I sit at a table in the restaurant of the club with a whiskey in front of me looking out on the floor. The restaurant part, which is small, is slightly elevated from the main floor where patrons can watch what’s going on while having a meal.

This afternoon, I paid a visit to Cilla’s brother. What happened last night has been bugging me all day. When I told her she was damaged she didn’t deny it. She just looked at me like it was a fact, simple and straight. And I want to know what the damage is.

But Jones surprised me. When it came to talking about her, talking about their time in foster care, he was like a different person. He put up walls so thick and so high, they were impenetrable, even for me. Whatever happened to Cilla when she was a kid, he’s not talking.

And something did happen.

The only house they spent a significant amount of time in was at Judge Herbert J. Callahan’s. He and his wife took in foster kids for years. He’s in his late seventies now. Retired.

I know people though. And the cleaner they look on the outside, the dirtier they are on the inside. See, you have to watch out for men like the good Judge as much as you do men like me. They’ll fuck you just like I will. They just may be more discreet about it.

Jones didn’t give anything away. All he said was what I already knew. Parents were dead and since they had no other living relatives, they went into the foster care system. No one wants to adopt teenagers. And all there is on those years they spent with the Callahan’s are two hospital reports, one of a broken arm and a second time a broken ankle. Cilla’s. She’d fallen down the stairs is what Jones said. Twice.

That sounds way too fucking coincidental and I don’t buy it. I don’t even know if he wants me to.

But why in hell would he defend Judge Callahan if the old man abused her? Especially now that they’re both adults and he can’t touch them.

If that wasn’t enough, I had a call from Helen informing me Cilla had snuck out of the house and when she’d returned she’d been soaked and covered in mud. It doesn’t take a genius to know where she went.

When Hugo walks onto the main floor, I check my watch. It’s almost ten o’clock. Cilla will be here soon. I want to know if he’s learned anything.

The waitress walks over as Hugo takes a seat across from me.

“Usual?” she asks him.

“Yeah.” He sets a file down on the table and slides it over to me. The look on his face tells me it’s not good.

I open it, glance at the sheets inside, waiting while the waitress delivers Hugo’s drink.

“A dirty judge,” I say. I expected that.

“The dirtiest kind.” He reaches over and flips a few pages back. “These are the kids he took in. Always teens. Always a pair—brother and sister. Always an older brother, younger sister.”

I like the sound of this less and less.

“They all stay two years. When the brother turns eighteen, he gets rid of both of them.”

I look at Hugo, raise an eyebrow.

“Like in Jones and Cilla’s case. Judge grants the brother custody. They disappear. But—” He flips a few sheets to a copy of a newspaper article. I check the date. It’s from almost four years ago.

“This one didn’t disappear. Her brother did, but she didn’t. She claimed abuse when they lived in the Callahan home. Came forward because her brother committed suicide. Turned out he was a meth head and, given the Judge’s impeccable reputation, she was played as some pariah out for money. But you know how I feel about judges and the system.”

I know. Hugo spent too long in prison. He’ll never feel any other way.

“Jones won’t talk but something happened there,” I say, closing the file. “Where’s Callahan now?”

“Florida. Moved two years ago.”

“How would you like to get out of this shit weather and get some Florida sun for a few days?”

Hugo grins, swallows his whiskey. “I’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.”

The front door opens then and John, the man I sent to bring Cilla, walks in. I feel Hugo’s eyes on me when I stand and button my jacket as Cilla enters a moment later.

I clear my throat.

He clucks his tongue and gets to his feet. “I’ll talk to you later, boss,” Hugo says.

I don’t take my eyes off her. “Later.” She’s still got her coat on so I can’t see what she’s wearing, but she’s got on a pair of high-heeled black pumps. When John puts a hand at her back to guide her to the restaurant, she brushes it off. She spots me in the same instant and stops when our eyes meet. I wonder if it’s guilt. If she knows I know what she did today.

She resumes walking. The eyes of other diners follow her when she climbs the two stairs to the restaurant and approaches me.

“Cilla,” I say, drawing out her chair.

“Killian.”

