“Is that your friend from the other night?” Dominick asks warily.

I can tell he’s trying not to show how interested he is. How involved. He frames the question like casual curiosity but I know it’s more than that. His life, his job, his people—all of that connects with my life, my job, my people. He’s trying to piece it all together, but I don’t know yet if I can trust him if he does untangle it all the way. Whatever is happening to Vanessa is not his business. Yet.

“No,” I lie quickly. “It’s, uh, someone you don’t know.”

He narrows his eyes at me with suspicion, still toying with the knife in a way that I can’t quite decipher as playful or threatening. He shakes his head.

“You’re in over your head, sweetheart. This world you and your friends are falling into is not a habitable environment for women like you,” he says rather cryptically.

I raise an eyebrow and wrinkle my nose. “Sorry, what was that? Women like me? What does that mean? What are you implying?” I retort. I don’t stand for being condescended to or given an insult couched in advice.

“Well, are you or are you not a woman working under the thumb of a sleazy predator like Owens?” Dominick pointed out with a shrug. “Being involved with that kind of guy is never going to lead anywhere good.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s not my pimp. He’s just my boss,” I protest defiantly, even though my bravado is starting to slip. I know Dom is right. I would never have gotten roped into this big mess if I wasn’t a recruit of Carl Owens. And even though I always try to convince myself that being a good enough gambler and making money for him through that channel would be enough to protect me from… the other ways in which he would contract me out for money.

If I make myself priceless, if I make him need me out on the casino floor winning games and matches and bringing home sacks of chips, then he won’t make me do anything worse. I’ve heard the stories. I know what kind of man Carl is behind his faux-father-figure demeanor and his talk of teamwork. It’s dawning on me that I could never be more valuable at a poker game than in some stranger’s bed. My heart sinks as I think about Vanessa, who is probably meeting that same exact fate I’m dreading.

When it comes down to it, we may be brilliant, put-together, professional, strong women—but a predator like Owens will always just see us as chattel. Just assets to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. And to think there was ever a time I might have defended him…

“You know he deserves nothing less than death,” Dominick says, his gravelly voice punching through the fog of anxiety clouding my head. I look up at him, a little taken aback. I blink a few times, feeling that muscle in my jaw tensing as it always does when I am trying my hardest to hold back tears.

Dominick is right. I know it. And maybe this makes me weak, but I still don’t want him to kill Carl. There has to be another way. Right now, though, I don’t have the time to stand here and stall the probably inevitable murder of my evil, conniving boss. I need to find Vanessa somehow. She said she escaped whoever captured her. I won’t let them catch up and take her away again.

So I give Dominick one last long look, my eyes blazing with intention, with persuasion.

“Please, Dom,” I begin quietly. “Don’t do this. Don’t kill him. I agree that he probably deserves it. I’ve seen his true colors, okay? I get it. I know who and what he is. Money is his god, and he will sacrifice everything and everyone to get more of it, and he doesn’t care if it’s abusive or awful. But there has to be a different way to handle this. I’m going to leave now, because someone I care deeply about is in trouble. That means I am trusting you, Dominick. I’m trusting you not to kill my boss.”

Dominick regards me with a furrowed brow, a dark scowl on his angular face. I can positively feel the cogs turning in his head as he weighs my words, but I know I can’t stick around long enough to see him make the decision.

“Will you let me leave here if I promise not to turn you in?” I ask him in a small voice.

He groans, tensing up and letting out a long, exasperated sigh. “Yes. I am trusting you, just as you’re trusting me,” he says emphatically.

“Thank you. Trust me, I won’t say a single word,” I assure him, making my way toward the stairs.

I watch him a little nervously as I disentangle from the conversation, but he doesn’t make a move to stop me. I hurry down the marble steps to the backyard, bolt across the flawlessly-manicured lawn, jump over a flowerbed of zinnias, and open the side gate to let myself out. I make my way to the curb, then whip out my phone. I call a cab to come pick me up, every minute feeling like hours.

As the taxi rolls to a halt by the curb, I realize with a shudder of dismay that I don’t actually know where to tell the driver to go. Vanessa wasn’t able to give me coordinates or an address or anything. I hesitantly climb into the back seat, fully preparing to sound like a complete crazy person. The driver glances at me in the overhead mirror, looking bored out of his mind as he loudly smacks on chewing gum.

