Captive Beauty

The waitress walks over as Hugo takes a seat across from me.

“Usual?” she asks him.

“Yeah.” He sets a file down on the table and slides it over to me. The look on his face tells me it’s not good.

I open it, glance at the sheets inside, waiting while the waitress delivers Hugo’s drink.

“A dirty judge,” I say. I expected that.

“The dirtiest kind.” He reaches over and flips a few pages back. “These are the kids he took in. Always teens. Always a pair—brother and sister. Always an older brother, younger sister.”

I like the sound of this less and less.

“They all stay two years. When the brother turns eighteen, he gets rid of both of them.”

I look at Hugo, raise an eyebrow.

“Like in Jones and Cilla’s case. Judge grants the brother custody. They disappear. But—” He flips a few sheets to a copy of a newspaper article. I check the date. It’s from almost four years ago.

“This one didn’t disappear. Her brother did, but she didn’t. She claimed abuse when they lived in the Callahan home. Came forward because her brother committed suicide. Turned out he was a meth head and, given the Judge’s impeccable reputation, she was played as some pariah out for money. But you know how I feel about judges and the system.”

I know. Hugo spent too long in prison. He’ll never feel any other way.

“Jones won’t talk but something happened there,” I say, closing the file. “Where’s Callahan now?”

“Florida. Moved two years ago.”

“How would you like to get out of this shit weather and get some Florida sun for a few days?”

Hugo grins, swallows his whiskey. “I’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.”

The front door opens then and John, the man I sent to bring Cilla, walks in. I feel Hugo’s eyes on me when I stand and button my jacket as Cilla enters a moment later.

I clear my throat.

He clucks his tongue and gets to his feet. “I’ll talk to you later, boss,” Hugo says.

I don’t take my eyes off her. “Later.” She’s still got her coat on so I can’t see what she’s wearing, but she’s got on a pair of high-heeled black pumps. When John puts a hand at her back to guide her to the restaurant, she brushes it off. She spots me in the same instant and stops when our eyes meet. I wonder if it’s guilt. If she knows I know what she did today.

She resumes walking. The eyes of other diners follow her when she climbs the two stairs to the restaurant and approaches me.

“Cilla,” I say, drawing out her chair.

“Killian.”

She doesn’t like calling me Kill. “Take off your coat.”

She looks down as if just realizing she still has it on. Unbuttoning it, she slips it off her shoulders. I take it and hand it to John. “Thank you, John.”

“Sir.”

He turns to walk away and I look Cilla over. She’s wearing a strappy black dress that clings to her. The hem comes to mid-thigh and she looks stunning. I nod in approval and gesture for her to sit. She does and her gaze moves across the room and while it does, I take her in. She’s left her hair loose and it drapes thick and dark down her back. Her heavy bangs frame her pretty eyes as she watches the dancers, three of them on three different stages. It’s a classy place, one for the wealthiest of the wealthy, but ultimately it’s a strip club. And she’s not impressed.

I grin. “Not good enough for you?”

“Women taking their clothes off while men sip expensive drinks and stroke their dicks isn’t impressive, no.”

“Each of the women chooses to do this. Don’t judge what you don’t understand.”

“I’m not judging. I just wouldn’t want to be one of them.”

“And that’s fine for you, but I think you are judging.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you better than you think.”

She drops her gaze to her lap, laying her napkin on it.

“See that one there,” I start, pointing to one of the dancers. “Her stage name is Brandy. She’s got a two-year-old at home and is one year from graduating law school. That’s Lola there, she works with high-risk kids, to keep them off the streets. Julie, well, she just likes having men watch her take her clothes off, and why not? She’s a beautiful woman. She uses what she has to make a very decent life for herself. And she gets to keep all the control.” From the look on Cilla’s face, I’ve hit a nerve. “Like I said, don’t judge what you don’t understand.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t judging.” She picks up the menu. “But you have to admit, there’s a stigma that comes with the word stripper.”

“Stigmas are created by closed-minded, pole-up-the-ass people to make themselves feel superior. Make up your own mind after you’ve got all your facts.”