She doesn’t like calling me Kill. “Take off your coat.”

She looks down as if just realizing she still has it on. Unbuttoning it, she slips it off her shoulders. I take it and hand it to John. “Thank you, John.”

“Sir.”

He turns to walk away and I look Cilla over. She’s wearing a strappy black dress that clings to her. The hem comes to mid-thigh and she looks stunning. I nod in approval and gesture for her to sit. She does and her gaze moves across the room and while it does, I take her in. She’s left her hair loose and it drapes thick and dark down her back. Her heavy bangs frame her pretty eyes as she watches the dancers, three of them on three different stages. It’s a classy place, one for the wealthiest of the wealthy, but ultimately it’s a strip club. And she’s not impressed.

I grin. “Not good enough for you?”

“Women taking their clothes off while men sip expensive drinks and stroke their dicks isn’t impressive, no.”

“Each of the women chooses to do this. Don’t judge what you don’t understand.”

“I’m not judging. I just wouldn’t want to be one of them.”

“And that’s fine for you, but I think you are judging.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you better than you think.”

She drops her gaze to her lap, laying her napkin on it.

“See that one there,” I start, pointing to one of the dancers. “Her stage name is Brandy. She’s got a two-year-old at home and is one year from graduating law school. That’s Lola there, she works with high-risk kids, to keep them off the streets. Julie, well, she just likes having men watch her take her clothes off, and why not? She’s a beautiful woman. She uses what she has to make a very decent life for herself. And she gets to keep all the control.” From the look on Cilla’s face, I’ve hit a nerve. “Like I said, don’t judge what you don’t understand.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t judging.” She picks up the menu. “But you have to admit, there’s a stigma that comes with the word stripper.”

“Stigmas are created by closed-minded, pole-up-the-ass people to make themselves feel superior. Make up your own mind after you’ve got all your facts.”

She sets the menu down and cocks her head to the side. “So did you bring me here to show me what a good guy you are? Hiring all these women to strip for you because they want to? To show me how because of you they keep all the control?”

I count to ten. This isn’t how I want this evening to go. “I wanted to have dinner with you. And I thought you’d want to get away from Rockcliffe House for a night. That’s why I brought you here. That’s all.”

That gives her pause. She lowers her lashes but doesn’t quite apologize.

I signal for the waitress who brings over a bottle of wine from my private collection. Cilla’s quiet while she pours.

“Do you know what you want to have to eat?” I ask her.

She looks up. “The filet mignon, well done, with roasted potatoes and a salad please.”

“I’ll have the same, but make my steak rare.”

“Right away,” the waitress says and leaves with our menus.

“You’re hungry,” I comment.

“Dinner’s late.”

“It’s not your little adventure that worked up an appetite, is it?” I ask, wanting her to know that I know.

She flushes, blinks rapidly and looks around the room. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asks, rising.

I nod in the direction of the lady’s room. Her heels click as she walks away and I scan the patrons of the restaurant, making note of who’s watching her, who’s with whom, memorizing alliances. These are dangerous men. This is a dangerous world. And when Cilla returns to the table, I wonder for a moment why I’ve brought her here. In public. Because I know each of these men is, in turn, watching me. Taking inventory of what’s mine.

We don’t speak, but drink the wine instead. She’s clearly anxious under my gaze, but I don’t mind that. I like it, in fact.

When the waitress brings dinner, Cilla eats with gusto. I make a mental note to tell Helen to feed her regularly whether she asks for meals or not.

“What were you looking for?” I ask her.

She doesn’t pretend to not know what I’m talking about and I respect her for that. She puts her fork down, chewing on a piece of meat as she considers her answer. “I wanted to know where you went,” she finally says after swallowing.

“But you knew where I went.”

She stares at me, uncertain what I mean, but perhaps suspecting.

“You wrote a piece on Rockcliffe House two years ago. You didn’t use your full name when you published. You used Hawk instead. Why?”

She clearly didn’t know I knew this, but I look into the background of every person I come in contact with. It’s just I didn’t expect to find what I did on her.

“That was a fluff piece. A ghost story. I want to be a serious writer.”