“Where to, miss?” he asks.

“Uh,” I murmur, staring down at my phone, willing it to ring. I look up to meet the driver’s gaze. I wrack my brain for a moment, piecing together the few mildly useful words Vanessa could give me. Station. The desert. Nowhere.

A gas station out in the desert, the middle of nowhere. Nevada has lots of those. But this one won’t be too far from the city, I’d guess.

“Miss, do you have an address for me? We’re wasting time,” the driver urges me.

“Oh, I apologize. I don’t actually have an address, but do you happen to know of a gas station out in the desert where… uh, where bad people go to do bad things?” I ask, wincing at how ridiculous my request must sound.

The look in my driver’s eyes shifts and he slowly nods with understanding. “It’s not where they do business, but there’s a gas station I know of that the night folks like to use,” he says, pulling the cab away from the curb. “Figure it’s that place, if you’re looking for bad people. Didn’t figure you the type.”

“Is it in this area code?” I ask him, showing him the call history, and he nods.

“Yea, that’s the one.”

“And there’s a payphone there?”

“Sure, though I don’t know if it’s in service anymore. Why do you want to go out there?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I tell him, leaning back against the seat with a sigh. It might be a dead end, but it’s the only clue I have.

I stare out the window as the cab rolls along down the road, leaving the relatively quiet, remote neighborhood where Carl made his home. I turn back and watch my boss’s swanky hideaway get smaller and less impressive as we drive away, until finally it disappears over the horizon. I turn back around, biting my lip and fidgeting with the cell phone in my hands. I can’t seem to stop checking it nervously, making sure that the sound is on over and over again. It’s just that I can’t risk missing a phone call from Vanessa.

She says she’s escaped whoever nabbed her, but who knows how close behind her captors might be. What if she didn’t get very far? What if those assholes are still nearby, just sniffing her out? My stomach twists and turns at the thought that I might arrive there too late. Or, even more likely, I end up at the wrong desert gas station altogether, miles and miles of dusty red dirt away from where my closest friend and colleague is desperately waiting for a rescue.

That’s a sobering thought. And following on its heels comes another dark thought, this one in a different direction but just as pressing. The clear picture in my mind that just won’t fade away no matter how hard I try to shake it off: Dominick and his handy, glistening, sharp knife. I know whose body that knife is itching to carve up. And I can’t deny that it would probably make the world a safer, better place for him to be gone.

Can I trust Dominick to leave Carl alive?

And perhaps more importantly, do I really want him to?

I can’t help but think about Dominick and how strangely we have fallen into each other’s lives. When I first met him, I assumed he was just like all the other guys who sidle up next to me at the casino bar, spouting off some smooth line and offering to buy me drinks to lower my inhibitions. I can see that kind of man coming from a mile away. Like a pointed shark fin cutting through crystal-blue waters, I know what sort of beast to expect. I know how they attack. And by now, I have long since learned how to defend myself. But Dominick disarmed me so easily. I tried to put up the usual walls, the usual deterrents. My sarcastic wit, my sharp tongue, my aloof demeanor. Everything from my blood-red stilettos to my well-practiced glare is meant to keep them from getting too close.

I’m not supposed to let them in.

I’m not supposed to let my guard down.

But he found a way. I feel helpless to resist him. It frightens me to think that if he were to magically appear next to me right now, he would make my heart pound and my body warm up. I can’t pretend like my body isn’t drawn to his like a moth to flame. I know he’ll burn me if I get too close. Especially now that I know just how dangerous a life he leads. I thought I was living life on the edge, but I’ve never been ordered to kill a man.

The scenery as I stare out the window shifts from glossy high-rise buildings to smaller, humbler neighborhoods on the outskirts of town, to the wide red-gold expanse of the dusty desert. Cacti and strange, clay-colored outcroppings dot the landscape. There’s something about this part of the world that fills me with a powerful sense of loneliness and awe. It feels like no man’s land. It feels empty and yet full of mystery at the same time. And somewhere out here, at some podunk, middle-of-nowhere fill-up station, I hope to find my friend. I check my phone obsessively as we move farther away from Carl’s hideaway, but I don’t get any calls. My stomach aches, my heart racing as I search the horizon for signs of life.

