My eyes drifted over the rowdy crowd at the end of the stage. It was dark with minimal lightning except for the spotlight on the stage. I swallowed as I scanned the room briefly. There was chatter and the clacking of glasses with a few rowdy guys. Even though I had a momentary feeling of anxiousness, I pushed through it, I would not allow myself to chicken out. I wasn’t comfortable in my situation from the gold glittering g-string to the matching bikini type top, but I was determined to go through with it.

For far too long I had been pushed into situations I had no control and I wasn’t going to allow it anymore. He had to know I wasn’t going to placidly do as I was told. The ‘he’ was Angel. He was a crime boss in charge of the family my father had worked for for as long as I could remember.

Two years ago he had sent me away without any explanation. I had been forced to keep a low profile in a small town with a couple of bodyguards to watch over me. I had effectively been a prisoner with guards, with little to no contact with the outside world.

Even thinking back to it now I felt the anger return. Who did that? Angel, that’s who. He was used to issuing orders that people followed, I was not going to be one of those people. I’d had enough.

I was an adult, and I got to make my own choices. And he was going to be faced with that reality soon.

Coming back to my home town in the darkness of night, having given the bodyguards watching over me the slip and been the first step in taking back control of my life.

I could have quietly arrived back and gone to see Angel to demand answers but I wanted to make a statement, that I got to make my own decisions and this was me making the boldest statement I could.

The guys are the end of the stage started waving bills of money at me, pulling me out of my thoughts, and I made myself smile even though I wasn’t comfortable with what I was doing. Not at all. My makeup was perfect and dramatic to fit the part. My long, dark brown hair was down and tickled my back as I moved. I even had a little glitter all over my body and in some places I was going to struggle to get it out of, but that I would worry about later.

My hands tightened on the pole as I moved my hips in time with the music. The guys cheered louder and louder. They were getting more excited second by second. The smell of alcohol wafted into my nostrils and I knew there was no way they were anywhere close to sober.

My mom had been a stripper before meeting my father. She had been breathtakingly beautiful, which she had used it to her advantage on and off the stage. She had taught me that women were beautiful for a reason. In an unfair world, you had to use every advantage you had.

Not once had I been judgemental over her life style, in fact, it had fascinated me and I had spent hours listening to her stories she would never tell again. It still made me sad to think about my mother and how she had died from a drug overdose. I had been thirteen at the time. It had devastated me and left me alone in a world of men.

I had an overprotective brother and an absent father. And then there had been Angel. My relationship with him was complicated.

I had watched my mother suffocate under the dominance of my father, and I swore I would never allow that to happen to me. No man was going to treat me the way he had treated her, it was a promise I had made to myself. He had cheated on her multiple times and had even gone to the extent of flaunting his infidelities in her face for good measure. It had been heartbreaking, and she had suffered in silence.

At the time I hadn’t been aware of it. It was only when I was older and heard the stories did I fully understand what my mother had endured.

I would never give a man the power to bring me to my knees. I would not follow the same fate as my mother, that I had assured myself of a long time ago. Men who believed they could control me were about to find out differently.

“Come here, sugar,” the one overweight balding guy crooned to me. I forced myself to smile even though I was so nervous. I knew he could look, but not touch. With the bouncers watching the girls carefully, I knew he wouldn’t be allowed to lay a finger on me and that made me feel safer.

I delayed my next move until I had worked myself up to actually do it, take my top off. Just when I was about to turn around, someone grabbed my leg and I looked over at my shoulder at the zealous man trying to force me into doing what he wanted. I smiled sweetly, trying my best not to let my panic show.

The club was dark, but I knew the bouncers would be watching and someone would be over in minutes. I could keep the situation from escalating until then.

“Take off the top,” he commanded. His eyes devoured me and it turned my stomach, but I schooled my features, refusing to show him my disdain. This was an act, and I had to keep it up.

“Soon,” I murmured softly as he let go of my leg momentarily. I felt relief.

Fred, the one bouncer, put his hand on the guy’s shoulder. “No touching the girls. You always do this and then I have to throw you out. You never learn.”

He led the repeat offender away from the stage and I could hear him continuing to argue with the burly bouncer but there were very strict rules that had to be adhered to for the safety of the dancers and he would not be allowed back in no matter what he said.

