Chance To Impress

Liana POV

It’s been almost three hours since the guy in the black leather jacket told me he will give me a job. He goes by the name Dante, and I know he runs this club, but I have a suspicion he’s in charge of a lot more than that.

He’s scary as hell, but the alternative is even worse. That’s what keeps me glued to the chair I’ve been seating on for the last week, hoping and praying nobody will find me here. The first few times I asked for a job, he just laughed in my face but tonight, for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, he finally took pity on me. I could be thinking of the many ways this could go wrong, but right now, I’m very happy. As risky as this place might be, it’s the one place I know the outfits won’t dare to come. When you’re between two difficult situations, it’s always wise to choose the lesser of two evils. In my case, that’s the Italian gang are better because they protect their territory and that makes any low life gangbanger think twice about crossing this threshold. Now if I can just manage to fly under the radar for a month while I stash away every dollar, I earn, I can finally leave this city and all of my bad history behind.

I’m eager to get started, but apparently Dante isn’t on the same page. I’ve been here all night and the room is starting to spin. I’m tired, cold, and my stomach aches with a pervasive hunger that seeps into my bones. I just really fucking need this job. A shadow falls over me, and when I look up, I find myself in the crosshairs of a pair of eyes so blue they seem like an ocean. A shiver crawls across my neck as my eyes move over the towering stranger who just entered my space unbidden. He’s tall, built, and mysterious in a way that only a mafia  could be. I know before he even opens his mouth that thisguy is part of Dante crew. He’s as Italian as the day is long, but he’s younger than the other guys I’ve seen lurking around here. Not quite as rough around the edges. His face isn’t as weathered, but there’s something colder about him. There’s a hardness in his features that tells me he’s not a man to be easily won over.

He jerks his chin in my direction, eyes narrowed as he examines me. “I’m Damian. Dante sent me to show ye the ropes.”

I sit up a little immediately, feeling small and unsure of myself under the weight of his gaze. “Hi. I’m Liana.”

“liana.” He rolls the name over his tongue with an Italian accent dipped insin. “That sounds like a made up name.”

“Well, it isn’t,” I assure him. Even if it is my middle name, it’s still my name. I figured it only made sense to use that instead of my first name Isabella, which the outfits know me as.

He gaze cuts over my face with laser precision, and whatever he thinks he sees in me makes his lip curl in disgust. Heat climbs up the flesh of my throat and it burns with repressed hate for men like him. Men who think they fucking know me with one glance. I’ve seen it a thousand times over. They mistake me for weak. A skinny orifice with big boobs and no brains. The misconceptions are endless. I must be a user because I’m gaunt and lifeless, not because I’m starving. I must be a whore because I was with that sick bastard. Surely, I asked for it.

I’ve seen it all before. So he's quiet judgment means nothing to me, or at least it shouldn’t but for some reason, if I’m being honest, it stings a little more than all the others. Maybe I was wrong, but when our eyes connected, it felt like I saw something else in him. Something other than a mafia asshole.

Regardless, his opinion doesn’t matter. I have no interest in a guy like him or what he might think of me. The faster I can get the hell away from him and everyone else like him, the better off I’ll be. “What do you need to show me?” I ask, my voice harder than it was just a moment ago.

He doesn’t budge, and neither do I. He won’t take his eyes off me, and I’m too paralyzed to move. He’s watching me carefully, waiting for me to crack while he picks me apart until I feel raw inside. My hands squeeze together in my lap in an effort to diffuse the tension, but all I really want to do is curl up in a ball and hide.

Finally, he turns and makes a  gesture with his hand. “Follow me to the back. I’ll show you where the dressing rooms are.”

I follow him down the hall, trying to focus on my environment, but instead, my gaze bores into him. There’s a pronounced swagger to his walk that tells me he’s confident in his abilities, and granted, he probably should be. He’s broad shouldered and built like a fighter, and I could almost bet he looks airbrushed underneath that jacket. His hands are so fucking big he could probably wrap them around my neck twice while he smokes a cigarette and strangles me with two fingers.

I wonder how many people he’s killed and then I wonder something even worse. Is he banging the dancers here every night? Is that why he’s incharge? But one look at his stony jaw, and I know that can’t be right. He doesn’t look like the kind of man who gets enjoyment out of much of anything. He probably fucks like a king, tossing women aside when he’s done impregnating them with sons for his clan.

I shake myself out of it when he turns to me, and his eyes move over me with a roughness they didn’t possess just a few moments before. “I hope you know how to fix yourself up. That mess you are sporting now isn’t going to fly.”

My jaw tightens, but I force a smile, reminding myself how much I need this job. “It’s not a problem.”

He doesn’t seem satisfied with his insult, so he adds salt. “Might want to go heavy on the makeup.”

“Duly noted,” I bite out. “Lots of makeup.”

I don’t actually have any makeup, but I’m hoping one of the other dancers will loan me some.

“There’s a shower too.” He points toward the back of the room. “You should probably use that.”

Shame blisters any pride I might have had left, threatening to ruin this opportunity before I even get started. I don’t know why he feels the need to be such an ass, but it isn’t necessary.  already hate myself enough for both of us, and nothing could be more humiliating than crawling out from behind a dumpster every morning. I washed up this morning in a gas station bathroom, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to point out that I still look a fright. My hair is knotted and in desperate need of some hot water and conditioner, and my skin could do with something other than crusty old bar soap.

I cross my arms to hide the fact that I’m shaking. It’s freezing in here and with such a low body weight, I get cold easily. “What else do I need to know?”

“You get a three-song set,” he says. “Better make it worthwhile. Dante doesn’t keep girls around if the clients don’t like them.”

Christ, I thought I had this job in the bag, but it makes sense that if I screw up, I’m gone. It doesn’t matter if I lied and said I have experience; these guys need to believe I do. Thank God I’ve been camped out here all week watching the other girls because I don’t know what I would do out there otherwise.

He rakes his eyes over me one last time and shakes his head like he doesn’t get why I’m here. “Sort yourself out. You have twenty minutes to impress us, or your ass is out the door.”