CADGE BY THE ALPHA

ZARA POV

"Stop, get off me, Gerald please, please just stop." "Stop hitting me." He growled angrily at me. "Please, I'm begging you, please don't do this, please." He ignored me, pinning both my wrists above my head with one hand while the other ripped my shirt off, his weight crushing me into the couch cushions. I cried out, hating that I was crying because it never helped, never made him stop, just made him feel like he was winning. "Gerald please, I'll do anything, just please don't." Nothing. He ripped my panties off and slammed his fingers into me, hard. I bit my tongue against the scream trying to come out while tears ran down my face. My fingers searched the coffee table beside the couch, quiet, desperate, trying not to let him notice, closing around the TV remote first, too light, then reaching further, I felt something cold, thin and familiar. The letter opener. I had left it there three days ago and forgotten about it completely, and in that moment it was the most important thing I had ever touched. I went still. He loosened his grip slightly, the way he always did when he thought the fight had gone out of me. I drove it into his side as hard as I could. The sound he made didn't belong to a human, he reared back clutching his side, and I grabbed the scissors off the side table and drove them into his shoulder when he reached for me, then hit him across the face so hard my palm split open. He went down. I stood over him shaking, both hands bloody, watching him try to get up but couldn't , and something in me that had been terrified for seven straight years just went cold and decided it was done. "You little," he started. I hit him again, and again, screaming as I let everything out on him. "Zara, Zara, ZARA." I jerked awake so hard I nearly fell off the chair, both hands gripping my thighs, heart going absolutely crazy, the locker room coming back into focus around me slowly. The sticky vinyl bench, the vanity lights too bright, the smell of perfume, sweat and cigarette smoke that had soaked into the walls of The Red Room so deep it was never coming out. Dre was in the doorway with his clipboard, not looking at me directly, as usual. "You're up in five," he said, and left. I pressed both hands flat on my thighs and breathed. "Bad one?" Gia said from the chair next to me without looking up from her phone, already fully beat, rhinestones catching the light every time she moved. "I'm fine." "You always say that." "Because I'm always fine." "You were talking in your sleep again Zara." I didn't answer that, just stood up and checked my reflection in the mirror, full face, lashes, lips done, the costume all straps and shine, my natural hair pinned back tight. The scar above my right eyebrow caught the light the way it always did and I looked at it for exactly one second before looking away. "You're doing the thing," Gia said. "What thing." "The mirror thing, where you stare at yourself like you're looking for something to feel bad about." "I'm checking my makeup." "Your makeup is perfect, go make your money," she finally put her phone down and looked at me properly, "how much you got left on your contract?" "Eighteen months." "Same answer as last week." "Eighteen months is eighteen months Gia." "I know, I know," she stood up and adjusted her straps, checking her own reflection beside mine, "Marcus was looking for you earlier by the way." "What did he want." "Didn't say, just told me to tell you he needs to talk before your set." "He can talk after." "He said before." "Then he's going to be disappointed," I picked up my lip gloss, touched up my bottom lip, put it back, "what did he look like when he said it?" "Like Marcus," Gia said, "stressed, sweaty, straightening things that didn't need straightening, you know how he gets when something big is happening." "Something big like what." "Private booking tonight, big one apparently, he's been weird about it all day, won't say who it is, just keeps telling everyone to be on their best behavior," she paused, "he looked at me specifically when he said that part." "He always looks at you for that part." "Because I have the most attitude," she said it with zero shame, just fact, "he wants the best girls on the floor tonight, which means you, which means whatever this booking is, it matters to him." "Private bookings aren't my thing." "Tell that to Marcus." "I will." "Zara," she turned from the mirror and looked at me straight, "don't start with him tonight okay, just do your set, smile at whoever this is, take the money, eighteen months becomes seventeen, that's all." "I know how it works." "I know you know, I'm just saying don't let your mouth get ahead of your situation tonight." "My mouth has kept me alive this long." "Your mouth