Christy
I had just dropped King off at the club and was barely half way home, when I realized that he had left his phone on the passenger seat of my car. Part of me had an internal battle for a brief second to look through it, but then immediately decided that there would be nothing interesting on there anyway.
I debated driving home and waiting until the next day to give King back his phone, but I also considered turning back to the club and seeing if he was still there. It was a complete long shot, and I knew it was more than likely going to be a waste of time, but I was too pumped to sleep anyway.
When I arrived at the club a few minutes later and noticed King’s car was still in the lot, I let out a little sigh of relief and laughed at my good luck. Pulling up beside his car, I looked curiously inside, but I could tell King wasn’t going to be in there.
Where was he?
I’d dropped him off a while ago, so I knew that he should’ve been long gone, but I also knew that there was no way he would have left his car behind and gone home without it. It was early in the morning, at this point—early enough for the sun to be coming up in a short while. Though I was used to late nights when I was working at the club, I still found it strange to be there at that time of night, or day, depending on how you looked at it.
The idea of going home was so incredibly tempting that I almost turned away and drove straight back out of the parking lot. But a small, niggling feeling at the back of my mind kept me from doing so. I didn’t know what exactly it was, but something wasn’t completely right about the situation.
I got out of my car and started walking around the lot. Maybe he was around somewhere. The thought seemed ridiculous, but I couldn’t leave without making sure. The lights were off in the club—something I wasn’t used to when I was normally there— so, I couldn’t even see properly in the darkness.
After wondering around a little, I decided to check out the club for good measure, going to the front door and seeing if it was open.
To my surprise, it swung open easily, and I stepped inside the dark club.
“King?” I yelled. “Are you here?”
It suddenly occurred to me that this could be something out of a horror film; a young and naïve girl enters a dark building alone, calling out, and drawing the killer to her. I barely even watched horror films, and I could already predict the ending of that movie.
I gulped loudly as my fear escalated, and I shuffled over to the nearest light switch, flipping it and lighting up the entire place with bright light. Blinking a few times against the onslaught of brightness, I was blinded for a few moments until I regained my vision. When I did, I let out a tiny scream of shock and sprinted forward.
King was lying motionless before me, bloodied and beaten, barely conscious but still alive, thankfully.
“King?” I shook his shoulder gently, to wake him, but he wasn’t responding.
“King!” I shouted, giving him a light slap on the face. It was probably a really bad idea to slap him when he was so injured, but I needed to wake him up, so he could tell me what happened. It didn’t even cross my mind that whoever had hurt him might still be in the building.
After a few minutes of not-so-gentle prodding and poking, King’s eyes flickered open, and he blinked several times as he awoke.
He opened his mouth to speak, but winced suddenly and lifted a hand up to his head instead. There was a trail of blood coming down from his temple, and I had no doubt that he was suffering from a killer headache. At least he was alive, though.
“King, what happened?” I asked, lifting my hand to gently wipe at the blood on his forehead.
“The lights were on,” he bit out with another wince. “I went to check it out, and there were three robbers here.”
“Robbers? Here? But, why?” I frowned at the thought. What kind of robbers would come try and burgle a strip club?
“I didn’t ask,” he muttered sarcastically.
King slowly pulled himself up to a sitting position and tried to regulate his rapid breathing.
“You’re hurt. I need to call the police.”
“No!” King said immediately, then lifted a hand up to his head again. “No,” he said in a calmer tone. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?” I asked incredulously.
“Because. They didn’t take anything.”
“They hurt you,” I insisted.
“It doesn’t matter. Would you just… please don’t call anyone.”
I paused for a moment, lowering my brows in anger and frustration at King’s stubbornness. Maybe it was just a guy thing, or maybe he just hated cops, but I could already tell that I was going to regret giving in.
“Fine. But you have to come to my dressing room, so I can clean you up.” That was a reasonable compromise.
“That I can do,” King agreed.