“So you were looking for my sister’s ghost out there?”

She chokes on the bite she just put into her mouth and gulps half her glass of water to wash it down.

“I don’t like wasting words, Cilla. I already told you that.”

“I wanted to know why you’d come back like you had last night. Barefoot but for your socks. It was strange. And you were drunk. I thought you were, at least.”

“I was when I went out there.”

“What happened to your face?” she asks. “The scar?”

I know what she’s talking about. I pick up the bottle and refill her glass, then take a sip of mine, set my glass down and lean back in my chair before answering.

“That’s the cut my uncle got in before I stuck a knife in his gut.”

Her mouth falls open and her eyes go wide.

I grin. “It was a long time ago and he deserved it. Why do you look shocked? You know this already. It’s not a secret. Everyone in this place knows what I did.”

“Why did you get out of prison after only four years?”

“I served my time.”

“No, you didn’t. You only served four years.”

I lean forward, pick up my last forkful of meat and stick it into my mouth, crushing the tender flesh between my teeth.

“My uncle deserved to die. I wasn’t the only one who thought so.” I wipe my mouth and set my napkin on my plate.

Cilla slumps back in her chair, picks up her glass and drinks the last of it. I signal to the waitress. “Get us another bottle.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did he do?” Cilla asks, like she’s barely realized the waitress was just here.

I study her for a very long time before replying with less emotion than I thought I could. “He’d been raping my sister for a long time. She was fifteen when she died.”

Cilla’s face goes white. That detail she didn’t know. Not many people do. I don’t know why I just told her.

I unclench my fist and rub my hand across my mouth.

Cilla is thoughtful for a long time. I don’t anticipate her next question. I think it’s going to be something else. Some words of pity. But she surprises me. She always seems to surprise me. “What does it feel like?” She’s watching me so intently, I don’t think she’s blinking.

“What does what feel like?”

The look in her eyes, it’s strange. Dark. Too dark for her.

The waitress comes to replace our empty bottle. I pour for us both and Cilla waits to speak until I’m sitting back again.

“Stabbing a man.”

Our eyes are locked and I don’t understand what I’m seeing. She’s trembling a little, and her face is ashen, but there’s something in her eyes, something desperate, something wild and vengeful. Something old and sad.

“Let’s go,” I say, standing up. I pick up the bottle and wait for her to stand.

It takes her a minute to move, to blink again. I pull her chair back and she rises. I take her arm and she doesn’t resist when I lead her toward the elevator. When the man stationed there sees us coming, he pushes the button and the doors slide open when we reach it.

Suddenly, I feel like I need to hide her away. Like I shouldn’t have had her out here, where everyone would see her. They’ll want to know who she is. They’ll look into who she is and I don’t want them to. I don’t want anyone to. I want to keep her hidden. Keep her to myself.

I don’t let her go until we’re in my office. The elevator doors close behind us and she walks toward my desk, drawn to the monitors there. There are six of them and currently, five are set on the club and one on the house. Helen is moving around the living room. Cilla watches her, cocks her head to the side as she does.

From the wet bar, I retrieve a wine glass and pour her one from the bottle I brought up. For myself, I pour a whiskey. She turns to look at me when I approach, takes the glass from my hand.

“You watch the house?”

I sip my drink and nod. I haven’t thought about what it felt like to drive the knife into my uncle’s belly for a long time, but I remember it. I remember breaking skin, cutting through fat. Muscle would give more resistance, but my uncle’s gut, well, it easily yielded the pound of flesh I required.

I look Cilla over, look at how her nipples press against her dress. Watch how her hand trembles when she brings the glass to her lips, barely taking a sip as she watches me. I set my drink down and take my jacket off. She puts her glass next to mine. I turn her so she’s facing the cameras, lean her forward, place her hands flat on the desk.

I draw her hips backward, raise the dress up along her thighs, over her hips, up her back. She’s wearing panties. A lacy black pair. I draw them down to mid-thigh, look at her perfect ass. At her bent over like this. She’s almost more naked for the underwear.

Raising my hand, I bring it down on her hip.

She gasps, spins around, hands on her ass. “What did you do that for?”

