“A customer from last night.”
“The high roller?”
“Yes.”
“Get rid of him. He’s had enough time with you. And, I get a fifty percent cut of this side job you tried to sneak in.”
“Of course, Stephano. I’ll leave five hundred dollars for you at the club.”
“You told me you would never whore yourself out and now you’re doing it. Don’t start whoring yourself around every night. You’ll look sloppy on the dance floor.”
“Okay.”
Stephano hung up and I looked up at Jackson, who had clearly heard every word of the conversation. I looked away, unable to look him in the eyes. Even the idea that I would sleep with a man for $1,000 was disgusting to me.
My knees felt weak as I watched Stephano drive away. It felt awful that he even thought I would sleep with a man for money. It wasn’t me, I would never do that, and I didn’t want Jackson or
his friends to think that I was that kind of girl. I might not have been the best woman in the world, but I had some dignity.
“I’ll get you some money to give him,” Jackson said as we walked out into the living room.
“I know you guys are rich and everything always works out the way you want it to. But this isn’t a game, this is my life. I can’t get away from Stephano, and he’ll kill me if he finds out I was helping you. You are going to have to leave.”
“We’ll pay you,” Jordan blurted out. “Right, Chase? We will pay her for her time. What do you need? We will help you get out if you help us find Ana.”
“Come on now. I make almost ten thousand dollars a week. There just isn’t a place for me in this world without dancing.”
I didn’t believe the words as I said them, but it wasn’t going to be as easy as Jordan thought for me to leave my life. If I was truly going to leave Stephano, it would require me moving far away so he couldn’t track me down and that would require money.
“You don’t want to get married and have a family some day?” Jordan asked naively.
I laughed at her assumption that I was the kind of girl who wanted to be stuck in suburbia with a house full of brats. That certainly wasn’t even close to what I wanted for my future.
“Girls like me don’t get married.”
“One hundred thousand dollars,” Jordan said. “It’s enough for you to start fresh.”
“That’s only ten weeks of work. I’ll need five hundred thousand.”
“I’ll give you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and you agree to work with Jackson to find Ana. I’ll give you the money even if you don’t find her, but only if you agree to work with him until he feels like the case is over,” Chase said.
A quarter of a million dollars was a hell of a lot of money and plenty enough for me to start over fresh and get away from Stephano. I wanted to keep negotiating, but I actually liked Ana and wanted to help find her. It made me sick to think that Stephano was going to sell her to some sleazeball.
“Okay, I’ll do it. But I can’t quit my job yet, he will know something is up. And when it’s all done, you have to do everything you can to keep me safe.”
“Jackson is ex-Special Forces. He can keep you safe if you stay with him.”
“I’m going on record as this is a bad idea. No offense, but we don’t even know if this girl really knows Ana at all. She could be playing us,” Jackson said as he stood near the window and watched the driveway.
“Fuck you. I wouldn’t have risked my well being to have you over to my house if I didn’t know her.”
“I’m just saying, this is on you, Chase.”
“I’m going to take Jordan back to Atlanta. I’ll have fifty thousand dollars wired to your checking account today and the rest when Jackson says the job is done. Deal?” Chase said as he reached his hand out to shake mine.
“It’s a deal.”
Chapter Three