HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (88 page)

I would never have gotten this far if it hadn’t been for my new family. Jasmine, Cocoa, and Blue were all strong women who had survived. Through sheer will, they’d given me the tools to become one of them, one of the lucky ones.

I hoped one day, as I walked hand in hand with Terry through Central Park, that I’d be able to give that same gift to someone else who needed help.

There had been so many of Mama’s girls. I was just one of them.

~ END of SELFLESS ~

“Cops! It’s the cops!”

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been waiting to hear those simple words. I knew they had to come sometime, especially with the way everything had been going.

And, let’s face it. I knew perfectly well that what we were doing was illegal.

Still, it was quite a different matter to know something was coming than to actually have it be there, happening right in front of me.

I was in the kitchen when it happened, getting a pot of coffee brewing for myself and any of the other girls who wanted some. At the time, I’d been alone. And to this day, I wasn’t sure who raised the cry. Daisy, perhaps. Or one of the others. It was hard to be sure.

But I didn’t stand a chance since I was in the kitchen. The cops swept through the first floor, first. An angry, wounded roar told me that they’d found Mama sleeping in her office. I wondered if she was using dollar bills as a pillow. I’d seen her do it before.

I heard more commotion—the sounds of many, many running feet—and small cries of panic.

“Don’t move!” a man shouted.

“Hands up!” another commanded.

I found myself rooting for the other girls, the girls who had become my sisters, hoping that as many of them got out as possible.

Why didn’t I run? Maybe in all the tumult I would’ve had a chance—slip out of the kitchen, get lost in the crowd, vanish on the busy streets of New York City.

Maybe if I’d had something to run for, I would’ve gone.

But, in all honesty, I was tired. Tired of trying, tired of running.

When I heard the kitchen door open with a bang, I turned around with something like relief. Finally. My tenure as one of Mama’s girls was coming to a close. It was past time for it.

“Police!” one of two officers said as they entered the kitchen, guns drawn. I pressed myself up against the countertop, putting my hands up. It looked like Mama had given them enough of a fight that they were now extremely wary.

“Don’t move,” the other officer implored, his request echoing in the cavernous kitchen.

“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I won’t.” Not with two guns trained on me.

“We need you to come with us,” the first said, lowering his gun but not putting it away.

“I figured as much,” I said. “Is it okay if I get dressed first?”

Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, all I had on was a satiny robe that covered up a tank top and a pair of panties. I hadn’t been awake for very long, either. That was just a part of the life—working until the wee hours at Mama’s nightclub.

The officers glanced at each other.

“I’m not trying to pull anything,” I said. “I just don’t want to be at the police station without any pants.”

“Where’s your clothes?” the first officer asked.

“Upstairs, in the boarding house.”

“Fitch, go with her,” the first officer said, holstering his gun. The second officer did the same, and held his hand out to me.

“Let’s go.”

I left the coffee, still brewing, behind me, and walked out. It became a fitting sort of tribute, being escorted by a cop through the premises, as my last look at Mama’s nightclub.

I’d hoped to leave this place long ago, triumphant and with enough cash to solve all of my problems, but life just hadn’t worked out that way.

The door to the kitchen closed behind us, and I realized I’d never smell the delicious aromas of the chef’s daily specials or our rotating list of tapas. I’d never cook anything in there again, nor come down with some of the girls in the middle of the night to scavenge through the refrigerator.

The door to Mama’s office gaped open like a mouth, and I could see several officers boxing and bagging up whatever items they saw fit to use as evidence. One of them kept setting bricks of money on the desk, one after the other. God only knew how much Mama had been sitting on top of, and how much us girls were entitled to.

That was as much as an ending as anything. I’d never sidle into that office again, asking Mama for a bit of my hard-earned cash so I could go buy a bar of soap or a new color of nail polish. More recently, though, I supposed I’d never tiptoe past the office again, hoping not to wake the drunken, vengeful woman who’d taken to sleeping there. Ever since Cocoa had fled the nightclub, Mama had been in a downward spiral, drinking like a fish and counting her money. All of us girls simply tried to stay out of her way.

On the nightclub floor, cops escorted girls out, all in varying states of dress. These were the unlucky ones who’d tried to run but had been caught instead. I felt for them. I really did. Their shuffling feet on the dance floor in the middle of the nightclub made me realize that I would never dance here again—not with customers or my sisters. My mouth quirked up in the briefest of smiles as I thought about the wild nights we’d had. There were several nights a week when a DJ came as a musical act to entertain at the nightclub, and those were always our favorite nights. We’d get crazy, shaking it on the dance floor with whoever wanted to dance, customers plying us with drinks to make us shake it even harder.

The tables where the customers would regularly sit were empty, chairs on top of them. No customers would ever come in here again. I’d worked nights when every seat at every table was occupied, the place full of paying customers. I’d had hope those nights, hope that I’d earn enough money to get out of here, to do what I needed to do to get my life on track.

It was never enough money, I was starting to understand. And with Mama making us keep our earnings in her office safe, I never knew just how much I was making. My mouth twisted in bitter mirth. I’d never see that money. All of my hard work, everything I’d done for customers I couldn’t even remember, gone. Gone.

Toward the entrance of the nightclub, I noticed that some chairs had toppled from their perches on the tables. Maybe that was where Mama, too, had realized that all of this was at an end. I would’ve liked to see what that looked like—Mama trying to fight the cops, knocking the chairs from the tables.

Beyond the entrance, through the heavily tinted front windows, I could see the circus outside. There were dozens of squad cars, their red and blue lights wheeling. Yellow tape cordoned off the area of sidewalk and street directly in front of the building, but a sea of media and curious onlookers waited just on the other side.

This was probably going to turn out to be one salacious story.