His friends didn’t seem perturbed by the incident as they stared at me. I bet they couldn’t wait for me to lose my top. I took hold of the pole and swung my hips suggestively as I bent down with the pole between my legs. The guys stared, transfixed.

I got up onto my feet and walked slowly back to the pole, looking over my shoulder at them while trying my best not to show the nervousness I was feeling. I was playing a role, someone who I wasn’t.

I lifted myself up on the pole and slid down seductively, knowing that I couldn’t put off removing some clothing. That’s what strippers did. They didn’t dance fully clothed in a strip club.

My hands moved to my back as I continued to dance to the music. I did a scan of the place but didn’t see any sign of the person I was hoping would already be angrily removing me forcefully from the stage and throwing me over his shoulder.

It was time to go through with it. My nerves increased and for a second I wavered.

That was the thing. When you made a threat, you needed to make sure it something you would follow through with. People had to know that once you said you would do something, you did it.

I was hoping it wouldn’t get to this, but I wasn’t going to stop now. The group of guys at the end of the stage waved more money at me. It was time. No more delaying.

My fingers found the strings, and I knew it would only need a slight tug for it to unravel. But there was an art to it. First, I undid the top strings, then I held the top in place with my arm while I continued to move for my audience. My free hand moved to the last knot, and I took a deep breath, trying to build the courage to go through with it and then I yanked it. It began to unravel, but I held the top in place.

The guys were whistling. I held my breath, drawing it out. I heard some movement to the side of me.

At that moment I lifted my arm and the top fell to the floor.

“What the fuck Kira?” a familiar but angry voice hissed at me. I smiled.

“What took you so long?” I asked Angel, who stood in front to cover up my nudity from the desperate gazes at the end of the stage. I knew he would find me and be determined to stop me. When it concerned me, he was predictable in that way.

His handsome features tightened as he glared at me, giving me the full force of his anger. My statement had been made and now I would get my chance to find out why he had sent me away. I wanted answers, and I wanted them now.

My plan had worked. Right down to the furious and handsome man who wrapped his jacket around my shoulders and pulled it closed to cover me up from the prying eyes as he towered over me. I should have been scared. Anyone in my position would have cowered in fear, but I knew him better than most and knew he wouldn’t harm me despite his visible anger.

Over his shoulder, he issued a glare at the guys, complaining that they had been paying good money to see more and he had spoiled the show.

“Hey, what are you doing?” one of them yelled, annoyed that someone had stopped me just when I was about to drop the bikini top.

“What were you thinking?” Angel hissed, but he didn’t wait for me to answer. He bundled me off the stage and pulled me by the arm to the closest exit out of the club. Fred, the bounder who that had just a few minutes ago had thrown out the handsy guy who had grabbed my leg stood back when confronted with the dangerous stare from Angel. Even he knew to be afraid of him. I followed, trying not to stumble in my high heels as I tried to keep up with him.

There was a sleek black car parked outside. The cool air that hit my skin made me shiver, and it made me well aware of the lack of clothing I wore beneath the jacket and I held the jacket closer.

“Miss Ward.” Bruno, one of Angel’s men, greeted me affectionately as he opened the passenger door. I had known him for a long time. But unlike my feelings for his boss, I held only affection for him.

I just got out a quick greeting to him before Angel pushed me into the back seat and then slid into the seat beside me before the door closed behind us.

I knew most of the men who worked for Angel. I had grown up in amongst some of the most dangerous men in the city. To me, they were friends, some I considered family, to other’s enemies. It was the only way of life I had grown up with. To someone else, my normal would have been bizarre.

My earliest memory was of my father was standing over a table of guns and what I would later discover was cocaine. He hadn’t worked an honest day in his life. He had lied and cheated to make a living.

The privacy screen was up between us and the driver of the car. We were alone.

“Are you going to explain your little stunt in there?” His jaw twitched, and I knew he was barely able to restrain his temper.

It was a warning sign not to push him, but I had never heeded that warning before and I didn’t intend to start now.

“Well, you know strippers they dress in provocative clothes- “. I used the most condescending voice I could.

He grabbed my wrist and held onto it securely. Not enough pressure to cause pain. “You know what I’m asking.”