“I told you no panties.”

She studies my eyes, doesn’t battle me with words.

“Turn around, get your elbows down on the desk and be grateful I’m only punishing you for the panties.”

She hesitates, but a moment later, does as she’s told. I arrange the dress high on her back. The panties have slid to the floor and pool around her ankles. I raise my hand and slap her ass again. She grunts, but holds still while I continue spanking her. Ten times on each cheek. I know it stings from the way she wriggles around, and I have to lay a hand on her low back to keep her in position, but this is nothing to what I can do. Nothing to how I can punish her.

When I finish, I cup both reddened cheeks. They’re warm. I rub the sting from them.

Cilla cranes her neck to look at me.

“Next time, I’ll use my belt.”

I can’t read what’s in her eyes but she swallows hard enough for me to hear. I lean over her and push a few buttons so the camera switches to the one in her room. When she turns to the screen, she recognizes the setting. I push another button to take us back to two nights ago.

“You watched me.”

When I don’t reply, she shifts her gaze to me.

“You watched me, you sick bastard.”

“I like watching.”

Slowly, I move to my knees behind her. The look in her eyes changes and she licks her lips.

I’m holding her thighs, I kiss her hip, draw my hands up to splay her open.

“Getting your ass spanked gets you wet, Cilla.” She doesn’t reply, only tenses up a little. “Are you wet like this for the others?” I ask, licking her once.

She sucks in a breath, arches her back.

“Are you?” I ask again, licking again, this time letting my tongue circle her asshole.

“No.”

“Just for me.” I glide my tongue over her pussy, then her tight little hole.

“Just…for you.”

I kiss her pussy, her ass, lick her, dip my tongue inside her, taste her while I listen to her moans, her want, her desire. When she’s close, I draw back, rise to my feet, one hand on her hip to keep her in place while I reach to the desk drawer with the other.

She watches me take out a small container of lube, watches me open it. The video on the screen starts over again, Cilla sliding her hand beneath the covers. Cilla rubbing her clit. Cilla making herself come. I turn the volume up before drawing her hips farther back. I pour lube onto her lower back so it drips a little down the cleft of her ass. I take that lube and begin to rub her asshole.

Cilla moans. She arches her back. “I want to hate you,” she says.

I slide my thumb into her asshole and she lets out a deep sigh.

I say nothing. Instead, I undo my belt and pants, free my cock, grip it.

“Are you a virgin here?”

She nods.

I slide my cock into her pussy and draw my finger out of her ass, gather more lube onto two fingers and slide them into her tight hole.

She pulls away, gripping the edge of the desk. I draw her back toward me.

“Your ass belongs to me, Cilla. Be still now. I’m going to fuck it. I’m going to fill you up with cum and you’re going to drip down your thighs when you take me.”

“It hurts.”

“The best things do.”

I draw my fingers out and slide my cock, slippery with her juices, to her asshole. I rub the rest of the lube onto it, my eyes on her tiny little asshole as she waits obediently to take me. She’s gripping the desk when I push the head of my cock against her ass.

She wriggles, lets out a groan of protest.

“Shh. Relax.” I slide one hand around to her clit and begin to rub and when I do, she relaxes a little and I push, entering her slowly, taking my time, feeling her warm and tight around my cock as she stretches.

I begin to move, her clit between my thumb and forefinger, and I take a little more with every one of her moans.

“Kill—”

“Come, Cilla,” I say when I’m about halfway in. I won’t last long, she’s so fucking tight.

She’s an obedient girl when she wants to be and she comes, laying her cheek on my desk, moaning, her fingers clawing at the oak, and I watch her and slide in deeper, pumping slowly in and out of her until I’m fully seated. I still there, for one moment savoring this, me inside her, her tight and warm and holding me. I only move again as she comes down from her climax, taking her clit between thumb and forefinger again. She’s ultra-sensitive now and panting, begging me to stop, begging me for more. I fuck her harder, her passage opened to me, taking me and when she comes again and her walls throb around me, I thrust one last time and my cock pulses as I bury myself inside her, emptying inside her, filling her up, owning one more piece of her.