When The Sun Goes Down - A Midnight Mafia Novel

Six

I raised an eyebrow. What was he getting at? It didn't matter if I was or not, he'd still have me? I had to fight, hard, not to gag or roll my eyes at him. Somehow I succeeded. "I really have to get these napkins to those gentlemen over there." I said in the sweetest voice I could muster, even through all my efforts it sounded sour.

Before I could escape he reached past me and planted both hands on the bar behind me, trapping me in place. "Sabrina." He called out and another girl came quickly to us. They were both looking at me now, waiting for me to explain further.

"I, uh-" I hesitated and then held the napkins up. "Need to take these to that table-"

"I got it." Sabrina said with a broad smile, she took the napkins and then gave my new friend a kiss on the cheek before disappearing.

"What's your name?" It didn't come out at all like a question. More of a demand, he knew I had no choice in telling him.

"Kate."

"Katie."

"No. Just Kate."

He grinned. "Why haven't I seen you here before, just Kate?"

"I'm new." Obviously.

He brought his hands away from the counter and back to my hips.

I looked around the room briefly, searching for the one person I usually avoided. Alessio. Much to my dismay, he was nowhere to be found.

"Listen," I said and gently put my hands on his wrist trying to pry his hands away from me.

"Marco." He filled in for me but didn't follow my lead in moving his hands away.

"You seem like a nice guy." I started, his grin widened. "But I'm really not here for that sort of thing." Comically in my head I added but if you'd like to do an exclusive interview...

"Shh, it's okay." He said and brought his hands up from my hips and up to my waist.

"Actually it's not okay. Now if you'd please-"

"Marco." Another guy put his hand on his shoulder and Marco's face, along with his hands, fell immediately.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this one short." Marco said with obvious disappointment. "But I'm sure we'll see each other again, just Kate."

I scowled as he and the other fellow who I hadn't even cared to throw a glance to stalked off. I let out a long breath. I was feeling slightly shaken and picked up a tray of drinks that had been set on the bar and was waiting to be delivered.

"If you think about it, this is really just like hooters only even better because you don't have to worry about bills and shit like that." Mia said sitting across the room from me with a cigarette perched between her lips and a flame dancing in front of it.

"Seems an awful lot like prostitution." I muttered.

"If you ask me it's a hell of a business agreement." She shrugged and took a long drag on her cigarette.

"It's just..." I looked around, searching for a believable story and for something that I could say that wouldn't come out the wrong way. "More than I bargained for."

"I hear that." She muttered and took another drag on her cigarette. "I felt that way too at first."

It seemed doubtful, she seemed to have at least known she was entering a sex kingdom when she entered, I had no fucking clue what I was getting into. At this point, I almost didn't even want to report it. Almost.

She was legitimately trying to help me, and I knew that. My encounter with Marco had shaken me up a bit, and she, as my "big sister" was supposed to help me through all of this stuff. She couldn't really do a whole lot during work hours when she was in one place and I was in the "VIP" lounge.

"It gets easier." She assured me. "I only have another year left and to be honest, I'm thinking of asking to stay longer." She laughed.

"That's insane." I said without thinking.

"I would have thought that too when I first started. You'll see. You get taken care of down here."

"I'll bet." I muttered with an eye roll and fell backwards on the plain white bed. The worst part of all of this was I didn't have anything to change into after I was done "working." God knows what had happened to the clothes I had worn down here, but they sure weren't within reach now.

Mia seemed to have no shame in stripped and crawling between her sheets. "I'm going up tomorrow." She whispered shortly after we turned the lights out.

"Going up?"

"Mhm. I'm going to go see the statue of liberty. Always wanted to visit, but I grew up down in Florida and wasn't really financially set for a long trip."

I had so many questions but when I started rambling them off I was interrupted by the sound of her light snoring. I sighed heavily and rolled onto my back to stare at the ceiling. Admittedly, I was used to sleeping with a fan on, and had a heck of a time getting to sleep down here without one. The sound of her snoring was actually helpful. If Alessio hadn't shot my phone, I had a fan app that would have fixed this problem.

I was exhausted from working so much; my feet were blistered from the constant heels and the bags under my eyes were starting to get difficult to cover with makeup alone. But all of the physical trials of this was nothing compared to the emotional toll it was taking.

I thought I was a journalist, a hardcore journalist. I would do anything to get the story of a life time. Or so I thought. Laying here now, thinking about how nice it would be to soak my feet in salt water and wrap myself up in a fuzzy robe, I came to a very startling realization. I was no longer a journalist. If I had been, I would have been loving this. I was like an undercover cop, I was getting the story of the year, maybe even the millennium! And I would have gladly given it up to just go home now.

I needed to get out of this place before I lost even more of myself. That would be my new focus. How to get out. The story could wait, my life could not. Sooner or later Alessio would catch on. What would he do to me then?

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I don't have a ton to say about this chapter. But what I AM going to say is that these next few chapters are going to get veryyy interesting and we'll see a lot more of Alessio. I'm stoked.

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