The freezing rain beats down on the limo in hard sheets. The ice pellets sound like they could slice through glass, threatening to split the car in two.

My driver turns down one of the shittiest-looking alleyways off the shittiest stretch of Canal Street, where the neon lights are on all night and the trash bags are piled up higher than the phone booths. Shit, there’s still phone booths down here. It’s dirty, and it stinks, and there might be rats here.

But it’s dark, too. There’s no neon lights in this alley. One of my business partners sent me here. His idea of a Christmas gift. He says I have to relax. I don’t even have a business card to confirm the address. He texted my driver the address and told me they don’t have a card because the name of the place and the phone number are always changing. They don’t have a website and you can’t look up reviews. This seems like the kind of low-class shit he’s always telling me about, but he insisted this place isn’t like that. He laughed when I said he’s used to low-class shit. He said again I’d like it.

There’s no bright flashing lights on this street. Only one storefront, down a few steps, covered with the first dusting of the season’s snow, which has quickly turned to freezing rain. Glass, covered with a metal grating, no doorman or bouncer out front.

I get out of the car and hesitate as I’m about to go in. The windows to the place are full, floor-to-ceiling, the entire facade just glass and then that shitty metal covering it up. To me, that means this place must have a lot of cash on hand. They’re careful about locking up at the end of the day. They want to keep people out.

There’s something happening just beyond the windows. There’s a young woman inside, and the first thing I see is that she’s hiding something. It’s the only thing I can see, now that I’ve glimpsed her. I can see it in her eyes.

It’s not fear, though, just a secret that I can’t unravel. Not yet.

There are two men next to her, and they’re discussing something. They’re discussing her, and she’s just standing there.

What the hell is she doing here?

The men don’t notice me as I come through the door, despite the clicking of my shoes on the knotted wood floor.

“Did you say no?” the larger man asks her.

The girl says nothing. She looks at nothing.

“This is not acceptable,” the younger man says. He’s about to pitch a fit like a frat boy with a whiskey dick who can’t get it up for the doll with painted lips who has fallen into his bed.

Walking into a room like this, I’m used to every eye snapping to me. Women looking at my ring finger to see if I have that tell-tale band around it. Men sizing me up, puffing out their chests like the alphas they want to be, fated to be the best, as though they have no control over themselves.

But not now. I hover in the doorway.

A man my size and my age, and I think I’ve seen him around somewhere but I don’t know where, and he’s talking in a hushed but frenetic voice to the man with the red, ruddy, round cheeks who’s hovering in front of a darkened room, the door cracked behind him, but letting no light out.

And then there’s the girl.

They’re discussing her, and only a blade the size of the moon could slice the tension in the room. Her long brown hair is pulled into a tight chignon at the base of her skull. Her skin is like fucking porcelain. And her long neck is elegant and pure, like that of a dancer’s and I harden to fucking steel at the thought of my thumb tracing a line from behind her ear down her throat like the sick fuck that I am.

Her eyes flicker up to mine. Carefully. The room is dim, just at the edge of too dark, and her eyes flash to mine and the corner of her mouth pricks up.

The two men may be discussing her without considering what she wants to say, but their eyes are on her. And when she looks at me, their eyes follow her line of vision and they look at me, too.

The larger man sizes me up in an instant and in one movement crosses the floor and takes the young brunette by the arm.

“You’re a distraction,” he says, tossing her down the dark hallway to his left. He turns his attention back to the younger man. I don’t make a move, because I don’t want to draw any unwanted attention to myself, but god help the next man who touches her like that. “She won’t be a problem again. Your appointment will be comped. I can book another room for you right now.”

His tone edges toward combustion, frantic energy coiling up inside it with each word. He’s about to explode.

There’s a young blonde girl at the front desk. Younger than the girl who has been tossed down the hallway, discarded, made to be out of sight. She’s twenty, maybe. Maybe.

“Sir,” she says cheerfully. Her expression does not match her tone. Her tone doesn’t match her words. “May I ask if you have an appointment?”

She slinks out from behind the desk as the young man and the large man disappear behind the door the large man hovered near. He is the owner, clearly, or maybe just the man who runs shit for the owner, and he wants to make sure he has another happy customer.

She begins to walk behind me, her eyes on mine, and I instinctively shrug my overcoat off my shoulders. She takes it gracefully and walks over to a hidden coat closet.

I’ve still said nothing. The other two men are speaking loudly behind the closed door; I can hear their shouts as though they’re whispers.

And my mind is on the brunette.

The blonde girl with the sharp features and the big brown eyes waves her hand to a long, low-slung grey couch against the left wall. I sit and another woman comes over with a short glass of something warm and brown.

