Wild Dirty Secret(47)
Her brown hair splayed across the pillow, her face was damp with sweat. Pain wrenched her sweet features, but she smiled weakly at me. “I wondered where you’d got off to.”
“Had to stop at the bank,” I said lightly.
My best friend for years, she knew what that meant. Not the specifics, of course. There were some things better left unshared. But she knew that my father was a bastard.
Her forehead creased in worry. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not the one in labor. How are you? What are they saying?”
“Any minute now.” She grimaced. “That’s what they said nine hours ago.”
“There’s nothing they can do? I’ll talk to the nurse.”
She caught my hand. “No. I just want you to sit with me. Can you?”
So I did, crawling into the bed beside her. The cold steel of the railing bit into my side, but I needed the contact as much as she did, maybe more. I needed the hard, contracting bump on her belly, the mysterious, elusive hope born of a nightmare, to make me forget.
The woman on the next bed began to cough, ragged and thick. I held Allie’s hand, pretending this was normal and okay and a perfectly safe environment for her child to be born into. A child, when we could barely take care of ourselves. What would she do? Her dad had sent her two hundred dollars when she’d called him. That was all the money she had. And now my five thousand.
If I told her. She would take that money, spread it thin, and make it last. Then what would she need me for?
She clenched and keened as a contraction hit, and I rocked with her through it, wincing as she squeezed my hand. It wasn’t enough to distract me from the ache lower down my body.
“Have you thought about where you’re going to live?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know, but I can’t stay at the shelter forever.”
“Yeah, I guess… I mean, you’ll probably get a full time job or something, right?”
“I already talked to Rick. He’s going to up my hours at the bakery.”
“Oh. Who’s going to watch the baby? I mean, a decent day care will be expensive.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I know. But I’ll make it work. I have to, right?”
Forgive me, Allie. “And what about when she gets sick? They don’t let sick kids go to day care. You’ll have to stay home and take her to the doctor. Rick isn’t exactly the lenient type. Plus paying for the doctor… Is your paycheck there really going to cover all that?”
A tear fell down her cheek. “I don’t know. What can I do?”
“I’m just worried about you. I want to help.” Five thousand dollars wouldn’t last forever, but it would be a good start. Something to comfort her. But what about me? I couldn’t go back. Something had snapped. What does that make you? A pretty bird in a gilded cage, its wings clipped for its own health and safety. “I’ll stay with you. I can help with the baby and with money. You’ll see. We’ll do it together.”
She blinked wetly. “What about your dad?”
I despised my dad. “I’m an adult now. It’s time I left the nest.”
She knew better. “Will he let you go?”
“He doesn’t have a choice. Shh, now. Don’t worry.” I pressed my lips to her forehead. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”
And I didn’t have to be alone either.
I placed an ad online and met up with a few average johns before Henri called me up. He was exceedingly polite over the phone and brutal in person. A few weeks later, I was earning four times as much on his payroll.
For two years, I played babysitter by day and prostitute by night. A few times I had tried to leave the life, but something always dragged me back. Usually money. Occasionally the rough hands of Henri’s men. Every time, a small part of me sighed in relief. At least I knew how to do this. This way, I was wanted.
My complacency had been a fool’s gold. I had worked the upper echelon of Chicago’s sex trade and never run into my father. He ran in the same circles as these men, the rich and the cruel, but it was a big city. There were plenty to go around. Or had he been avoiding me? He said I’d always be his little slut.
It spun a silvered web in the shadows of my mind. Henri had targeted Jenny as revenge over her boyfriend’s shady business. He ripped each dime right out of her skin and gained face in the process.
What does this have to do with me?
Maybe nothing.
But it was everything. How had Henri known to contact me? I had always assumed that call had been random. It wasn’t. I knew that now, certain to my bones. For some reason, Henri had contacted me, worked me over, and offered me a job. Payback for some business deal gone wrong with my father? Maybe. Either way, I had never despised him more.