Finally, I manage to just barely make out the shimmering form of a building in the near distance. I lean forward excitedly and point out the front windshield.

“Is that it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says flatly. “That where you want to be dropped off?”

“Yes. But don’t leave. I’m just here to… to collect someone,” I say vaguely as I give him a folded fifty, “This is just a tip.”

The cab rumbles down the road and pulls to a stop in front of the gas station. It’s an ancient-looking place, the metal sign being devoured by crumbling rust. There looks to have been a time when there were multiple gas pumps available, but now it’s just the one lonely diesel pump sitting in the middle, a puddle of colorful dark oil gathered next to it. If not for the dejected OPEN sign hanging at a jaunty angle at the front entrance, I would assume the whole place is shut down. The driver gives me a doubtful look.

“You sure you want to get out here?” he asks warily.

“No,” I answer honestly, “but I have to. Wait for me,” I order him as I step out of the vehicle.

“Sure,” he says, shaking his head.

I don’t know what exactly to expect here, or whether my hunch that this is where Vanessa is hiding is correct. I slip out of the cab, take a deep breath, and saunter up to the gas station, trying to exude placid calmness. I don’t see her anywhere outside, so I push open the doors, which sets off a little dinging bell. The ancient-looking man behind the counter looks up at me with his wiry, bushy white eyebrows and seems surprised. I start making my way down the chips and cookie aisle, surreptitiously looking around. I don’t see anyone here, much less someone who looks like Vanessa. My heart starts to sink. Maybe this is the wrong place, after all.

“Please don’t tell me you’re just here to use the bathroom,” he says suddenly.

I whip around and give him a frown of confusion. “I’m not, but why?” I ask, folding my arms over my chest. The gas station attendant heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes.

“There’s a young lady in there who’s been hogging the toilet for going on an hour now. I’ve had to turn away two paying customers because she refuses to come out of there. My guess is she’s hungover or something. You crazy kids are always taking it too far on your little club nights in the city,” he preaches grumpily.

“The girl who’s in the bathroom right now—what does she look like?”

The guy shrugs. “I don’t know. Kind of like you. Real pretty. She’s got dark hair, though, not pretty red like yours. About your age, I’d guess,” he says.

I turn and bolt to the women’s restroom at the back of the gas station building and start knocking on the door desperately. “Vanessa? Vanessa! Are you in there?”

“H-Hadley?” comes a tiny, meek, tearful voice from the other side of the door.

I can’t help but smile with relief. “Yeah, it’s me, hon. Open up.”

After a moment of hesitation, I hear the door unlock and it starts to slowly open, Vanessa’s tear-streaked and terrified face appearing in front of me. Her eyes dart around with fear for a moment and then her arm shoots out to grab me by the shoulder and yank me into the bathroom with her.

I try to protest, “Vanessa, what are you—” but she manages to pull me and lock the door so quickly I don’t even have a chance to respond. I stare at her, looking her up and down in horror. Her dress is dirty, her knees scraped up and bruised. Her hair, usually so sleek and shiny, hangs limp and greasy around her petrified face. There are bags under her almond-shaped eyes and mascara-black lines track down her cheeks. Even her trademark dark red lipstick is smudged around her mouth messily.

She looks terrible.

I immediately grab some paper towels from the dispenser and dampen them with warm water, then take a few tentative steps toward my friend. At first, she instinctively steps back and shields herself with a little whimper, but when she remembers that it’s just me, she lets me dab at her face. As I clean her up, I ask questions.

“Nessa, can you tell me how you got here?” I ask softly.

She’s staring right at the floor, utterly downtrodden. “I was kidnapped as I was leaving the casino. I was trying to hail a cab in the dark. And then someone was grabbing me. It all went dark. Chloroform, maybe. When I came to, I was in a dark room. I heard… I heard something Carl said about wanting to clear his debts to the mafia? He told them, the other guys, that he had something more valuable than casino chips. He offered me up as part of the deal. But they got angry at him. I could hear them arguing. One of them said it was an unfair offer, that I’m not even worth half his debt,” she sighs.

“Well, that’s both disgusting and offensive,” I retort fiercely.

