Chapter Eighteen

For most of my life I’ve been torn by guilt. Guilt over the demons inside me. Guilt over my gender, my body, my desire. Being born a girl marked me as evil, according to the teachings of Harmony Hills. Even though I’ve been gone for years, I’ve never been able to shake the sense of shame.

I find Ivan in his study. His desk in the Grand is carved wood, contrasting with the stark concrete basement. His desk at home is just the opposite, an industrial construct of slate and steel set in a wood-shelved library. He sits behind the desk, facing the windows behind him.

Dusk creeps over the city, pushing yellow rays through textured windows. From inside you can’t see the bulletproof glass that protects you from the outside.

Ivan doesn’t look up from the photograph he holds. He doesn’t stir when I put a hand on his shoulder. “May I?”

Wordlessly, he holds out the picture. Blurry shapes form a black-and-white panorama. The silhouette of a man is hidden partially by a hood. He’s raising something up. A paintbrush? The brick wall behind him glistens with blood.

“Is it him?” Ivan asks.

I study the man, but he’s only a shadow here. A suggestion. “I can’t tell. I’m sorry.”

Ivan just stares at the windows, chin cupped loosely in his hand. “He never looked at the cameras. Never paused or stumbled, even though it was pitch-black in that alley.”

A knot forms in my throat as I stare at the shadow. “Leader Allen would have called that divine intervention.”

The suggestion of a smile ghosts over Ivan’s lips. “I was thinking inside job.”

“Oh.” Embarrassment washes over me. Of course. That’s how ingrained those teachings are, how unshakable their hold. Dismay tightens its band around my chest as I think about what he said. I don’t want to imagine anyone at the Grand could have betrayed it. “Who are you thinking of?”

“West is new.”

“No. He wouldn’t.”

One eyebrow rises. “Do you know that for sure?”

I look down. The floor is made of thin wooden planks that form diamond shapes. “Blue trusts him.”

“Blue could be involved too.”

Worry claws at my throat. “He’s with Lola.”

A soft laugh. “That doesn’t make him innocent.”

I can’t bear to think Blue is involved, because it would mean Lola isn’t safe. As the owner of the security company, he has complete access to the club. None of the girls would be safe. “Don’t you trust anyone?”

“No,” he says gently. “No one.”

And I know he isn’t talking about West or Blue. He’s telling me that he can’t trust me. That he can’t be with me, not how I want him to, and my heart gives a hard pang.

“There’s something else,” he adds. “Bianca never came back to work after her sudden day off.”

Dread is a deep well inside me, swallowing me whole. “No. I mean it. No. One of the girls would never do this, would never help someone like this.”

“Money is a powerful motivator,” Ivan says, emotionless. “Especially to a woman in trouble. Or she might not have known she was helping him until it was too late.”

I think back to everything I knew about Bianca—and all the girls. I can’t believe they would turn against us this way. Not for anything. Leaving is one thing, but putting the rest of us in danger? “She wouldn’t have.”

“Actually…” Ivan turns his chair to face me. “I don’t suspect her. Not that way. I am considering that she might have been the target of this person all along.”

Fear makes my heart beat faster. “That would mean she’s in trouble.”

“It’s been over forty-eight hours since she was last seen, Candy. Trouble isn’t the word.”

The photograph slips from my fingers and floats to the floor. “Stop it. She’s not dead.”

“Do you want me to lie to you?”

“Yes. No! I want you to stop being this cold, emotionless…” I trail off, not sure what I was going to say.

“Monster?” he asks softly, and I flinch. It’s the first reference either of us has made to what happened last night. “What I am can’t be changed. Not even for you. But it has its uses. I can consider all the possible suspects without emotion. Whereas you…”

“What about me?”

“You’re just a little girl,” he says softly.

I lift my chin. “I’m not innocent and I’m not stupid. I know exactly how the world works. I’m a stripper, for crying out loud. A slut. A whore. A demon, just like my mother—”

“Quiet,” he says, so soft I almost don’t hear him. I fall silent immediately, but the tears that stream down my face, they tell the whole story.

The fact that my mother sent me away…I can’t help but feel grateful. I know I couldn’t have escaped any other way. I can’t help but feel angry either, for not coming with me.

For choosing him over me.

“Kneel,” Ivan says, and I know then I wasn’t wrong. I am like my mother, because Leader Allen told her to kneel and she did. I’m the same, obedient until the end.

At least for one man.

I can feel the wooden slats against my shins. I lower my head, ashamed and somehow aroused. God, was this why my mother did it? Some kind of sick lust? Maybe we do have demons inside us.

The toe of his Italian leather shoe nudges my knee. “Wider,” he says.

I spread my knees wider and he leans down to cup my pussy through the jeans. “You’re my little girl,” he says, more seriously than I’ve seen him say anything. His eyes are piercing, sending some message I can’t decipher. It eases something inside me, sloughing off some of the shame, leaving me more naked than before.

“Why?” I whisper.

“Why what?” he asks, his tone patient as he opens the button of my jeans with one hand. His other hand is on my shoulder, brushing his thumb against the pulse in my neck.

“Why do you like me to call you Daddy?”

“Because it makes my cock hard.”

That’s not the real answer. It might be true, but there’s more. “And?”

His hand is warm against my sex, but his gaze—it burns. “Is it so wrong to want to take care of you?”

“No,” I say, dropping my gaze. His hand looks large between my legs, claiming ownership, protective and possessive. “But that doesn’t mean I have to call you Daddy.”

“What should you call me instead? Your boyfriend?”

The word sounds silly when I’m still sore from the way he treated me, my sex throbbing against his palm. It would be far too tame a word to describe him no matter where he touched me. I shake my head.

“Because I want you to trust me,” he says softly. “Trust me to take care of you.”

“The way I never trusted… him.” Leader Allen. I was once a devoted follower. I would have done anything he asked. But I was always afraid of him.

I’m not afraid of Ivan—not as much as I should be. He’s dangerous. Lethal.

“Daddy,” I whisper.

“Yes,” he says softly. “I like to hear you say it. That’s enough reason for me to make you.” He pauses before slipping his hand inside my panties.

I flinch, already expecting the worst. My skin is tender where his fingers are, on the outside, but I know it will be worse inside.

“Shh,” he soothes. “I was hard on you yesterday. This won’t hurt.”

It does hurt when he finds my clit, but it feels good too. I spread my legs wider so he can reach me better, and he nods in approval. His fingers toy with my clit, sliding along either side, dipping into my slit to gather wetness.

“Do you know the story of the minotaur?” he asks, his voice conversational.

It’s a struggle to focus with his hands playing with my sex. The schoolroom at Harmony Hills had taught us almost nothing. We learned about the Bible, as interpreted by Leader Allen, and how to be good, obedient disciples. Only the boys were taught to read and do math. Girls quit school early, and me even earlier. Everyone knew that my mother was Leader Allen’s whore, even if no one said the words out loud. I think everyone knew that I would take her place, too.