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Chapter Two

Berlin

Seven years later

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Ifelt the cold metalof the pole as it slid between my shoulder blades. The men around me hooted and hollered, begging for one last dance. Smiling, I took a small bow, gathering up my earnings, and exiting off the stage through the deep red curtains.

The second I was out of the spot light, my smile was gone and my shoulders drooped forward. Heavy heels weighed down my feet as I walked to the small dressing room in the back.

There were other girls inside getting ready for their turn on the stage, other girls just like me. Girls who would most likely be there forever, or maybe—just maybe, they would be sent someplace else. An unknown place that had different walls, different people, different rules.

I guess that depended on who came looking. Not that it really mattered, none of us would actually be freed from any of this.

Money could do all kinds of things, it could buy you anything you ever wanted in a place like this.

It could even buy me if the price was right.

But us girls, we weren't allowed to talk to each other, that was against the rules.

There weren't a lot of rules, but all of them held me hostage. I was refused the pleasure of conversation, I was denied the luxury of human contact and compassion. There was no going outside, no phone calls, no emails, just solitude.

As a child, I spent most of my time alone, hidden from the world until the time was right. Groomed—that was the word Virgo used.

He was the man who had torn my family apart, and ultimately, he was the man who controlled my life.

But that wasn't the worst part. The part that mad me angry, the one thing that really made me hate life itself. . . My body was no longer mine and it hadn't been since I turned eighteen.

I guess that was a positive in this world. No one touched me before the law said I was a woman, but it didn't make any of this easier. A part of me wondered if that small detail was because of the man from years ago who had offered me help.

Was that my silver lining? A stranger who demanded women and not children?

Had his presence been the one thing that preserved me until I hit that perfect number?

Fuck the silver lining, my world was coated in tar.

From time to time, Machi would pop into my head. My mind would drift to that day, the one and only time someone had offered me their hand. And I did nothing, I said nothing, I let that moment slip through my fingers.

Sometimes I would wonder what my life would be like if I had said those four little letters;help.

It doesn't matter, because you didn't.

Slinking into the chair, I slid the shoes off my feet, pressing my throbbing heels into the carpet.

There weren't many luxuries in my life. So I took any chance I could to get some sort of comfort from the things around me. I would smell the floral soap in the shower, trying to remember what it felt like to be free, to roam without walls keeping me hostage.

I would listen to the men in the club talking, trying to grab little bits of normalcy out of their conversations; dinners at restaurants, vacations in the mountains, traveling with the windows down and the wind blowing in their hair with the bright blue sky overhead.

It had been so long since I had any of that, and it was getting harder and harder to remember it anymore. I wasn't sure if my memories were even real at this point.

Would the wind feel as good on my face as I thought I remembered it? Would the rain be cold on my skin and the sun warm on my cheeks?

At this point it didn't matter. I wasn't getting out of this place, not now, not ever—not unless an offer came along that was too good to refuse.

“Berlin, give it over.” Keeping my eyes on the floor, I handed Vinchezo the small cluster of bills I had grabbed off the stage. Counting the money, he balked in his thick Italian accent. “This is it? You're suppose to be the star, Berlin, but I think you might be losing your edge.” Tucking the cash into his pocket, he nodded his head towards the private room. “You're lucky, that room just saved your ass. Go on, get,” he barked, snapping his head.

Folding his arms over his chest, he leaned against the wall as he waited for me to put my heels back on and adjust my makeup.