Free RELENTLESS by Lexie Ray

I’m right.”
    I knew, but I couldn’t form the words to confirm it. I was losing too much. I couldn’t do this. I had to do this.
    “It’s time for you to go,” Mrs. Paxton said, her voice syrupy sweet.
    “I will be back for him,” I said again.
    “You might try,” Mr. Paxton reasoned. “But you probably won’t.”
    “Goodbye, Shimmy,” Ben said, looking me in my eyes. “And good luck.”
    Those eyes weren’t the eyes of the boy I’d fallen in love with. They were the eyes of a man I didn’t know. And he was holding my baby.
    “Let me hold my treasure one more time,” I begged, opening my arms, but Ben turned away.
    “Enough,” Mrs. Paxton said. “Miles, escort her out.”
    My sobs were silent until I was outside, then I wailed to the sky, not caring who saw as long as it wasn’t my baby. I’d never felt so alone in my life. There was a hole in my heart.
          I grieved long enough to lose the apartment, and then I was on the streets. I swallowed my pride one day and went inside a soup kitchen when my hunger had made me dizzy and light-headed. The food sustained me and gave me the strength I needed to clean myself up and find a job.
          I pounded the pavement, going in to each and every business along the street I chanced upon. Many of them didn’t have openings or didn’t think I had the right kind of skills to succeed. Several others simply weren’t open. I pressed my face against the glass of one building, trying to see inside. It looked like it was a restaurant or club of some kind, chairs stacked on top of tables. That seemed like a place I could get a good start at. Tips were how you earned enough money to get by on.
    I stepped back, intent on finding other restaurants to apply at, but the door opened.
    “Can I help you, sweet pea?”
    I walked closer and saw a large black woman holding open the door. She was in a dressing gown, her makeup half done.
    “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” I said. “Is this a restaurant?”
    “Restaurant and nightclub,” the woman said. “And it’s mine. You can call me Mama, and this is Mama’s nightclub.”
    It was bigger than it looked from the window and nicer, too, paintings of bands performing decorating the wall. There was a dance floor in the middle that I could visualize full.
    “This place is amazing,” I said. “You wouldn’t happen to be hiring, would you?”
    Mama beamed. “It just so happens that I am,” she said. “This is a special place, you know.”
    “Is it?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of it before.”
    “Before we go any further, what’s your name?”
    “It’s Shonda,” I said. “But everyone calls me Shimmy.”
    “Then Shimmy you’ll be,” Mama said. “This is our workplace and our home, Shimmy. The hours you work in the nightclub are your room and board for living here as well.”
    “Really?” I asked. “That’s just what I need. I—I just got kicked out of my apartment for missing rent. I really need a place to live and a way to start saving money.”
    Mama’s grin was so wide I thought it’d tear her face.
    “Honey, you’re the reason I opened this place,” she said. “I have a business to run, but I still like to help people. This was just meant to be. We’ll be opening in a couple hours, but I’ll see about getting you in a uniform and shadowing one of my girls for the night. How does that sound?”
    “It sounds great, Mama,” I said, smiling. “I won’t let you down.”
    Life at Mama’s nightclub started out just fine. I was clear from the get go on what needed to happen for me to make money—real money, not just the tips we got for waiting the tables—after I saw girl after girl lead customers to a curtained stairwell behind the bar. I was ready and willing to sell my sex in order to earn money. I’d do whatever it took to make a life for my son and me.
    It also made sense to me that Mama would keep all of our money in her safe. I trusted her from the very beginning.