That’s the thing with these girls. Yes, some of them are just here to put themselves through college and pay the bills. But many were dealt a really shitty hand that’s left them with no self-esteem, a need for attention, and no idea how else to make their lives work. Even as young as sixteen, I knew my sister Lizzy was headed down that path. In some ways, China reminds me of her.

But I’ll never know how my sister would have turned out because I didn’t save her in time.

Terry the deejay’s voice crackles over the speaker to announce, “Next up is Charlie . . . a new addition to Penny’s. Make sure you give her a warm welcome!”

“New girl?” Ben’s eyes immediately light up.

“Don’t start, you jackass,” I warn with a cutting tone. All of my bouncers know that they’re gone if I catch them screwing the girls. Ben loves this job, so I’m pretty confident that he’s never broken the rules under my roof. But I also know that controlling what he does outside of Penny’s is too dictatorial and just plain impossible. I can only hope that Ben would treat them with some level of respect. Truth be told, if one of these girls could tame this tall blond’s wild side, I think she’d have a happy life ahead of her.

He gives me a shrug. “We haven’t had any new talent here for a while. Things were getting stale.”

A grunt of agreement makes me turn to my left, to find Nate’s normal scowl gone, replaced with the beginnings of a crooked smile.

“You too, Nate?”

“I think we could all use a change.” There’s something secretive in that look that I can’t read.

“Is she any good?” Ben asks, adding with a sly smirk, “At dancing, I mean.”

“Sure you did, Morris,” I offer wryly. “Just keep your fucking hands off her.”

chapter six

■ ■ ■

CHARLIE

I’m going to puke.

The fact that I can stroll into a hotel room and conduct a sizeable heroin trafficking transaction without my hands shaking doesn’t matter right now.

Right now, as I stand behind a privacy screen in a pair of tiny black boy shorts, my ass cheeks hanging out, and a fitted snap-on vest covering a skimpy hot-pink bikini top—which is only barely covering even more flesh that is about to be exposed to a large crowd of jeering, judging men—my knees feel like they’re about to buckle.

The three shots of tequila I pounded back in the dressing room did absolutely nothing for my nerves. They only made me more queasy.

I’m not sure that I can do this.

And why do those lights have to be so bright? It feels like there are a million spotlights out there, ready to beam down and highlight every square inch of my uncovered skin.

“You ready?” a husky voice calls into my ear.

With a startled jump, I turn to find Ginger behind me. I immediately throw my arms around her shoulders, surprising both of us. I’m not a hugger and we’re not really on hugging terms but, clearly, I’m desperate.

She giggles. “Oh, come on. I’m sure this is nothing compared to Vegas, right?”

Sliding my arms away from her, my head bobs up and down and I swallow, releasing the lie smoothly out of my deceitful mouth. “I get bad stage fright. That’s all. It’s my thing.”

With a gentle smile and a squeeze of my biceps, she winks and says, “Well, go spin your thing out there and I’ll cheer you on. I’ve seen you do this. You’ll be fantastic.” She disappears down the steps as the deejay gestures to me.

Thirty seconds.

I take a deep breath and mutter under my breath, “Only a few months of this and then I’m free.”

I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I dropped off that pencil-case-sized bag at a dance studio in Queens—besides a shiny silver Volvo. I mean, Sam was always sending me on little errands. Dry-cleaning, mail pickup, check deposits. I took care of all our grocery shopping. Errands were my way of “earning my keep,” Sam cheerily told me. So when he asked me to drop off a package in the city . . . I dropped off a package.

Simple.

When Sam handed me an ID with my face and some other person’s name and told me to sign up for a weekly dance class at that same dance studio in Queens, I figured it out pretty quickly. Still, I went along, not saying a word.

He rationalized it by saying we were giving people a good time and making a bit of money. It wasn’t any different from selling booze during Prohibition. I bought that bullshit in the beginning. But, then again, I was only sixteen.

I was naïve.

I was stupid.

It really didn’t seem like a big deal. I had watched my friends smoke a joint after school. I’d been to parties where someone brought an eight ball of coke or a handful of ecstasy pills. I’d heard the whole “say no to drugs” campaign loud and clear, but drugs seemed to be everywhere in high school. Everywhere people were having fun. And when something’s everywhere people are having fun, it begins to feel less immoral. Almost . . . acceptable.

And when your own stepdad—the man who has raised you and given you everything—asks you to do something, the lines of right and wrong become a little more confusing, and it becomes easier to deny that little voice inside your head. I guess I didn’t have the best moral guide growing up.

When I actually saw the inside of a suitcase on the first Miami drop, though . . . it finally hit me. Sam doesn’t deal in eight balls and handfuls of party-time highs. He deals in hundred-dose vials of heroin. Bags of them.

Goddamn suitcases.

He deals in the stuff that turns people into junkies, ruins their lives, and eventually kills them.

And I’m helping him do it.

That’s when I stopped ignoring that little voice. I finally realized that what Sam has me involved in is plain wrong and it doesn’t matter how many cars and designer dresses he buys me. The wake-up call has brought a wave of guilt that I’m still learning how to deal with. Now I struggle to sleep, to eat. I’ve lost at least ten pounds off my already lean frame. Every morning I get up and feel the urge to walk out my door and never look back.

When I hear about another overdose on the news, I feel responsible. It’s not the recreational overdoses that are making the headlines; it’s the really addictive stuff, like heroin. It feels like the reporters are talking to me, judging me, condemning me. With my help, kids as young as fourteen have overdosed. Kids have been left orphaned because their parents overdosed. There really is no such thing as an occasional heroin user.

But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life struggling financially, so I guess my feelings of guilt still aren’t overwhelming enough. That, or I am just a truly bad person.

I deserve what happened to me with Sal, back in New York. I deserve to strip in front of a crowd of salivating men. I deserve a whole lot worse.

Sam also deserves to be punished for all that he’s done—to countless, faceless victims, and to me. For giving me love and protection that seemed unconditional, but actually had strings attached.

But who’s going to punish him?

I peek past the screen, through the crowd, and I see all the faces—waiting expectantly. All of those eyes will be on me. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a stage that big before in my life. Then again, maybe it’s just because I’ll be on it alone—basically naked—that makes it seem all the bigger.

I watch as three girls climb down from the circular platforms that jut off from the main stage. In between the main shows, the girls take turns teasing the audience a bit. But they know to get off now.

To let all eyes fall on me.

My potential boss is there too, looking classy in a midnight-blue fitted button-down as he leans over a railing, talking with that gargantuan bouncer—Nate, I heard someone call him—who was guarding the back door earlier tonight. Even in the darkness and at this distance, I can see the cut of his arms. The guy must have an immaculate body beneath those clothes.