AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dahlia
The last time I stood outside this black glass door, finger hovering over the buzzer, my night took a different turn.
My heart sinks as I look around the dark street. No such luck tonight.
With butterflies slamming against the lining of my stomach, I hit the button and wait. After a few moments, there is a crackle over the intercom and a gruff voice comes on. “Look at the camera.”
“Uh…”
I crane my neck and find the blinking light in the corner of the doorway. Before I can put thought into it, I give it an awkward wave, then curse myself under my breath. There’s a rumble through the speaker—it sounds like it could be a laugh—and then the door clicks open.
Lucky looms in the hallway, a little close for comfort, a twisted smirk on his lips. “Well, look who it is.”
My skin burns under his dark, leery eyes. I jut my jaw out and say, “I have something for you.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Eight million dollars?”
“Uh, not quite.”
After a beat, he jerks his head back. “Follow me.”
I’d rather do this transaction as close to the nearest exit as possible, but I keep my mouth shut and follow him down the blood-red corridor. It opens up into a larger, darker space. I blink to adjust my eyes.
It’s a large, cavernous room with a three-hundred-and-sixty degree bar in the middle. The low lighting comes from below, built into the onyx floor, and softly illuminates the podiums that orbit the bar. There are velvet booths and beaded ribbons that fall from the ceiling to create curtains, and it’d look like any high-end strip club if it wasn’t for the thick, steel doors lining the walls. They remind me of bank vaults in old movies, with circular wheels and big, sliding bolts up the side.
Lucky’s eyes are boring into me. “Soundproof,” he sneers with a wink.
God, I hate that the question is burning in the back of my throat.“Why?”
“Because not all of the punters want to hear the girls’ scream,” he says, satisfied. “Tell me, Dahlia Rose. What’s your biggest fear?”
I swallow, trying to rearrange my features so I don’t look petrified. “I don’t know.”
“That’s okay, if you come and work for us, we have ways to find out what your biggest fears and phobias are pretty quickly,” he says with a wide grin.
I look around the empty club, wondering what horrors will fill this space later tonight. “So, you subject the girls who work for you to their biggest fears, and men pay to watch them be subjected to them?”
“You’re a smart girl.”
Disgusted, I say, “What type of pig would get off on that?”
“You’d be surprised. Anyway, I’m guessing you’re not here to fill out an application.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. Thankgodfor the mystery man. Not only did he save me from the South Africans, but also from ending up in one of these soundproof chambers. He said he was the Devil but there’s no doubt in my mind he was heaven-sent. I’m selfish to be heartbroken that he’s gone for good.
“So, what do you want?”
“Here,” I tug the wedge of cash the mystery man gave me out of my coat pocket and it lands with a thump on the table between us. “Twenty grand.”
Lucky studies me for a few moments, slowly dragging his knuckle over his beard. Then his eyes narrow and he says, “Congratulations. Only seven million, nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars to go. And I believe you only have a couple more weeks until your time is up.”
I clench my fists and unclench them just as quick, worried anger will take over and I’ll do something I regret. Like trying to punch Lucky square in the jaw. “I’m trying,” I say through gritted teeth. I’m thinking about all the things I could have done with that money. Like move to a faraway State and enroll in a psychology course well out of the way of Lucky’s clutches. Instead, I stuck to my vow of not making any more bad decisions, and am trying to honor my debt. “But you know that coming up with that money in such a short amount of time is unrealistic.”
A sneer contorts his lips. It strikes the balance between gleeful and smug and I’m twitching to slap it off his face. “Do you think I’m bluffing, Dahlia Rose?”
“No,” I say quietly.
“Good. Because your secret is only safe with me if you fulfill your end of the bargain. Otherwise, I think your ex-husband will pay a hell of a lot more than eight million dollars to find out where you are.