has also gotten you two pay cuts and a week off the schedule," she said, "I'm just saying, be strategic tonight." The music from the floor dropped into something heavier, the bass rattling the thin locker room walls, the crowd noise spiking up with it. I strapped my heels on and stood to my full height. Eighteen months. I could be strategic for eighteen more months and be out of here. "Who do they think it is?" I said, moving toward the door. "Nobody knows his name, Marcus isn't saying, but Keely heard from one of the bartenders that whoever it is came in a convoy last time, multiple cars, security and everything," Gia raised an eyebrow, "not a regular rich guy situation." "They're all the same in here." "Zara." "They are Gia, rich, entitled, think their money makes them God, same guy every time just in a different suit." "Maybe," she shrugged, "but this one apparently made Marcus nervous, and I have never in two years seen anything make Marcus nervous." I pushed the door open and the music hit me full force, lights, noise and the smell of the crowd all at once. I looked back at Gia over my shoulder, "How nervous?" She looked at me with something I couldn't quite read, somewhere between curious and warning. "Nervous enough to clean his office," she said, "Marcus cleaned his office Zara, voluntarily." I stared at her for a second, then turned back toward the stage. "Go get ready," I said, "you're on after me." "Just be careful tonight okay," she called after me, "something feels different." I kept walking, the stage coming into view ahead, lights bright and hot. "Something always feels different," I said, "it never is."

ZARA POV

The music dropped into something slower and I let my body follow it, rolling my hips against the pole, one hand trailing down my own waist, giving the front row exactly what they paid for. I turned my back to the crowd, gripped the pole and dropped it low, rolling slow, and the noise spiked immediately, bills hitting the stage around my heels. I worked the edge next, dropped into a squat in front of the closest table, popped my hips once, let them look, then stood up and walked away without giving them the eye contact they wanted. Control, always mine. Then my eyes caught a pair of green ones in the crowd. Intense, completely still, watching me in a way nobody in this club ever watched me, not with hunger or entitlement, something else entirely, something I didn't have a word for, and a shiver ran straight down my spine before I could stop it. Absolutely not, I thought, and pulled my eyes away. I walked off the stage. Gia was waiting in the hallway with a towel and my robe. "Good set," she said. "Thanks," I wrapped the robe around myself without breaking stride, "Marcus find you again?" "He's been at the bar for the last hour looking like he's waiting for something terrible." "Good." I found him exactly where Gia said, far end of the bar, phone in one hand, drink in the other, eyes going to the entrance every few seconds. He saw me coming and straightened up, "You were supposed to come before your set." "I was busy." "I own your contract Zara." "You own my performances, not my schedule," I stopped in front of him and crossed my arms, "what do you want." He glanced at Gia behind me. "She stays," I said. He looked like he wanted to argue, then looked at his phone instead, "There's a booking tonight, private, VIP, top floor." "Gia told me." "Then Gia told you it's important." "She told me you cleaned your office, which told me everything." His jaw tightened, "I need my best girls upstairs at eleven, that means you." "Who is he." "That's not your concern." "It is if you want me in that room." He took a slow drink and set the glass down, "His name is Zion Blackwood, private investor, old money, serious money, comes in twice a year, same setup every time, top floor, his own security on the door, no phones, no cameras." "No cameras," I repeated, totally normal, nothing alarming about that at all. "His team's requirement from the start." "And you agreed." "One night with Zion Blackwood covers six months of operating costs, so yes I agreed," he looked at me straight, "eleven o'clock, dressed, ready, professional." I looked at his face, the tension around his eyes, the way his hand on the bar wasn't quite steady, the way he kept glancing at that door. Scared, actually genuinely scared. Marcus Webb, the man who had bought my contract without blinking, was standing here scared of a name. Interesting. "Fine," I said. He blinked, "Fine?" "Eleven o'clock, top floor," I turned from the bar, "you'll get your money Marcus." Gia pulled me into the alcove before I made it three steps. "You just said yes," she said. "I know." "You never just say yes." "I want to see what has Marcus looking like