Bound Together (Dangerous Sinners)

“Not that there’s anything wrong with liking blow jobs.” Ronan takes a shot off the girl’s tray. “I like to partake in them myself. Not as much as I like to watch someone get or give them, though.”

“You sure she’s still alive?” Kian asks.

I punch the table, about to start into Kian, when a curvy brunette takes the stage. She turns her face toward me, and our eyes connect.

Samira

Chapter 5

Samira

My life isn’t what I thought it would be. I’ve forgotten all the dreams and hopes I once had and accepted the hand fate dealt me. I’ll never get a happy ending or live the life I want.

For years, I had hope, but eventually, living with monsters and being their victim showed me it was a pipe dream, the mirage of water in the desert. The one silver lining is that now I have control of my body. When to use it. When to say no. I’m not property anymore.

I walk on the stage like I do three times a week at Indulgence. The club is better than most strip joints. Sure, the guys are still pieces of shit, but the money is better, and mostly I’ve been lucky that they’ve never asked me to do anything more than dance.

I didn’t want to work in the sex trade, but a girl with no college education and only a GED doesn’t have significant advantages in the job pool. It’s not cheap to live in a city like Chicago. Indulgence pays me enough with the tips to cover my school fees and shelter and food. So I do what I have to do until I finish college and get my life together.

A few regulars sitting in perverts row gaze up at me, and my hands shake as my fingers curl around the cool metal of the pole. Bile rises in my throat as their predatory eyes consume me. I move my hips suggestively and peer out into the audience.

And that’s when I see him.

I’m frozen. The stage is suddenly like quicksand, holding me captive. My heart sinks to my stomach. I’m not sure if I should run to him or run away.

Maxim stands up and walks toward me, his gaze so intense even across the room that it pulsates through every fiber of my being.

“You’re not bad lookin’ sweetheart, but you ain’t so hot you can stand there and not shake your tits and ass,” a guy in the front row says.

I’m about to respond, but Maxim grabs him by the head and rams it onto the tip of the stage. That should’ve been enough to correct his rude comment, but Max doesn’t stop. He keeps slamming the guy’s head non-stop. Blood splashes across the stage and lands on my exposed toes. I’m frozen. I hear hollering, and when I look up, I see Max being restrained.

“Get the fuck off me. I swear to god I’ll kill every last fuckin’ one of you.”

Max’s words go ignored as two big bouncers pull his arms back. Max’s eyes are feral. Transformed from a man to a beast. He thrashes against them, teeth bared.

I’m transported back ten years, helpless as I watch it all unfold. I don’t realize I’m no longer standing with my hand on the pole. I’m on the stage floor with my arms wrapped around my knees, shaking as I rock back and forth.

A gun blasts. My head shoots up, and I see Mikhail, the masked enforcer. Sergei’s man. I know then I have to push through because I’ll never be under Sergei’s thumb again. What he did to me ten years ago still haunts my nightmares in ways that have left scars so deep that they'll never heal no matter what I do.

He grabs Michael Ferenti, the club owner and the son of one of the most powerful Dons in Chicago. I close my eyes, willing this entire nightmare to vanish.

“Let him go, or this guy will find his brains splattered all over his pretty boy suit and your pristine floor,” Mikhail says.

The bouncers hesitate. They pass a look at each other.

“Let him go, you idiots,” Michael says, and the bouncers move their hands off Maxim as if he just went up in flames.

Max doesn’t even register that he’s in danger. His eyes are fixed on me, and only me, like we’re the only two people in the room.

He pulls off his suit jacket before he jumps on the stage and wraps me in the Italian wool. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“What the fuck are you doin’ here, Max?”

“Lookin’ for you. What the fuck are you doing strippin’ on a pole, letting all these men stare at you?”

“It’s better than what they were doing.”

Chapter 6

MAXIM

It’s better than what they were doing.

Those words are on replay in my mind. All I can think about is ripping every fucker in here limb from limb because they sat here and watched my girl. They saw her skin, looked at her with lust, fantasized about doing god knows what to her.