I stood up and held both hands down to hoist him up. To my surprise, he accepted my offer of assistance, placing his hands in mine and letting me help him up. He was too macho to put his full weight in my hands, even as injured as he was, but I still appreciated the gesture.
We hobbled to my dressing room together, which was thankfully very close by, because I wasn’t sure for how long King could pretend to be able to support his own weight. As soon as we entered, he collapsed into my chair, and I reached into the closet for the first aid kit that was lying in there. If I was being honest with myself, I’d never actually used the kit before in my life, nor did I even know what was inside. I basically assumed that it would have everything I needed, and I could just go for it. How hard could it possibly be?
I began dabbing at King’s cuts with the cloth from the kit, trying to assess if there was any damage that I couldn’t see. For all I knew, King could have a broken bone and was trying to prove his own strength by not bringing it up.
“I still can’t believe we had robbers here. Diamond Castle is the worst place anyone could ever try to rob. They would have been sorely disappointed,” I blabbed, trying to take my mind off my poor medical skills.
“I’m fine, Christy,” King said, apparently picking up on my barely concealed distress. “Just relax.”
“I am not going to relax! You’ve just been attacked. What did you think I was going to do? Besides, how will we ever get justice if we don’t tell the police?”
“The police won’t do anything. They were masked head to toe, with gloves as well, and they didn’t take anything.”
I made a sound of displeasure, but I didn’t even bother arguing anymore; I knew I wouldn’t win.
“All done,” I said with a huff, backing away from King and taking a seat beside him.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did,” I waved off his thanks.
“Why’d you come back anyway?” he asked.
I pulled his phone from my back pocket and presented it to him with a sheepish smile.
“Phone?” I said with some slight embarrassment.
King accepted it with a smile, and we both sat there in silence for a minute.
It was at that moment, thinking about the robbers and the lack of anything to steal from Diamond Castle, that I turned frantically to my drawer and searched for an envelope full of money that I had withdrawn for my security deposit. It was missing.
“Fuck!” I yelled.
“What?” King asked frantically.
“The money for the deposit on my club is gone.” I was still crazily opening and closing drawers, in case I had somehow put it somewhere else, despite knowing that I hadn’t.
“Shit. Seriously?”
“Yeah. Are you sure the robbers didn’t take anything?”
This was just my luck; I had been saving for my club for ages, and my cursed luck interfered at the last moment.
“Positive,” he said with a frown. “I don’t know where it could be.”
Damn it, I bet Rossi took it. I had no firm knowledge or reason to believe he would betray me, but the longer I thought about it, the easier it was to convince myself that I was right.
I’d done little to hide my plans, and Rossi might have discovered that I planned to open up a rival club. He probably stole my money just so that he could stop me from opening up a place that would compete with him.
Once my club opened, I knew that very few people would personally choose to come to Diamond Castle instead of my club. I supposed that Rossi was just trying to protect his business, but that didn’t give him the right to steal my hard-earned money.
“How fucking dare he!” I fumed.
He’d gone too far. Rossi had always been a sleaze, a creep, and an all-around asshole, but stealing my money was too much and something had to be done.
“Who exactly are you talking about?” King asked confusedly.
I realized that I’d been ranting and raving inside my head for the past few moments, while King remained silent.
“Jarren fucking Rossi. He was the one who stole my money. It has to be him.”
Pacing the tiny space inside the dressing room, I was already coming up with plans of revenge, when King placed two hands on my shoulders and brought me to a stop.
“You don’t know it was him. Why don’t you wait a little until you have proof? Who knows what he’ll do, otherwise.”
I knew King was right, but I still didn’t cool down immediately. A few days ago, when King had warned me to be careful of Rossi, I had dismissed him like a fool, and now it turned out he’d been right the entire time.
Jesus, I felt like such an idiot.
I knew what King wanted me to say. I knew that he was being reasonable and responsible, but it was still an insanely difficult pill to swallow, especially when I pictured the smug grin that would no doubt be plastered over his face.
“Christy?” King prodded after a moment more of my silence.
“Yes, fine, okay. I’ll be good, I swear.”