that," I glanced back at him, still at the bar, still watching the door, "three years I've been here and I have never once seen him scared of a single person who walked through that entrance, not once." "So your plan is to walk toward the scary thing." "My plan is to understand it." "Zara that is the most dangerous thing you've said this week." "It's Monday Gia." "Exactly," she grabbed my arm, "just be smart tonight please, that's all I'm asking." "Smart is the only thing keeping me alive in here," I stepped back into the hallway, "I'll be fine." "You always say that." "I'm always right." I spent the next two hours on the floor, working tables, keeping my tips up, my face neutral and my mind busy, but those green eyes kept drifting back into my head no matter how many times I pushed them out, that stillness, that look, that shiver I was still annoyed about. I didn't do shivers, not in this building, not for any man sitting out there with his wallet open. My body had clearly not received that memo tonight. Eleven o'clock came and I was upstairs at two minutes to, outside the VIP door where two men I had never seen before were standing, big, quiet, suits that fit too well, eyes that swept over me once and went back to scanning the hallway without expression. Not Marcus's security, completely different energy, the kind that didn't need to announce itself. "Zara Cole," I said, "I was told eleven." One of them spoke into an earpiece, waited, nodded, then stepped aside and pushed the door open. The room was darker than the rest of the club, low light, long curved couch along the far wall, bottles already open on the table, music playing but soft and controlled, like even the sound in here knew better than to overstep. I stepped inside and looked at the man on the couch. Broad frame, deep brown skin, one arm resting along the back of the couch, a glass held loosely in his other hand, completely still in the way that men with real power were still, like the room had arranged itself around him and he'd simply allowed it. Then he looked up. Green eyes. Intense, steady, the exact same ones that had found me on that stage an hour ago and sent that shiver down my spine, and now they were sitting here in this dim room looking at me with that same expression, calm and certain, like he already knew something I hadn't figured out yet. My heart did something I told it very firmly not to do. It skipped. But I kept my face blank, chin up, shoulders back, every wall I had standing at full height, because whatever this was I had not survived everything I survived to get shaken by a pair of green eyes in a VIP room. He looked at me for a long moment, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world. Then the corner of his mouth moved, just barely, just enough to be infuriating. "Will you dance," he said, his voice low and running through me in a way I refused to give a single thought to, "or will you keep staring at me."

ZARA POV

I stared at him for a long second. "Excuse me?" I said. "You heard me." "I heard you, I just wanted to give you a chance to rephrase before I turned around and walked back out that door." He didn't rephrase, just watched me with that same stillness that had been irritating me since the stage. "Sit down," he said. "I don't take orders." "You do tonight," his voice didn't rise, didn't harden, just landed flat and certain like it had never occurred to him that I might not comply, "sit down." The audacity was genuinely breathtaking. I pulled the chair out and sat, crossed one leg over the other, kept my back straight, not because he told me to, because I decided to, there was a difference and I knew it even if he didn't, "So you're the one Marcus is scared of." "Marcus is smart," he said. "Marcus is a lot of things," I reached forward and poured myself a drink from the open bottle on the table, "none of them are particularly impressive." "Don't touch that," he said. I stopped with the glass halfway to my mouth, "I'm sorry?" "You drink what I pour for you or you don't drink at all." I put the glass down slowly, looked at him, looked at the glass, looked back at him. He picked the bottle up, poured a clean glass and slid it across the table toward me without breaking eye contact. I wanted to throw it at his head, Instead I picked it up and drank because the alternative was letting him see that he was getting to me, and that was not happening. "What do you want Mr. Blackwood." "Zion." "What do you want Mr. Blackwood." Something shifted in his expression, not irritation exactly, more like a man filing information away for later, "I come here twice a year, I've seen every girl in this building." "Congratulations." "I've never asked for a private booking before tonight." I kept my face completely