, God, I’m so stupid. I’m so fucking stupid.”

Janie never curses. Ever. She’s been raised in a religious compound masquerading as a commune in rural Montana. Their compound was “next door” to my family’s land, and even though the compound was strict, Janie and I had been best friends.

Suddenly one day her mother started quoting scripture at anyone who dared to look at her wrong. Moving to California with me had been Janie’s grand rebellion, her escape from suffocating expectations of how she was to live her life, nightly prayer meetings and even twice on Sunday. When life changed for her, I was determined not to lose her as my friend.

She’d sneak away from the compound and meet me at our “fort” in the woods. Together we shed more tears in that fort than I care to think about, and it kills me that she’s sitting here crying again when life has been so great lately.

“What thing?” I keep my voice calm even as my heart is hammering. “Janie, what did you get into?”

She pulls her hands away and wraps her arms around herself. “You remember Tim? From the Drake Hotel?”

I do. Tall, good-looking in that California-surfer way, always hanging around the pool bar where Janie works housekeeping. He’s been paying her attention for months, compliments, invitations to staff parties, making her feel special.

“What about him?”

“He invited me to these parties. Exclusive, invite-only parties. He said I was too pretty to be changing sheets, that I deserved better.” Fresh tears spill down her cheeks. “And I believed him. I was so desperate to feel like I mattered, like I was more than just me.”

My stomach sinks, and I close my eyes, dreading what she is about to say next.

“He introduced me to people. Wealthy people. They were nice at first, buying me drinks, asking about Montana like it was exotic or something.” She’s talking faster now, words tumbling out in a rush.

“Then he said there was an opportunity. A way to make real money, enough never to worry again. And I needed money to send home so badly. I got a call from Annabeth, and she wants to leave the compound but didn’t have any money, so I told Tim I would do it.”

“Janie.”

“I signed something.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I was so drunk, and I thought it was just working in a restaurant, delivering drinks and making sure people were happy. But I didn’t read it carefully. And now they’re saying because I can’t give back the money, I have to—” She breaks off and presses her hand over her mouth like she might be sick.

I stand up, and my blood runs cold. “Agreed to what?”

“An auction.” The words come out strangled. “Tonight. At some private club in Monterey Cove. They’re going to put me on a stage, and men are going to bid on me. And I’ll be stuck there. For two years, Lenny.”

The bathroom tilts. I grip the edge of the sink to steady myself.

“And I can’t.” Janie’s voice rises into panic. “I can’t do it. I’ll die up there. They said I have to model different outfits, that I have to strip down to almost nothing so they can see what they’re buying, and I can’t.” She’s hyperventilating now. “The things Tim told me they expect, what the men want, I can’t survive that.”

Janie Turner grew up thinking dancing is a sin and kissing before marriage will land her in hell, and she still flinches when someone curses too loudly. Who’d cried for a week when her mother found out she’d moved to California with me because she was being told she was heading to hell in a selfish basket.

“What happens if you don’t show?” I ask quietly.

“They have my signature. They paid Tim a finder’s fee or something. He said if I don’t go through with it, they’ll sue me for breach of contract. Or worse. I can’t even think of what’s worse.” She looks up at me, terror written across her face. “He said these men don’t like being disappointed. That they have ways of making sure girls honor their commitments.”