The door behind the front desk opens and the younger man strides out of the place, hunched over slightly, muttering under his breath.

The larger man waits a beat and comes out of the office and walks down the dark hallway.

My gut lurches. My body follows my gut. I stand, and I begin to follow the man.

I turn the corner after the man and we both see the woman at the same time. The lights back here are brighter, but she glowed even in the darkness.

Her eyes take him in first, and then glide past him to me. I steady my jaw and tip my chin down, silently telling her to not say anything. Her boss is seething with blind rage, and I don’t want to startle him.

“Did you say no?” he repeats again, walking toward her slowly.

“I didn’t say anything,” she snaps, but her body softens under the words as she completes them. Her eyes flicker to mine and back to her boss’.

Good girl.

“I’m sorry. There was a misunderstanding.”

“You know I took a chance on you,” he says, stepping closer to her. “And you know I have to let you go. We can’t afford to have the customers leave unsatisfied.”

He takes one more step toward him and slips his finger under her chin, lifting it up so her dazzling eyes are looking right at him. My chest contracts and heat rushes through my veins.

“I’m leaving,” she says, shaking free of his touch and backing away. Her back hits the tall, dented metal locker behind her. She turns quickly, opening the locker, and takes out a duffel bag. “Can’t you see I’m just trying to get the hell out of here?”

“Oh, baby, Avery” the man croaks, “I’m afraid it won’t be that simple. You have a contract. The terms of which dictate that if you leave of your own volition or are terminated for any reason prior to the completion of one year of tenure, you will be liable for paying back your advance.”

She turns around slowly.

“Please,” she says. Her voice is small. It’s so small.

“What?”

He takes one more step toward her.

I’m happy she is speaking up for herself.

But now I can’t stand by any longer.

“Excuse me,” I say, my voice low and steady.

The man turns, his face contorted into a wicked expression. I’m thankful she isn’t seeing his face like that anymore. Ugly, angry. Her eyes shouldn’t see something like that.

Her thoughts shouldn’t be polluted by him.

“Hey, how the hell did you get back here?” he says, pushing his rimless glasses up his nose with his chubby index finger.

“Sorry, I guess I got lost. You should really have better security if you don’t want people back here.” I throw a thumb over my shoulder.

If he doesn’t want people back here, he really should hire security.

He sizes me up. His fucking tone changes.

“Sir, if you wouldn’t mind going back to the waiting area. One of our girls will be with you in just a moment.”

“I don’t want one of your girls,” I say. The beautiful brunette behind him perks up slightly, stands up a little bit taller. But her face doesn’t change. She is still like stone. Her lips are still turned down at the corners.

“How can we be of service, then?” he asks.

“Oh, you can certainly be of service. But I don’t want just any of your girls. I want her.”

My eyes narrow on the girl.

“It’s Avery, right?”

She doesn’t belong here. I don’t know what the fuck she’s doing here. Clearly she doesn’t want to be here, because she just got herself fired, whether it was on purpose or not. Either way, she doesn’t belong to them anymore.

“Yes,” the man replies, his eyes flashing between us. “That’s Avery. She’s a very sweet girl. Beautiful, too. Just look at her. But you’d have to be beautiful to be a hostess here.”

“I thought you just fired her,” I challenge him.

“Oh, no.” He waves the air in front of his face with one hand.

“I don’t like being told I’m wrong,” I say, “especially when I know what I saw.”

The man chuckles nervously.

“I was just reminding Avery of the terms of her contract,” he says, voice shaking. His eyes shift left and right. He is looking at nothing and at everything all at once. A sheen of sweat begins to plump up along his hairline.

Avery looks at me silently. There’s that secret behind her eyes, still. If I could just unravel it...just find the edge of it and pull and make her come undone. Unwind her. Unravel her.

Make her mine.

It would be a beautiful sight to behold.

“How much to buy her out?” I ask.

Her eyes widen and her mouth pops open slightly. I’m already thinking about what I could do to her mouth, what I would tell her to do with her lips.

“What?” she asks quietly.

“She’s worth more than her contract,” the man says, arching an eyebrow. “I don’t think I want to sell. She’s more valuable to me here than the money in my pocket would be.”

“I’m not for sale,” Avery protests, shocked, her mouth agape.

“Excuse me,” I say, stepping toward her. “I’m not trying to buy you. I’m trying to buy your freedom. Now if you don’t want that, I’ll leave. But I won’t leave unless you tell me to, in no uncertain terms. You just say the word, and I’ll go. You can stay here without me, and you can work off the debt you’ll owe in accordance with your contract. Or you can come with me.”

Her jaw tightens slightly and her fingers come up to her lips, tracing the edge like a goddess dragging a lazy finger along the edge of the ocean’s shore.