neutral, "So what made tonight different." "You already know the answer to that." "I really don't." "You felt it on that stage," he said, quiet, no performance in it, just flat simple fact, "the same way I felt it from the floor, don't tell me you didn't." "That's called doing my job," I said, "whatever you felt, that's what you paid for." "Is it." "Yes." He leaned forward, closing the distance between us without moving from his seat, and I held my ground because I did not flinch, I had never flinched, I was not starting tonight. "Dance for me," he said. Eyes glued on mine. "That's what I'm here for." I stood and moved to the pole in the corner of the room, and the second I started moving his voice came again. "Slower," he said. I stopped, "Excuse me." "You heard me." "I dance how I dance Mr. Blackwood, you don't direct the performance." "I do tonight," he leaned back, completely relaxed, "slower." I moved again, slower, not because he told me to, the music called for it, that's what I was telling myself, gripping the pole and rolling my body around it, hips moving in a slow figure eight, dropping low and letting my back arch on the way up, hooking my leg around the pole and spinning down to the floor, letting my knees fall open for exactly one second then closing them and rising back up, rolling my body against the pole from hip to shoulder, slow and deliberate. I could feel him watching, the way you feel a change in temperature. I turned my back to the pole and worked my hips forward, slow, controlled, dropped into a squat and popped back up, rolling my waist in one smooth circle that made the room feel smaller. I heard him stand up. I kept dancing, kept my face forward, kept my breathing even, because I was not acknowledging that he had stood up, I was not giving him that. His footsteps were slow and unhurried crossing the room toward me, and I kept moving, kept rolling my hips, kept my eyes on the middle distance even as he got closer, even as I felt him stop directly behind me, close enough that the air between us had its own temperature. "Turn around," he said, quiet, right behind my ear. "I'm in the middle of a dance." "Turn around Zara." Something about the way he said my name did something I was choosing not to examine, I turned around. He was right there, close, looking down at me with those green eyes completely steady, and he reached out and took my hand, pulling me away from the pole toward him in one smooth movement, one hand settling on my waist, firm and certain. "I didn't say you could touch me," I said. "I know," he didn't move his hand. I started moving again, slower now, close, his hand staying on my waist as I rolled my hips, and his grip tightened just slightly with each movement like he was fighting some internal argument and losing it one second at a time. "You're good at this," he said quietly. "I know." "That's not a compliment about the dancing." "I know that too," I kept my face neutral, "whatever you think this is, it isn't." "You keep saying that." "Because you keep not hearing it." "I hear everything you say," his hand on my waist pulled me closer, "I also hear everything you don't say." Before I could respond his other arm came around me, pulling me fully against him, his hand coming up into my hair, gripping the back of my head and tilting my face to the side, stepping forward and walking me back until my back hit the wall, his body against mine, and his face dropped straight to my throat. "Mr. Blackwood," my voice came out steadier than I felt, "let go." He didn't let go. His breath hit my neck first, then his lips, then his tongue, slow and deliberate, running along my skin, and he inhaled deep like he was looking for something specific, his hand tightening in my hair, holding me exactly where he wanted me. "Mine," he whispered against my neck. Everything stopped. His hand gripping my hair, holding my head back, and suddenly it wasn't his hand, it was Gerald's, Gerald's grip, the couch, the dark, please Gerald please please just stop, and my lungs locked completely, the room tilted, I couldn't breathe, I could not breathe, I could not breathe. "Get off me," it came out broken, not my performance voice, the real one, raw and cracked and seventeen years old all over again, "get off, get off, GET OFF ME." I shoved him with everything I had. He stumbled back and I moved quickly, grabbing my bag off the table, four steps to the door, handle in my hand, hauling it open. I looked back once, I don't know why but I did. His eyes were red. Not a trick of light, not a reflection, red, vivid, burning, nothing like the green that had been watching me all night, and he was standing completely still, staring at me with those impossible eyes. Without a second thought, I ran.