Speaking of lowlifes, Ray wanted to see her. It was bad enough Emma managed barely four hours of sleep between the end of her shift at Club Girl and the buzz of her alarm for the nine-to-five. If she screwed this job up or pissed off Ray, it would be bad news for Daisy.
Maybe she should just let that five-foot-two squirt of irresponsibility pay the piper. Why the hell was Emma here in a gentlemen’s club—with no freaking gentlemen, she might add—wearing a too-short skirt and too-high heels? Why did she have to surrender her meager life savings of ten thousand, three hundred and sixty-seven dollars, and still not have Daisy’s debt even halfway paid off? Why the hell were her dreams on hold?
Because she was a soft touch, that’s why.
Inhaling a bolstering breath, she headed to Ray’s office and walked in without knocking. A bird’s nest, feathered with red and gold strands, rose from a kneeling position and wiped her mouth.
Should’ve knocked, Ems.
Kelly, one of the dancers, smoothed her silver lamé dress—though “dress” was pushing it—and cracked her jaw just in case it wasn’t 100 percent clear what she had been doing sixty seconds before Emma walked in. The scrape of Ray’s zipper was the auditory icing on the someone’s-just-got-blown cake.
“Leave us,” Ray barked at Kelly.
“Sure, babe,” she purred. Walking by Emma, she brushed her shoulder, a not unfriendly but knowing look in her eyes. Your turn.
Not in this lifetime, sister.
The door closed with a quiet snick.
Emma wasn’t afraid of Ray. He might be the kind of guy who was happy to be blown in the back office of his strip club, and he might have plenty of muscle to back up his shady dealings, but he had never once threatened her. No, all his heavy-handedness was directed at her sister, who liked a line of recreational coke every now and then.
Where “every now and then” meant six months of digging a hole so deep the only way back was to offer Emma in sacrifice.
For almost three months, she had stepped into Daisy’s high heels and “worked” as a cocktail waitress. Never saw a paycheck. Surrendered every tip. Watched nightly as Ray counted off each five- and ten-dollar bill and noted it in his ledger of misery.
“You’re late, Emma.”
“Sorry about that. I closed my eyes and…” She trailed off, hoping it was obvious. I am working my ass off here. I need my day job to buy bread. Maybe a Potbelly sandwich once in a while.
Ray—and why were they always called Ray?—rubbed knuckles over his ten o’clock shadow, a move that was supposed to project contemplative. In his case, it gave off “dickhead.”
“How long have you been working here?”
She bit back a sigh. How long had she been bonded in serfdom was a more accurate question.
“Just shy of three months.”
“And how much does your sister still owe me?”
Her gaze flickered to the ledger on his desk, its leather as black as Ray’s soul.
“Sixteen thousand dollars, give or take.”
Those shark’s eyes flipped up. “Give or take. Interesting choice of phrase.”
She resisted studying her nails. Ray was about to make a speech about how he was a giver, a pillar in his community of lowlifes and scumbags.
“I’ve been giving you all sorts of chances but the customers don’t seem to warm up to you, not like your sister. Of all the waitresses, you take the fewest drink orders, make the least tips. The clientele want to spend money, Emma, but you’re walking around with your nose in the air instead of your tits bent over the table.”
“I’m working my tail off.” Damn, she was just so tired when she got here that it was hard to muster enthusiasm with spittle-flecked mouths drooling over her.
“I said I’d give you three months to work off your sister’s debt—”
“And I will!”
He looked taken aback at her outburst.
“I will,” she said more softly.
“You have a week, and I don’t reckon on your chances of making it up. Maybe you have different talents I need to nurture.” His accompanying leer dragged a shot of bile up her throat. “What else are you good at?”
Sex. She was good at that, or had been once. Beneath this good-girl persona was a bad girl rattling at the cage, but she’d left wild Emma behind in her search for a new life. An image of Kelly wiping her mouth sliced through her brain.
Uh, nope.
“I’m—I’m—I’m very organized.”
He stared. “Organized?”
She arced her gaze over the office, taking in his ugly monstrosity of a desk, the bank of monitors for the floor and private rooms, and the leopard-skin sofa. Probably real leopard, the prick. Not a paper out of place.
“If you need someone to do your books, I have a degree in business.” She didn’t, but the lie had wangled her the job at Score Property. Lying had always been easy, coming from her own family of scumbags.