He had the stormiest blue eyes when he was angry. It was fascinating to watch. He released my wrist when I tugged at his hold for him to let go of me. In close proximity to him, I felt the stirrings of something I didn’t want to consider.

“You know why.” I readjusted his jacket slightly to keep my nakedness covered.

His eyes didn’t miss the movement, and I was suddenly very aware of what little clothing I had on. He had a way of looking at me that make me feel naked under his gaze. I swallowed. He looked away.

“And you still haven’t answered my question. What took you so long?” I asked, not allowing his presence to flutter me.

I reminded myself of all the reasons I hated him to keep myself disinterested in how he made me feel when I was around him.

“I was busy.” Was the curt response I got.

“Mmm,” I murmured, attempting to keep myself calm when I was still so angry at his treatment of me and wanted nothing more that to yell and scream at him for sending me away from my home. “I seem to have lost my touch. Next time, I’ll have to put a genuine effort in.”

“Why are you here Kira?” he asked, his voice tight.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I am where I belong.” My eyes clashed with his defiantly.

His lips thinned, like he was trying to keep his temper under control. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

This made me frown, and I crossed my legs slowly and crossed my arms. “Really?”

I was pushing his buttons by being obtuse.

“And why am I not supposed to be here, a place I call home?” My voice shook on the last word, giving more away than I intended.

It was a question I had been seeking the answer to since he had sent me away so abruptly two years before with no explanations. I had sometimes wondered what I had done to cause him to do such a drastic and cruel thing. To be sent away from the only place I had known, away from family and friends. Who would do such a cruel thing? The whole time he was still glaring at me like he had done nothing wrong and I was the person who had.

It made no sense.

“You make nothing easy Kira.”

I frowned. “Maybe if you treated me like an adult and not some child, I wouldn’t have to make things difficult.”

Our eyes locked. It wasn’t just hatred I felt for him; it was far more complicated than I wanted to even admit to myself.

His phone buzzed, and he fished it out of his pocket. He just listened and didn’t say a word for about a minute before he ended the call. Angel had this way of staying cool under pressure, rarely giving insight into what was happening. It was something that annoyed me, as I was the complete opposite. I was an open book.

“Stop.” He issued the command, and the car halted. He opened the door and stepped out. A car pulled up alongside us.

“Where are you going?” I asked, realizing he was leaving. I wasn’t anywhere near done with our conversation or more appropriately called fight.

“To get you out of the mess you’ve made today.” He shut the door, and the car pulled away.

“Stop.” I yelled, but the car did not stop, it kept going. The sound of the car doors locking only fuelled my temper as I tugged at the door to get out. I would not let this happen, not again.

Memories of being taken away two years ago renewed the anger and fear I had experienced. “Stop the car. I want to get out.” But my demands fell on deaf ears and no amount of trying opened the doors.

I breathed in and out, trying to calm myself down, but all I wanted to do was have it out with Angel. He couldn't just order me around. I had free will and I would make my own decisions. Legally, I was an adult, even though I had never worked or supported myself, but that was beside the point.

He couldn’t keep me against my will. But he did. He was powerful, with people who would follow out his orders without questions. That’s what happened when you were the boss in the world with no rules. It took a person with a ruthlessness and fear to keep people in line.

I had never seen that side of him, but I had heard stories. To me, he would always be the annoying boy I had grown up with. My first memory of him, he refused to play dolls with me, telling me it was for girls. He had hurt my feels. The next time I had seen I kicked him in the shin, as payback.

We had always hated each other; we had barely tolerated each other. There had only been a handful of times I could remember different. The earliest memory had been when my hamster had died. He had helped me bury it with a eulogy and everything. I had been nine, and he had been eleven.

The day I had buried my mother, I had been devastated and unable to express it. Stiff and stone faced, I had stood beside my mother’s grave, numb. He had stood beside me and taken my hand in his. I had given him a blank side glance. He hadn’t said a word. For that whole dreadful day, he had been at my side even when it had annoyed me and when I had broken down, finally giving into the grief he had been there to console me.

But I didn’t see that side of him often enough to change my dislike for him. A few pleasant moments didn’t erase all the bad ones.

And right now, I was so mad I wanted wring his neck. I stared at the familiar view and knew I was on my way to his home. A home that brought back a lot of memories, mostly bad.