This is NOT the end of Omertà, as I will continue regular updates.
However, since Borgata is a prequel and the first couple of chapters do not give (much) away, I will be uploading BORGATA from time to time on my Wattpad profile, while updating Omertà and Death Is My BFF.
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Stay tuned for a Ferret & Scarlett update!!
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Chapter 1
SAM
Once upon a time doesn't set a story like mine, so let's start this off right.
When I was seventeen, I dropped out of high school, changed my name, chopped my hair off to a pixie cut, moved, and became a stripper.
That's right, I'm the real life version of that theatrical Tweet you sent out, when you were tired of doing your math homework.
Just for the record, I didn't just wake up one day, burn my backpack, take my clothes off, and decide it was time to be super slütty to earn my income. I dropped out of high school because I was in trouble, and my boss at the strip club, Orlando, didn't ask me any questions about my past when I approached him, desperate for a job. In fact, he just asked me if I could work the pole and waitress once in a while. It was measly pay, but I took it. Waitressing I got the hang of pretty quickly.
"Working the pole," however, would take some practice after-hours, until finally, I began to have recurring costumers.
When I just turned eighteen, my life wasn't chardonnay and caviar, but it also wasn't a greasy cheeseburger and heart-attack salty fries, either. It was barely making enough money for my rent and sometimes putting my body-my source of income-before everything and anything. It was constantly being on edge and on the edge, depressed and slowly going insane, wondering when my past would catch up with me again, and I would need that packed suite case in my apartment with another fake ID in the front pocket.
In my world, friends were out of the question. At any moment, I would have to ditch whatever life I had and start over, and nobody wanted a friend like that.
Plus, I didn't have friends because I was a huge bîtch.
At least I admitted it. Sometimes being a bîtch was a defense mechanism; most times it was because I hated people. All they seemed to do was scréw me over and chase me down for another stab at it. Can you blame me?
Family-wise, there's not really much to say. I had no siblings growing up. I'm glad I didn't, too, because they would have loathed their childhood as much as I did. My mother became addicted to crank when I was four and overdosed when I was twelve. My father isn't worth a full-conversation.
But between you and me, I loved being alone and on that edge. With nobody to anchor an arm around my waist, I wouldn't have to worry about someone pulling me back from the edge, when the fervor to survive finally burned out in me... and I jumped.
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The air conditioning in the club just couldn't keep up with the passionate, swamping heat in NYC. It was work days like this that I contemplated missing another month's rent and purchasing an inflatable kiddie pool and a couple bags of ice on the walk back to my apartment.
Two hours into my shift, and I was already sweating my tîts off, pole dancing for one of my recurrent customers, a sweaty, sixty-five year old dildo enthusiast, Victor.
Skipping work and watching Netflix outweighed dancing half-naked in front of that bastard, but I needed the money.
Victor mopped up the bubbles of sweat on his upper lip and brow, rumbling something in Russian at me. He was more revolting than usual, so I ignored him more than usual, clung to the music around me, and let my mind and body get lost...
A few minutes into my dance, I hung upside down from my pole, and it was then that I caught a shadow of a man peering in from the entrance of the private room, watching me.
I was now made aware of the pocketknife tucked into my bra.
I kept a steel grip on the pole and flipped over, gracefully landing on my heels. Once I was upright, I continued to twirl around the pole, but kept my gaze on that man.
Upon further observation, I decided this man was not a threat. He had a nice face, was around my age, tall, blonde, and wore a suit. The suit threw me off a little. He just seemed more like the type who enjoyed lying down on the beach in a speedo until his skin became a crispy golden brown, instead of being confined in formal attire.
I swung around my pole, looking for the usual bodyguard, Don, who usually hovered around my private room. He was nowhere to be found. Great. "This isn't a free for all, you know," I decided to shout at the stranger. Fear was building in my gut, and Victor was too busy drunkenly staring at my legs to notice there was someone else in the room.
It was stupid to think that the men who were after my father would come after me. They probably didn't even know I existed. And not only had I changed my hair and my appearance, but also I had moved to a completely different state. I lived in Pennsylvania my entire childhood, and now my home was The Big Apple.
