“Fuck off, Stefan. And just in case you plan on coming up to tell me any more about your bartenders, don’t. I’m not interested.”
I left my half-brother and headed upstairs where I belonged. It had been a mistake to think I should make an effort to be something I wasn’t.
EVER SINCE I was a kid, the surest way to make me want something was to tell me I couldn’t have it. Once an idea made its way into my mind, it was there for good until I did something about it. The problem was with Abbi I couldn’t do anything. Fuck, I didn’t even understand why I wanted to do anything about her. Yes, I liked her from the minute I laid eyes on her, but I’d done the right thing and made sure any temptation from her ended when I didn’t hire her.
Then why the fuck couldn’t I get her off my damn mind day and night? Two weeks of avoiding the bar and her, and each night as I sat alone with a bottle after everyone had left the club, I thought about her. No matter how drunk I got, all I could think of was her.
It was wrong. I knew it. But it didn’t matter. For every time I told myself nothing good could ever come of her and me together, my mind went back to when I watched her dance, my body coming alive with each moment she was in front of me.
I needed to forget her, but everything I tried only made me think of her more. I’d been successful in avoiding this because I knew how me being with any woman ended. For years, the memory of how I’d hurt the one soul I’d ever cared about had been enough to convince me I had to be alone.
I’d accepted it.
Some people shouldn’t love because all they caused was pain. I’d brought pain since the day I was born. Pain was all I was. My mother knew it. Holly found out too late.
And if I didn’t find a way to fight whatever this was that Abbi made stir inside me, she’d be hurt too.
I knew all of this but still it was her face in my dreams every night.
I made my way down to the bar before the crowds of the evening and the music made talking to another person impossible. How Stefan worked in this every night escaped me, but he seemed to love it. All that noise and all those people packed in like sardines weren’t my ideas of a great workplace.
The ruler of the bar stood at the end talking to three of his bartenders. Tapping him on the shoulder, I wanted to find out if Abbi was on the schedule for that night. I’d try once more to speak to her before I had to devise another way of getting her attention.
“Where’s Abbi, Stefan?”
He looked to his left and right and shrugged. “I don’t see her.”
“Is she scheduled for tonight?”
“I don’t know. Let me look.” He scanned the papers in front of him on the bar and shook his head. “She’s supposed to be here, but she called off.”
“Why?”
He twisted his face into a ridiculous expression. “How the fuck would I know? All I know is she called off.”
Stefan stomped off toward his office, so I walked back upstairs to find Gemma. Hopefully, she knew where Abbi was. Alone in the dancers’ break room, she sat at a table playing on her phone.
“Gemma, why isn’t Abbi at work tonight?”
At the sound of my voice, she turned to face me. Narrowing her eyes, she shook her head. “Why?”
“I want to know.”
“Why? What does it matter if she’s here or not?”
I leaned against the doorframe, already tired of getting no answers from Stefan and now her. “Gemma, I’m asking you why she isn’t here. I’d like a straight answer.”
“Are you going to tell me why you want to know?”
“Gemma!” I bellowed, scaring her. Struggling to keep calm, I lowered my voice and tried to get through to her. “Please tell me why she isn’t here. That’s all I want to know.”
She looked down at the floor and then back up at me. “I told her I wouldn’t tell anyone, Kane. She’ll be furious if she finds out I told you.”
“I won’t tell her I found out from you. Just tell me why she isn’t here.”
“Who else would you find out from? I know she didn’t tell Stefan the real reason why she called off.”
“Jesus Christ, Gemma! Just tell me. It’s not like I’m going to do anything to her.”
She hesitated and then in a tiny voice answered, “She’s at The Carousel Club.”
A hundred thoughts, each one uglier than the one before, tore through my mind. The Carousel Club ranked as the city’s worst strip club. Some of my dancers had spent time there before coming to Club X, and I’d heard horror stories about the place. Negligent owners, patrons who were allowed to grab and fondle the dancers against their will, and a club that stunk of stale beer and desperation couldn’t equal the money that could be made.
“Why is she there?”
“She needs money, Kane. That’s why I asked you to help her out with a job. She thinks you didn’t hire her because she doesn’t have experience, so that’s what she’s getting.”
Gemma continued to explain why Abbi had taken a job dancing at the nastiest club in town, but I wasn’t listening. My mind raced with all the horrible things that could be happening to her at that place. She’d gone there because I refused to hire her here, and now God only knew what they were doing to her over there.
I stormed out to my office to find Samson to watch the floors while I left to head over to The Carousel Club. Pushing the Mustang’s gas pedal to the floor, I tore through the streets over the mile or so to where Abbi was and hoped she hadn’t been hurt already.
The Carousel parking lot teemed with cars, even though it wasn’t even nine o’clock at night. Jesus, these guys liked it early and easy. No membership fees, no background checks, no discerning taste. Just skin and a lot of it at all hours of the day.
I opened the front door and the stench of cigarette smoke and cheap booze smacked me right in the face. Nausea crept up into my throat as I stepped into the club, but I needed to forget that and find Abbi. 80s metal music blared from the low budget sound system, and I scanned the room looking for her face. The lights trained on the center stage, and as the first chords of some Motley Crue song began to fill the room, she shyly walked out onto the catwalk in just pasties and a pink G-string.
The word NO filled every inch of my brain. She shouldn’t be up there with all these pathetic middle aged men leering at her. She was too beautiful, too innocent to be in all this depravity. I couldn’t stand there and watch her dance for these men.