“I know,” Vanessa agrees, nodding. “But Hadley, that’s not the end of it. There’s more. When they asked for a fairer deal, Carl said he’d double his offer by… by throwing you into the mix, too. He said your name, Hadley. He wants to sell us both.”

My heart is pounding.

Instinctively, I try to tell myself she misunderstood. That there’s no way that Carl is going to sell us to the mafia, not for any reason. But there’s a pit in my stomach, because I know that Dom was right. “How did you get away, Vanessa?”

“At one point they, uh, chloroformed me again. I woke up in the back trunk of a car. I was really scared and my whole body hurt. I could feel the car going really fast, so I knew there was nothing I could do. But then I felt it stop. Here. At the gas station. I heard the guy get out to pump the gas, and then he walked away. I heard his footsteps get softer. I was so scared, but I remembered something Monique taught me once when we were watching some police show together.

I kicked out the taillight and reached through it to press that button to pop the trunk. As soon as it was open, I closed the trunk and ran. I hid behind that huge saguaro not far from the gas station and I watched the guy get back in the car and drive off. I don’t think he knew I was gone. And when he drove away, I just called you from the payphone and ran into the station and locked myself in the bathroom. I wanted to call the cops but… I was afraid. Besides, they wouldn’t believe me. I know they wouldn’t,” she begins to cry, her shoulders shaking with emotion.

I put my arms around her, patting her on the back as she sobs into my shoulder. This is all worse than I even thought. Dominick was right on the money. I always knew Carl was a sleazebag who couldn’t be trusted, but this? This is insanity. Selling us to the mafia like a couple of cows? Hell no. I won’t stand for it.

“Vanessa, listen to me: the mafia doesn’t forget a bargain. They’ll be coming after us, and between the mafia and Carl, one of the two is bound to catch up if we don’t split soon. So here’s what you’re going to do for me. I’m going to give you some money, and I’m going to get that nice cab driver out there to call up one of his colleagues to come get me. That nice man is going to take you to Reno. There, you’re going to get on a bus. Make sure you buy a ticket to get as far from Vegas as you can go. Then find another bus station, another company, and take another bus even further. When you get there, you lie low, okay? Use the money I give you. Pay for a hotel. Not a crappy one, either. You put yourself up in a safe hotel and make it your basecamp. From there, you find a job. Something quiet. Be a bartender or a nanny or something. Get paid in cash and pay for everything in cash. Keep a stash of burner phones. Use one for a week and toss it. On to the next one. They’ll forget us eventually, but for now, you’re going to need to be paranoid to keep yourself safe,” I tell her firmly, pushing back to gaze into her teary eyes.

She sniffles and nods. “But what about you, Hadley? Why don’t you just come with me? They’ll be after you, too. Just come with me. We can hide out together,” she suggests.

I bite my lip. It’s a tempting offer. Just leave all this mess behind and start over. But if I do, I’ll be abandoning my money. My dreams of owning a home. Of traveling the world. Of broadening my horizons.

And I’ll be leaving Dominick behind, too. Why does the thought of that bug me so much?

“I can’t go with you,” I tell her with a sigh. “I can’t. One of us can disappear, but us together... It’s too dangerous, honey. We need to split up. It’ll be harder for them to trace us that way. Here. Take this.”

I pull out my slick little patent leather wallet and yank out a stack of hundred-dollar bills. A thick stack. Vanessa’s eyes widen as I force the stack into her hands. “Go out there and get in that taxi. Tell him to take you to Reno. Follow my instructions from there. You can do this,” I assure her.

She looks heartbroken at first, and I know it’s killing her to leave me behind. But finally, she nods and tucks the money into her pocket. “Okay. I’ll try. Thank you,” Vanessa says softly.

“Don’t mention it. We’ve got to look out for each other in this world. Because you sure as hell know nobody else is going to,” I tell her with a dry smile. “Go. Go ahead.”

She looks like she wants to say something else, but she thinks better of it. Instead, she just hugs me tight for a few seconds, then bolts out of the bathroom. She leaves me to stand there, looking at my own reflection in the filthy mirror. What the hell am I going to do? Will I run away? Spend my whole life trying to outpace the mafia, always looking over my shoulder?