Still, I had no idea who let this fücker into my private space for clients, but it better have been for a good reason or else I was going to sprint out of the room, quicker than that flying cartoon dog, Bolt. I wasn't some dog everyone could come look at in a pet store. They had to be rich to see me dance. New York apartments were expensive, and Orlando took a huge chunk of my income.
The blonde stranger stepped further into the room, until he was close enough for me to kick with my heel, and close enough to notice the flicks of green in his eyes.
"What do you want," I snapped. In five seconds, I was going to 1), take my pocketknife out and attack this fücker, and then 2), get the fück out of there. "I have a client."
"You're sassy little thing," Blondie laughed out. "You have a name?"
Great, he was one of those guys, who wanted to put a name to the tîts. Or maybe this was exactly what I feared. Maybe he was a cop looking for drugs.
"We all have names-" I started.
"Her name is Tiffany, and my name is Fuck Off and Suck a Dîck," Victor slurred out over me, with his thick, drunken accent. He then lounged back in a pile of pillows in front of my stage.
"How much?" Blondie asked, ignoring Victor.
"I paid twice as much as you will ever put down for this chick, kid," Victor cut in again. "I have her for another twenty minutes. So fück. Off." Victor returned his attention to me and flashed his wine-stained teeth and front and center gold tooth. "Continue, sweet cheeks."
I cringed internally. Big tip. Big tip.
"Looks like you have competition, stranger," I said to the surfer in the suit, starting to sway my hips again for Victor. This was all a business tactic. Truthfully, I would have taken ten dollars to get away from the Russian dildo enthusiast in front of me, but I wanted to see what Surfboard had to offer.
When you're as poor and unhappy as I was, money seemed like your only chance at happiness. So when I had the opportunity to get more of it, I took it. I was hard up for cash to pay the bills.
"I paid you to dance!" Victor shouted at me.
Suddenly, Blondie took out a gun and pointed it at Victor. I almost shit myself, and by the looks of it, Victor certainly shit himself.
"Put that shît away!" I snapped at Blondie.
"That's not how you talk to a woman," Blondie snarled at the Russian, ignoring me. "Get the fück out of here, before I make you dance."
Victor stared at the gun for a few moments, and with a string of colorful curses, he pulled himself out of his seat and shuffled out of the room.
"I'm Ben," the stranger said, sticking out his hand between us. What the fück was going on? Did he honestly expect me to shake his hand after pulling that stunt?
"You a cop?" I asked.
"Not even slightly," he said, and pulled his hand back. "Are you a cop?"
"Funny. That was one of my recurring costumers, wise-ass," I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. If he thought that I was a girl in need of saving, then he was in for a lot of disappointment.
"Orlando recommended you," Blondie said. "He told me you're an incredible dancer, and you'd be worth the price. Can't say he's going to be wrong, from what I've seen."
Oh. That explains it. The expensive suit. The arrogance. This guy was a businessman. Orlando didn't recommend anyone to me, unless they were rich. Out of all the girls here, he profited from me the most.
"Did Orlando recommend that you scare off my costumer with a gun, too?"
"Come on, don't be like that. I could really use a girl like you right now." Ben smirked again, jabbing a thumb behind him. "But unfortunately, you're not for me. I got a-er...friend out in the club. He's had real huge stick up his ass recently, burying himself in work and taking his frustrations out on us. We haven't seen him with a woman in while. The guy needs something to uh... cool off. Needs some cheering up-"
"He needs his dîck sucked, is what you're getting at."
"Exactly," Ben sighed, relieved that I helped him out. "See, I knew you'd get it. I'm willing to pay a lot, for you to take my buddy in one of these rooms, or whatever, and do your thing."
The guy was readable as hell. A cardboard box would have understood that Ben's friend was total asshøle. Great. "How much money you got?" I asked.
"Mostly Benjamins." Ben took his wallet out of his back pocket and opened it, spreading the singles with his fingers. My mouth fell open, and I fought the urge to reach for that wallet and bolt. There was at least three thousand dollars in there. That could get me something not-so-banged-up to drive to work...
"Do you want to do this, or not?" Ben asked.
I tried not to act nonchalant about it all, but deep down, I was thrilled. Three thousand dollars wasn't something a girl like me came across in one night.
"All transactions in this club go through Orlando," I said.
