I whirl and almost slip on a loose cobblestone.

The man standing in front of me is completely still. That’s the first thing I notice about him—before I see the fine cut of his black suit or the glint of a silver watch under his cuff. Before I see the expression on his face, devoid of compassion or emotion. Devoid of humanity.

“We didn’t know she worked for you,” one of the men mumbles.

They’re still backing up, forming a circle around us, growing wider. I’m in the middle. I’m the drop that made this ripple. Then the men fade into the shadows and are gone.

It’s just me and the man in the suit.

He hasn’t spoken. I’m not sure he’s going to. I half expect him to pull out a gun from somewhere underneath that smooth black fabric and shoot me. That’s what happens in the city, isn’t it? That’s what everyone told me about the outside world, how dangerous it was. And even while some part of me had nodded along, had believed them, another part of me had refused.

There had to be beauty outside the white stucco walls. Beauty that wasn’t contained and controlled. Beauty with color. Only apparently I was wrong. I haven’t seen anything beautiful—except him.

He’s beautiful in a strange and sinful way, one that makes me more afraid.

He steps closer, the light from a marquee illuminating his face, making him look even more sinister. “What’s your name?”

I couldn’t answer those other men, but I find something inside for him. I find truth. “I’m not allowed to say my name to someone else.”

He studies me a long moment, taking in my tangled hair and my white dress. “Why not?”

Because God will punish me. “Because I’m running away.”

He nods like this is what he expected. “Do you have money?”

I have fifteen dollars left after bus fare. “Some.”

His lips twist, and I wonder if that’s what a smile looks like on him. It’s terrifying. “No, you don’t,” he says. “The question is, what would you do to earn some?”

Anything.

My voice is just a whisper. “I’m a good girl.”

He laughs, and I see that I was wrong before. That wasn’t a smile. It was a taunt. A tease. This is a real smile, one with teeth. The sound rolls through me like a coming storm, deep and foreboding.

“I know,” he says gently. “What’s your name?”

“Candace.”

He studies me. “Pretty name.”

His voice is deep with promise, and something else I can’t decipher. All I know is he isn’t really talking about my name. And I know it isn’t quite a compliment. “Thank you.”

“Now come inside, Candace.”

He turns and walks away before I can answer. I can feel the night closing in on me, the sharks in the water waiting to strike. It’s not really a choice. I think the man knows that. He’s counting on it. Whatever is going to happen inside will be bad, and the only thing worse will be what happens outside.

It’s the same thing that kept me in Harmony Hills for so long—fear and twisted gratitude.

I hurry to catch up with him, almost running across the crumbled driveway, under the marquee for the Grand, desperate for the dubious safety of the man who could hold the darkness at bay.

*     *     *

Harmony Hills is a place of purity, of paleness, and the city is black. Inside the building is something else entirely, an explosion of light and color. The women are beautiful, skin flushed and painted and glistening with glitter. Their bodies are strong—and almost naked.

No man is telling them to cover their bodies.

No man is making them sit down and shut up. Instead the men are looking up to them, practically panting in their eagerness, desperate for a glance or a touch, holding up money for the possibility.

I’m so enraptured by the sight of the stage that I almost lose sight of the man.

He stops in the crowd, and I see the way other men look at him—with apprehension. I see the way they move aside to let him pass. Fear shivers over my skin. The other men are panting after the girls, but not this one. He’s too cold for that, too sure he can have any one of them with a snap of his fingers.

That’s what he does—snaps his fingers, like I’m a stray puppy who’s lost her way.

Maybe that’s what I am to him.

I hurry to catch up. I get curious looks from the other patrons, but I ignore them. I’m not sexy and beautiful like the women onstage. I’m still wearing my white shift from Harmony Hills, my hair long and uneven at the bottom. We’re not allowed to cut it.

There’s a stairway to the side of the stage, and I follow him down. A guard of some kind waits at the bottom. His gaze flicks over me, dispassionate, as if evaluating me as a threat. I guess we both know I don’t pose any, because just as quick his gaze returns straight ahead.

The room below is more basement than office, the ornate wooden desk out of place on a concrete floor. He shuts the door.

His footsteps echo as he crosses and sits behind the desk.

“Sit down,” he tells me without even looking at me.

Sixteen years of training, of scripture ensure that I do what I’m told. I perch on the old wobbly chair in front of the desk. This room scares me. It’s suited to interrogation…or torture. If that door can keep the noise out, it can hold my screams inside. No one would hear me over the thud of music anyway. And that guard waiting outside… I know without asking that he wouldn’t let me leave.

I’ve traded one prison for another.

The man pulls out a cell phone and dials. Alarm spikes through me. “Who are you calling?” I demand, my heart beating fast.

“The police,” he says, his eyes meeting mine.

Panic claws at my chest. “No,” I burst out. “Don’t.”

One eyebrow rises. “Don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll give you a lollipop before they send you home.”

“You can’t send me back there.” When I was five years old, I colored on the walls of the chapel. I had to write I am a sinner on my arm twenty times with a steel-tipped feather. You can still see the scar of the last r if I’m in the sunlight. The punishment for running away, for getting dragged back, would be severe.

That earns me a low laugh. “I can do anything I want with you. You seem like a smart girl. I know you already know that.”

“Then let me dance,” I whisper.

Pale eyes narrow. “What?”

“Like those girls out there.” My heart is beating out of my chest. I don’t even know what I’m saying, whether I really want this or not. Whether I can even do it. “Let me work here.”

Frustration flashes across his stern face, so slight I would have missed it if I wasn’t staring at him—studying him. Learning him just like I learned Leader Allen for years. “Those girls,” he says, his voice like ice, “are grown women. Adults. Every one of them is at least eighteen years old, because my club doesn’t break the rules.”

He doesn’t seem like a man who follows rules, but I know what he means. He breaks the rules he wants to and follows the ones that will keep the cops off his back. He picks which rules to follow—and he has no reason to choose me.

I swallow hard. I know what’s coming. I just don’t know how I’m going to get out of it.

He scans me from my loose hair to my ragged dress down to my fraying cloth slippers. “And you…well, you look all of twelve years old.”

Do I really look that young? Do I really seem that innocent? “I’m eighteen.”

He smiles like we share a secret. “Of course you are. And I’m only calling the cops to protect your pretty little cunt.”

I blink, the word a slap. I don’t even know what it means, but I know it’s bad. I know because of the harshness of the word, the hard c and abrupt ending. I know because of the appreciation in his eyes when he says it—a man like this wouldn’t like anything sweet.

He stands, and it seems like he’s ten feet tall. I shrink against the wooden chair, but there’s nowhere to go. “The truth is,” he says, his voice smooth as water, “I’m calling the cops to get you out of my hair. And the only reason I follow the rules? Is to keep the cops from sniffing around, disrupting business. My real business. Understand?”