I led Fitch upstairs, to the boarding house. A team of cops worked up and down the hall, opening doors and going through the contents of each room. This part made my breath catch in my throat, made tears spring to my eyes.

Don’t, I wanted to tell them. This is all we have, I wanted to scream, pulling them from each room and securing the door.

But I didn’t. I was sure the only reason I wasn’t being hustled out the door and into the back of a squad car, pants or not, was because I didn’t try to run or cause any trouble. I had to stay calm.

It was the hardest thing to simply walk calmly to my room as cops rooted through dresser drawers, bagging up handfuls of pretty lingerie sets, finding little stores of money girls had been hiding from Mama, browsing through DVDs and beauty products and magazines and other personal items.

It would seem pathetic if I tried to defend any of this, tried to keep the officers’ hands off of my sisters’ precious possessions. Each item meant so much, even the seemingly meaningless ephemera posted on the doors. Every door represented the girls who lived behind it, our names in cutout letters or artful collages or printed nicely on posters. After Blue had left, she’d given us all caricatures she’d drawn of us. Most everyone had posters of Hollywood’s hottest on our doors. Pumpkin and Daisy had photos of kittens and puppies. They were simple representations of our souls, and the cops were invading them.

This part wasn’t illegal, I wanted to rage. This was our lives, our homes. There’s nothing to see up here.

Instead, I clamped my jaw shut and continued to walk.

When we got to my room, I cringed. The door had been kicked in, the magazine clippings of ballerinas and runway models torn and fluttering in the breeze of my open window. A cop was going through my dresser drawer.

“This is my room,” I said, my voice shaking with emotions I was having trouble defining—anger, shock, fear, and a fierce protectiveness.

“Can you give us a minute?” Fitch asked the other officer. “This woman is cooperating, and she wants to get changed before she comes with us.”

“Trying to get a final taste of Mama’s nightclub?” the officer ribbed, but left.

I looked at the mess he’d made of my things, my neatly folded shirts and pants scattered.

My jewelry box had been upturned over the top of my dresser, but I was relieved to find nothing missing. I probably would’ve come unhinged if I couldn’t find my necklace.

I lifted the fine gold chain up and fastened it around my neck, the little gold heart settling just between my breasts.

For now, this was my prized possession, even if it only represented my true treasure.

The treasure I couldn’t have yet.

“Ma’am?”

I’d almost forgotten about Fitch and jumped at the sound of his voice.

“Sir?”

“I don’t mean to rush you,” he said, averting his eyes from the line they’d been traveling to see the heart pendant—and my breasts. “But the longer we’re in here, the more flack I’m going to get from the rest of the guys.”

“This isn’t where we sleep with the customers,” I said. “This is the boarding house. Where we lived.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Fitch said sadly.

I looked back helplessly at all my clothes. What did I wear when my life was ending? Was there anything appropriate?

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Fitch said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I realized a little belatedly that I was crying.

“I just don’t know what to wear,” I said, though that was the least of my problems. The nightclub getting raided wasn’t even the worst of my problems.

“Whatever you’ll be comfortable in,” Fitch said. “I don’t know how long you’ll be at the station.”

He walked past me and stared purposefully out the window, giving me the privacy he thought I needed to get changed.

So many people had seen me naked already that I was pretty sure a cop wouldn’t matter. Still, it was a nice gesture and gave me the focus I needed to start doing what had to be done. I started going through my decimated dresser drawers, looking for the right outfit.

I settled on my favorite pair of jeans—a light wash of denim that had been worn down by so much wear that it was soft to the touch—and a jersey knit teal blazer atop a plain black T-shirt. The blazer looked nice and professional, but it was as comfy as wearing a hoodie. I slipped a pair of matching ballet flats on and looked at myself in the mirror, hanging on the back of the door.

My kinky hair stood out in a very hip afro all around my head. It’d taken ages for me to develop enough confidence to wear my hair naturally, but there it was—my curls in all their glory. The blazer was enormously flattering, and I fastened one of the buttons to further emphasize my tiny waist. The bottom of the blazer flared out, mirroring the way my hips jutted. I slipped my gold heart pendant beneath the black T-shirt so that just a bit of gold chain could be seen on either side of my neck.

I needed that heart to hang right over my heart.

I turned back to my dresser and smeared on some light makeup. My eyelashes were already long, but I liked to play up their almond shape with mascara on both the upper and lower lashes. A little bit of shimmery eye shadow helped bring out the depths of my deep brown eyes, and a sweep of lipstick outlined my full lips. I never wore concealer or powder. I’d been blessed with smooth, mahogany-colored skin. Even throughout puberty, I’d never seen a zit.

“Ma’am?” Fitch was still turned dutifully toward the window.

“It’s Shimmy,” I said, blotting my lips with a tissue. “And I’m ready.”

Fitch turned and looked at me.

“You look very pretty,” he said politely.

“Thank you,” I said. “Is it okay if I pack a bag?”

He shook his head. “This is all evidence, for now,” he said. “Just take your purse.”

I swallowed and grabbed it before he escorted me out of my room.

I wondered if that would be the last time I’d see it. It would more than likely be the last time I lived in it. Walking back up the hallway and toward the stairs, I thought about all the fun I’d had with all the girls. When we weren’t working, it sometimes felt like a big slumber party. We gossiped about our customers, talked about movies and music, danced like there was no tomorrow, did makeovers on one another, and genuinely had a good time. With so many girls living in the same place, you’d think that drama ran high.

Besides the normal tiffs of who was borrowing what clothes or shoes, it was virtually non-existent. There was so much potential for drama while we worked downstairs in the nightclub—and in the other upstairs—that the boarding house was like a haven. It was the place where we could relax and be ourselves instead of the oversexed versions of us that we donned when we worked.