"I already gave Orlando his cut." Ben started to back away from me, teasing me with his wallet. "Everything in here is yours, sweetheart. "
I eyed him skeptically for a moment. "I'm in," I finally said, then slid my long legs off the stage. The green-eyed surfer locked onto them like a doggie to a treat. I hoped off the platform, landing next to him on my stilettos.
I'm telling you, strippers could be in the Olympics with stilettos.
"Lead the way, Benjamin," I purred out, and his green eyes lit with entertainment. I followed him out of the private room and into the club, where we were embraced by the usual loud, slow, and sensual song choice.
My gaze fell on a group of men sitting on the far right wall of the club. They filled almost every couch, with girls on their laps, drinking, and laughing.
"Which one's your friend?" I wondered. "They all seem to be having fun, if you ask me."
"Friend's the one in the lower ground, right in front of the stage," Ben said, referring to the pit, or the square depression of floor at the center of Orlando's club. "Piece of advice, toughen up around him. Don't cry if he insults you. You won't a second with him, if you're soft, and I'll only pay you a slice of what I owe, if he has you running in two seconds."
"Do I look soft to you?" I asked.
"Arrogant, much? I mean, you have a great rack and all-"
"That's not what I meant" I turned away from Ben, and my eyes fell on the only man alone in the ditch, lounging back in a leather chair, with his back to me. That had to be Ben's pal. "If you're his friend, why is he sitting by himself?" I asked. And when Ben didn't respond, I turned around, to find him gone.
Wonderful.
I watched Mystery Client from afar a little longer and ordered him a drink at the bar according to what I saw. I felt like a predator, watching him like this. He wore an all black suit, a watch that could have bought me thirty tickets to Paris, and a fedora that tilted over his face. His shoulders looked strong, and I could tell he was tall. I guessed that he was middle-aged, though, and that dampened my excitement by a lot.
But as I got closer to this stranger, and casually curved around the pit to get a better look at his face, I could tell just by the profile of his jaw and his physique, how wrong I was.
As I came closer, the stranger tilted his head up to meet my gaze, and we both seemed to just...stop. Orlando gave all of his girls a strip of red and black lace to go over eyes and portions of their nose. It was his trademark. Still, this stranger could see right through me, and I felt our roles switch. I was no longer the predator, I his prey. God help me, was I this man's prey.
Ben's friend wasn't middle-aged, but it was clear he was older than me by a handful of years. This man was in his early to mid-twenties. Up close, he was well built, with tanned skin, facial hair and stark, narrowed silver eyes. He was power, sex, and money, but most importantly, anger. I had never seen someone so angry that it was engraved into his features and radiated off of him like catapults of magma from all directions, colliding at my skin.
"You look lost, cucciola." His voice stunned me, like a moth electrocuted by a bug zapper. But wasn't so much the snarl to his voice-I had been expecting that. It was that thick, Italian accent that rolled of his tongue, which sparkled something wicked in the air.
"I know exactly where I am," I managed coolly.
"Do you?" He sipped his whisky. His legs were slightly open now, inviting me, and I actually contemplated sitting on his lap. Normally, I would have. But this man was different, dangerous.
"And what do you call yourself, where you are?" he wondered. I didn't understand why, but I felt like he was trying to test me.
"Hannah."
"Hannah, what?"
"Diamanté." I had an actual fake last name. It was Jackson. But at that moment, I had completely forgotten it. Diamonté were the fake diamonds on my grey push up bra and the front of my matching thong. I doubted this man had ever purchased fake diamonds.
"Do you want to go somewhere more private?" I asked, flushed under his stare. If this was some sort of trick, it was too late to back out, at least when there were other people around.
"Sì." He stood up to a towering height. I was almost more astonished than when he opened his mouth and caressed me with that Italian drawl.
I was five-foot-fücking eleven, and the bastard shrunk me down to a little twig.
We traveled to my private room. His friends followed us with their eyes, and I locked onto Ben's for a fraction of a second. He gave me a small nod.
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ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
READ THE FULL LENGTH VERSION OF THIS CHAPTER IN "BORGATA" WHICH WILL BE UPLOADED ONTO MY WATTPAD PROFILE SHORTLY!!!!
THIS CHAPTER IS ACTUALLY A LOT LONGER, LOL.
XOXO
GOSSIP KAT
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