Chapter 1—Emmy—Past
“No. No, Emersyn. You can’t spin like that. If you don’t center your balance, the first thing that you’ll end up doing is face-planting on the stage. You have to grip it like this,” Ivy huffs with frustration.
We’ve been going over this damn trick for the last two hours. She’s frustrated that I can’t seem to pick it up. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I can. I just don’t want to. For some reason, I love annoying the hell out of her.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been being ‘groomed’ to become the Princess of Syn, the strip club my parents own. Great parenting, right? Who has their kid doing pole tricks at ten? My parents do—that’s who. They had me in just about every normal dance class I could take since I was old enough to move. Then it was time to learn the ‘money makers,’ as they call it. To them, this is completely normal. And this weekend, everything changes. I just turned twenty-one, and according to my mother, Ivy, it’s time for me to stop serving the patrons and earn my keep.
“And remember, Emersyn, when you’re on stage, you need to show them everything they’re going to be begging for. No more of that shy shit. You already have The Ram pissed because you won’t take the stage if he’s in the room.”
“Uh, seriously? Why would I take my clothes off if my father is in the room? You two are so jacked up.”
Ivy squints her eyes at me. She hates it when I talk back. And she really hates that I refuse to do certain things when my own father is in the room. I’m sorry, but owner or not, there is no way I’m getting naked when The Ram—what Daddy dearest himself makes me call him—is in the room. That’s just a whole level of icky that I don’t want to deal with. It’s bad enough that my mother has been teaching me how to take my clothes off and seduce men for years.
“Don’t be an ungrateful brat, Emersyn. This whole place will be yours one day. These girls all see you and wish they could have parents that would hand them the world!” she screeches in my face. “Do the trick. And do it right this time or I’ll have The Ram come in here and set you straight.”
“Whatever,” I mutter under my breath and roll my eyes.
Reaching up, I grasp the pole with both hands, careful to place them so that I have the most support for my small frame. Luckily, I was blessed with a body that makes this somewhat easier. I’m short, but what I lack in height I make up for in legs. My mother always said that I was lucky to have such great waist-huggers. Jesus, it’s a miracle I’m not completely screwed up with the douche twins as my parents. After centering my body, I give a slight bounce, lifting my body horizontal to the stage, and use my momentum to spin. I hook one of my legs around the pole, using the heel of my five-inch stilettos to keep my balance.
“Come on, Emersyn. Use those abs and curl up. That’s it. Now, grip it again with your hands before you spin out.”
I can hear the pride in Ivy’s voice from the fact that her daughter has mastered the trick she seems to think she’s made famous. Really, I just climbed the damn pole with my legs and ground my vagina on the rod. It’s gross. And I hate every second of it.
Right before I’m about to end the trick and land on my feet, I feel his eyes on me. Shawn. My father’s head of security and, as I’ve been told by my mother and father…my future. The Ram’s been grooming Shawn right alongside me so that he can marry his daughter off and sit back to enjoy his douchebaggery. Really, those two combined have a level of douchiness that could clean a vagina better than Summer’s Eve.
I’ve hated Shawn since the first day his perverted eyes basically undressed my ten-year-old body. He is fifteen years older than I am, and there is nothing that makes him craving me as a young girl okay. It only continued to get worse the older I got. The Ram didn’t even blink when I told him that Shawn had tried to force himself on me one day. He literally laughed in my face and told me, ‘Well, Emersyn, do you blame him?’
Shawn would maybe be a somewhat attractive man if it weren’t for the fact that he looks like a mob lord. He’s a good foot taller than my five-foot-five frame. Solid muscles and so much chest hair that, when he wears his signature V-necks, it puffs through the opening like some disgusting fur rug. All he’s missing is the thick, gold chains. He’s attractive enough. I’ll give him that much. Strong jaw, full head of black hair, shaped brows, perfectly doctored nose, and full lips. He’s—minus the fur—the picture of male perfection. However, he repulses me.
I don’t know what makes me do it. Maybe it’s the fact that Ivy seems to think I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe it’s the fact that I hate what is going to become my life when I take the stage. Or maybe it’s the fact that king douche himself, Shawn, is standing in the corner, rubbing his dick through his slacks. But I take over the stage in moves that I’m sure Ivy has never even dreamed of. I climb to the top of the ten-foot pole before doing the death drop to the bottom, ending in a split then using my hands only to climb back to the top. I use every ounce of my upper-body strength to work that pole. It becomes an extension to my body as I effortlessly dance. By the time I do my last spin, my body is pulsing with power.
I might hate my life and what I’ve been forced to live, but if this is all that’s left for my future, then I’m going to own it the best I can. That is until the day I can find my out. Find a way to escape this madness before I lose hope that there is something better out there for me.
I won’t let this break me. I’m stronger than that. I’m Emersyn Rose Keeze, the Princess of Syn, and one day, when I break free of this life, I’ll be a better person because of what I have had to overcome. I won’t let this define me.
“Well, well… Was that for me, Emersyn?” His voice makes me want to puke. Thick, deep, and full of sexual undertones. He makes no secret that he wants me with an unhealthy desire.
“No, Shawn. That was so that Ivy would shut up and let me get off that damn stage. Definitely not for you.” I roll my eyes, feeling the power of his glare beating into my naked back. “Leave the dressing room. Now.”
His hand reaches out and forcefully grips my forearms, pulling me back to crash against his chest.
“Let go of me, asshole. You know The Ram won’t like it if you bruise up his fucking Princess of Syn. How will you explain that one?”
“You little brat. You think you have the control here? You think that little princess shit means anything to me? The Ram will pat me on the back for putting you in your place.” His warm breath against my neck makes me want to vomit. God, he’s disgusting.
“Fuck you,” I spit.
“Gladly, Emersyn. Fucking gladly.”
I’ll give him credit. He proved me wrong that day. I put up a good fight, but anything that had been left of my innocence was stolen from me that day, and even though I knew I would eventually get out, something broke inside me. Whether it was the belief that I could overcome this life, the knowledge that I had in thinking I could escape unharmed, or the fact that every second I’d lived leading up to being roughly raped in the back dressing room of my family’s strip club delivered home the fact that I’m nothing but trash.
Don’t get me wrong. I know I’m worth more than this life I unfortunately was born into, but something about that day will forever taint a part of my soul. I’ve worked so hard to keep my mind closed off from the filth that surrounds me. The mother who thinks of me as some fucked-up version of herself to relive her life through. The father who looks at me, his own flesh and blood, as an object to make him money. And the man they’ve promised me to. This life that has been predetermined since they found out my dad’s top dancer and piece of ass was having his daughter. The name I was born into, Emersyn, Locus City’s Princess of Syn, the hottest and seediest strip club in south Florida. Since that fateful day The Ram forgot to pull out of Ivy, I’ve been destined to take the stage. And like it or not, it’s all I have, and it’s going to be my ticket out of this hell.