First Rule OF Strippin

The first rule of stripping: never make eye contact with someone you know. The second rule: if you break the first rule, run.

Inés broke both rules the moment she saw her stepbrother in the front row.

The bass thundered through P-Valley, shaking the stage beneath her heels. Red lights pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat as she gripped the pole, her body moving on autopilot. Spin. Dip. Arch. 

The sequined mask covered half her face, and the crimson wig fell in waves down her back. Her armor, her disguise, her salvation.

"Yeah, baby! Work it!" someone shouted from the shadows.

Dollar bills rained onto the stage. She didn't look at them. Not yet. Desperation was a scent men could smell, and desperate girls didn't make good money. She'd learned that the hard way.

Out here, under the haze of smoke and sin, she wasn't Inés the quiet college girl who lived in her stepfather's mansion and kept her head down. She wasn't the daughter her mother used as a prop to prove she'd reformed, that she deserved this new life of marble floors and designer handbags.

Here, she was Ecstasy.

And Ecstasy didn't have problems. Ecstasy didn't owe three hundred thousand dollars to a gang that sent pictures of her father's face with crosshairs over it. Ecstasy didn't lie awake at night wondering if this would be the month they stopped sending warnings and started sending bodies.

The music swelled. She spun around the pole, letting the cheers drown out the voice in her head that whispered you're running out of time.

"Take it off!" A drunk man in a stained shirt waved a handful of dollar bills like a flag.

"Shake it, gorgeous!" another one hollered, his words slurring together.

"Damn, look at that ass!" A balding man with rotting teeth leaned so far forward he nearly fell out of his chair.

Inés smiled, her fingers moved to the clasp of her bralette, just a tease, just enough to make them think they had a chance. The bills kept coming.

Three hundred thousand dollars debt. She needed more than what they are spraying tonight.

She dipped low, her hips swaying to the beat, and that's when her gaze swept across the crowd. 

And her world shattered.

Front row. Center seat. Tie loosened, whiskey in hand, dark eyes fixed on her like a wolf watching prey.

Miguel Alvarez. Her stepbrother.

The air left her lungs.

No. No. No. No.

Her heel caught on the edge of the platform. She stumbled, barely catching herself on the pole. The crowd roared, thinking it was part of the show.

"She's so into it!"

"Look at that energy!"

But Inés couldn't hear them anymore. The music became static and the lights blurred. All she could see was him sitting there in his perfectly tailored suit, watching her with the same cold intensity he used to give the staff at home orders.

Does he know?

Panic clawed up her throat. The wig. The mask. The makeup. The dim lighting. He couldn't recognize her. She'd been living under the same roof as him for six months, and he'd never looked at her twice. She was invisible to him, she was just another obligation that came with his father's new wife.

She spun again, forcing her body to move, to perform, even as her mind screamed at her to run. Her hands trembled on the pole.

He doesn't know. He can't know.

But then Miguel leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and his lips curved into a slow, predatory smile.

"Interesting," he murmured, his voice somehow cutting through the chaos.

Her blood turned to ice.

He reached into his jacket with the kind of casual confidence that came from never being told "no" in his entire life. When his hand came out, it held a thick stack of bills. Not the crumpled bills the other men threw, but hundreds.

He tossed them onto the stage, and they scattered at her feet. The crowd went wild.

"Holy shit!"

"Big spender in the house!"

"Someone's got a favorite!"

Miguel's voice cut through the noise, smooth and commanding 

"Dance for me."

Inés's heart slammed against her ribs. She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.

And then he stood, and the cheers grew louder.

"What's he doing?"

"Man wants a private dance!"

"Lucky bastard!"

Miguel didn't acknowledge them. He walked toward the stage like he owned it, his eyes never leaving hers. The crowd parted for him instinctively, recognizing power when they saw it.

He stopped at the edge of the stage. Close enough that she could see the hunger in his dark eyes. Close enough that she could smell his expensive perfume, the same scent that clung to his suits at home. Close enough that there was nowhere left to hide.

Her breath caught as he reached out.

Not for the money at her feet.

Not for her hand.

But for her mask.