Breaking the Billionaire Code

“Stacey!”

The voice crashed like a whip from across the hall.

Jack’s voice.

Stacey Adams flinched against the mirror in her dressing room, tugging at the skinny strap of her costume. The red sequins pressed themselves onto her like desperation. Her hands were just a bit shaky - not because of cold, but in anticipation of whatever was going to happen next.

She stepped outside the room, and at the same time, Jack rounded the corner, already having a crimson instep to his fury and a cheap bottle of whiskey.

“You think you can blow off that VIP table and nobody is gonna do anything about it?” Jack barked, threatening to jab her chest with a big finger. “This aint no tea party, darling. You service the customers, or you don’t eat. You understand?”

“I wasn’t feeling well,” Stacey whispered, her head bowed. No fire. No fight. Just desperation.

Jack snorted in disgust, and gripped her arm. Not roughly, but firmly enough to get the point across. “Don’t play dainty. You’re here to get a job done. You don’t have the luxury of being ill.  Another mistake like that and you’re off my team. Do I make myself clear?”

At nineteen, Stacey nodded, because that was what you did when you had no one and nowhere else to go: you nodded and kept your head down.

Big blond with heels too high to really walk stuck her head out of the dressing room. “Stace, there’s a guy at room six askin’ for you. Real smooth guy. Said to send the girl with the sad eyes.”

Jack gave a yellow-toothed smile that burnt under the fluorescent light. “See? Even the creeps fall for your pathetic charm. Don’t blow it.”

Stacey un-tucked her hair and trudged slowly toward the bar; all she could hear was the clip-pity clap of her heels on the sticky floor as she walked past glimmering bodies and catcalls and flashing neon lights - all of them flashing like alarms. The stage set was short tonight; now she had no energy left to dance like she meant it, not that she had really wanted to anyway.

She wanted to cry.

Instead, she walked.

With each step it felt like a hundred pounds were added to her body, especially as she moved through the back hallway. It was loud within the club - the beat thumping, walls pulsing, drunken laughter bleeding into every crevice - but this hallway was different. Lower. A little darker.

Room Six loomed at the end of the hallway, a silver of darkness where the door sat slightly ajar.

Her hands shook as she pushed the door inwards.

A man sitting, waiting. Alone. Hands clasped. Suit impeccable. Hair sharp and slick as glass. When he saw her he smiled - it wasn’t a kind smile.

Stacey walked forward until she reached the door-frame and her heart thumped loudly in her chest like the bass from outside.

“You look young and stunning up close.” He rose to his feet and swept his eyes over her body.

Uncertain of what else to say, she nodded.

“Good.” He took a step forward. “I like young.”

Warning lights went off in her head.

“I don’t do-” she said, but he raised his hand out to cut her off.

“I liked your show,” he added, a gradual smile rising to his face. “You have a certain rawness about you.”

She remained silent. When men spoke like that, she never did.

“Drink?” he asked.

“No, thank you.”

“You don’t talk much do you?”

Stacey tried to offer a polite smile and watched the condensation on the glass.

“What do you want?”

“Everything.” he smiled. “About you… like where you come from. What your real name is. What makes a girl like you wind up in a place like this.”

She blinked, taken aback. “Why do you care?”

“Curiosity.” he said, slowly taking a step forward. “Or maybe awe.”

She backed up, heart racing.

“I’ll double whatever you make in a single night.” Andrew said, calmly. “You won’t even dance.”

“I’m not here to entertain you like that.” Stacey said, planting her feet to the floor.

“Oh, I think you will.” His voice dipped, quieter. “But I’m done talking. I want something else.”

He lunged forward with sudden, intense speed.

He caught her by the wrist and pulled her to him. She stumbled towards him as he heels are effectively caught in the carpet, smashing into his chest.

She screeched, her voice tinged with despair, “Let me go!”

With one arm he slammed her wrists against the wall.

He took hold of her wrist. He sneered, “You think I paid triple for a No?”

“You think I don’t know what girls like you really deliver?”

She thrashed about, twisting, attempting to knee him - he was much too strong. He tightened his grip on her. His breath cut through her skin in hot bubbles against her face.

“I’ll scream,” she fought back.

“No one will come,” he whispered.

She felt something break inside of her.

She pushed herself with whatever strength she had behind her and shoved him back and ran towards the door. She elbowed the edge of a side table as she bolted, but adrenaline surged through her, blasting the pain away.

He leapt toward her once again, but he was too late. She opened the door widely and tripped into the hall.

Behind her, Andrew cursed.

She didn’t stop to decide who heard. She didn’t care. She sprinted across the rear of the club, out past the dressing rooms, out into the alley where broken glass and neon color splattered the pavement in colors that resembled war.

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t scream.

She just ran.

She didn’t stop until she was blocks away from there, lungs burning, heart racing, body trembling, and her bare feet bled on the sidewalk.

She didn’t stop until the world melted behind tears that she finally cried.

She threw her arms around herself for comfort as she fell next to a shuttered convenience shop. She strained to keep her breathing normal, and her hands trembled.

Andrew, meanwhile, had returned to the club and was leaning on the bar, his jaw tight, his drink still unfinished.

Jack walked over, face puckered.

“She ran?” Jack asked.

Andrew nodded once.

Jack shook his head. “She’ll be back. They always are. Girl like her’s got no other place to go.”

Andrew said nothing.

“I don’t like being rejected.”

His smile was gone.

His voice didn’t allow for misinterpretation.

He would show her that no one messes with him and gets away with it.