Page 4 of The Complete Truth Duet
My stomach rolled as the stench of marijuana and filth invaded my nostrils.
And then it rolled for a different reason.
On a sofa that had once been brown but so much of the pleather had peeled off that it was now mostly white mesh, Savannah was sound asleep surrounded by beer cans and fast food wrappers, a pipe still clutched in her hand.
I wasn’t her mother. However, that scene would have been any parent’s worst nightmare. But, for me, without a sign of new track marks like those she’d come in with, her only being drunk and high was a massive victory. Hell, for a moment, I considered throwing a “welcome home” party when she woke up. That is until my stomach sank as I took in her black sequined dress so small that it barely covered her breasts and her ass at the same time and the red stilettos kicked off on the floor.
Blood thundering in my ears, I spun to face Chrissy. “You took her out to the street?”
She waved me off and stabbed out the joint in an ashtray. “She said she wanted firsthand experience from a professional.”
Fury radiated through me at lightning speed. “Firsthand? Are you kidding me? Firsthand would have been letting her watch you sit on your ass while you wait on Marcos to text you with a job. You haven’t worked a corner in over decade.”
She glared. “No. But that’s where we all started. She won’t be any different.”
Stepping up into her face, I roared, “She’s sixteen! She’s supposed to be in school, not working a corner!”
She cocked her head to the side and bulged her eyes, her lips twitching with humor. “Well, good news: She only stood on a corner, Princess Cora. She didn’t fucking work it.”
My body started to hum. The beating I had taken when Marcos found out I’d snuck Savannah out of Dante’s house was unrivaled. However, in the six weeks she’d been giving me hell, I’d never regretted it. I had two years to do the impossible and save the unsavable. And I’d be damned if I was going to let Chrissy guide her into the flames of hell for no other reason than misery loved company.
“How many times do I have to tell you that she’s off-limits?”
“And who decided she was off-limits? Sure as shit not her. She sneaks her ass down here every damn night, begging to go to work. She belongs on the first floor, Cora, not up in that ivory tower of yours on the third.”
That was what all the girls thought. They assumed I didn’t have the same struggles they did. No. I wasn’t out fucking to pay my rent, but I was a slave to the Guerreros just as much as they were.
Though she wasn’t completely wrong. In a lot of ways, I was a princess. But only because I had a direct line to the king. It would cost me. Dearly. But for Savannah…
Holding Chrissy’s challenging stare, I called out the open door, “Hey, Angela!”
“Yeah, Cor,” she answered immediately, proving that our altercation would be today’s first stop for the gossip train.
“Do me a favor and help Savannah back up to my place?”
“Yeah, no problem,” she chirped, eager for the opportunity to help.
Flashing Chrissy one last smile—and I do mean one last smile—I exited her apartment, lighter than I’d felt in weeks.
I hadn’t made it more than two steps before someone was calling my name.
“Cora, there’s water leaking through my ceiling.”
And someone else. “Cora, Hugo isn’t answering his cell.”
Annnnd someone else. “Cora, I want that lying bitch Ava out of my apartment!”
“Cora…”
“Cora…”
“Cora…”
It was never ending.
Closing my eyes, I made my way up the stairs, mentally prioritizing the morning’s list of dramas. It was always the same order of importance: Safety. Structural. Sanity. With no one’s life in immediate danger, first up was the flooding.
On a sigh, I asked the group, “Where’s Hugo?”
Three different voices replied in unison, “Kerri’s.”
Someone else added, “Though I don’t think I’d go in there unless you want an up-close-and-personal of Hugo’s hairy ass.”
I froze midstep, a vise in my chest cranking down as I turned around. “Come again?”
It was New Girl—Christ, I really had to learn her name—who pushed to the front of the pack and answered, “Cora, seriously? I know I haven’t been here long, but none of our air conditioners work. And you think Hugo got off his lazy ass at seven in the morning to fix Kerri’s? I’m sorry. I know my apartment is flooding and all, but I will grow a set of fins and a pair of gills before I get on my knees for that fat, sweaty pig.”
I was twenty-nine years old and I’d been in the sex industry for fourteen years. Nothing should have shocked me anymore. Especially not a man manipulating a woman to get his rocks off. That was a given. Yet I still asked, “Why the hell would you have to get on your knees?”
