Page 9 of Glorious Sinner

The memory slammed through my mind and I grabbed for the doorframe when my legs felt close to buckling under me.

Later that night he’d gotten jealous because Brad Everly had talked to me while he was in the bathroom. He’d shoved me up against the wall when he finally had me alone, and had squeezed my arm so tight it left a bruise. He’d apologized the next day. He’d even cried. I naïvely thought his jealousy meant he loved me, that he was just scared of losing me, that he’d never really hurt me.

I lifted the back of my hand to my lips, fingers trembling so hard I almost dropped the keys I was holding. Something poked out from under it—a small card. I picked it up and flipped it over.

Missed you.

He’d found me.

I was going to be sick.

God, what if he was still there? I yanked my apartment door closed and ran down the hall, pounding on the button for the elevator over and over. “Come on.” I had to get out of there.

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

It finally slid open and I shrieked at the tall figure standing on the other side.

“Whoa. You okay, honey?” Mr. Kelley asked, his bushy gray brows lowered in concern.

I rushed in, forcing a smile that wasn’t convincing anyone. “Sorry. I was a million miles away.”

He chuckled and shuffled past me down the hall toward his place. The doors slid closed and I slumped back against the wall.

Ryan had been here. He’d been here more than once. He’d been right outside my apartment while I’d been inside. While I slept. One hard kick and he could have gotten to me…

He could have finished what he’d started.

I was on autopilot by the time I got to Stilettos, but the numbness I’d gotten so used to wasn’t there, not anymore. This was something else. I was so past terrified I was pretty sure I’d gone into shock. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think straight. I wasn’t sure how I was putting one foot in front of the other.

My shift started, and I did what I usually did: I danced and I talked to customers. I pretended that I wasn’t shattering, that with every moment that past I wasn’t breaking apart bit by bit. That all the work I’d done over the last twelve months wasn’t unraveling.

The shield was slipping away, revealing inch by broken inch. I felt like the whole club was looking at me, seeing me for the first time—the real me, the weak, battered shell I’d been when I woke up in that hospital bed, surprised I was still alive.

I could call the police. Take out a restraining order.

That wouldn’t stop him.

No, it wouldn’t, and I didn’t even have any proof it was him. A box of chocolates, a rose, a single note. I hadn’t actually seen him. Nothing the police would take seriously.

“You’re up after Liz,” Josie said when she walked by.

I smiled and nodded like everything was okay, like I was fine, and headed to the dressing rooms to do a quick change while Liz finished up her dance. I missed Willa. She used to dance here at the club, and I missed having her around. We’d somehow become friends. After she left and opened her own hair salon, I decided to do something I hadn’t in a long time, and reached out to her. We talked all the time now.

I could call her. Her man was a private investigator at The King Agency, an ex-cop. He’d know what to do. Willa would let me stay with her. She’d do whatever she could to help me. But the thought of leading Ryan to their door, into their lives—I couldn’t do that to her. Willa had her kid to think of.

And honestly, I didn’t know how to do it, how to reach out, to ask for help. Keeping secrets was ingrained in me. Ryan taught me that; pounded it into me with his fists over and over again.

Ryan doesn’t control you anymore.

A shudder moved through me as I walked backstage and waited for my turn. I loved dancing. I’d danced while I was with Ryan as well. He liked the money. And it was the only place I’d felt free, alive. The only place I had any real control. When it was my turn, I did what I always did; I let the music flow through me, tried to lose myself. I needed it, more than I had in a very long time.

But I couldn’t find my escape on that stage, no matter how hard I tried.

My body was covered in scars, most of which I could cover with makeup and strategically designed costumes. The lighting helped as well. But tonight I felt naked, stripped of the props I used to hide behind, and I was shaking so hard by the end of the song I wasn’t sure how I walked in a straight line.

As soon as I walked off, I rushed back to the dressing room, waiting for someone to ask if I was okay and why I was freaking out.

No one came. No one asked.