Free Four Seconds to Lose by K. A. Tucker Page B

“Next up is Charlie . . . a new addition to Penny’s. Make sure you give her a warm welcome!”
    “New girl?” Ben’s eyes immediately light up.
    “Don’t start, you jackass,” I warn with a cutting tone. All of my bouncers know that they’re gone if I catch them screwing the girls. Ben loves this job, so I’m pretty confident that he’s never broken the rules under my roof. But I also know that controlling what he does outside of Penny’s is too dictatorial and just plain impossible. I can only hope that Ben would treat them with some level of respect. Truth be told, if one of these girls could tame this tall blond’s wild side, I think she’d have a happy life ahead of her.
    He gives me a shrug. “We haven’t had any new talent here for a while. Things were getting stale.”
    A grunt of agreement makes me turn to my left, to find Nate’s normal scowl gone, replaced with the beginnings of a crooked smile.
    “You too, Nate?”
    “I think we could all use a change.” There’s something secretive in that look that I can’t read.
    “Is she any good?” Ben asks, adding with a sly smirk, “At dancing, I mean.”
    “Sure you did, Morris,” I offer wryly. “Just keep your fucking hands off her.”

chapter six
    ■ ■ ■
    CHARLIE
    I’m going to puke .
    The fact that I can stroll into a hotel room and conduct a sizeable heroin trafficking transaction without my hands shaking doesn’t matter right now.
    Right now, as I stand behind a privacy screen in a pair of tiny black boy shorts, my ass cheeks hanging out, and a fitted snap-on vest covering a skimpy hot-pink bikini top—which is only barely covering even more flesh that is about to be exposed to a large crowd of jeering, judging men—my knees feel like they’re about to buckle.
    The three shots of tequila I pounded back in the dressing room did absolutely nothing for my nerves. They only made me more queasy.
    I’m not sure that I can do this.
    And why do those lights have to be so bright? It feels like there are a million spotlights out there, ready to beam down and highlight every square inch of my uncovered skin.
    “You ready?” a husky voice calls into my ear.
    With a startled jump, I turn to find Ginger behind me. I immediately throw my arms around her shoulders, surprising both of us. I’m not a hugger and we’re not really on hugging terms but, clearly, I’m desperate.
    She giggles. “Oh, come on. I’m sure this is nothing compared to Vegas, right?”
    Sliding my arms away from her, my head bobs up and down and I swallow, releasing the lie smoothly out of my deceitful mouth. “I get bad stage fright. That’s all. It’s my thing.”
    With a gentle smile and a squeeze of my biceps, she winks and says, “Well, go spin your thing out there and I’ll cheer you on. I’ve seen you do this. You’ll be fantastic.” She disappears down the steps as the deejay gestures to me.
    Thirty seconds.
    I take a deep breath and mutter under my breath, “Only a few months of this and then I’m free.”
    I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I dropped off that pencil-case-sized bag at a dance studio in Queens—besides a shiny silver Volvo. I mean, Sam was always sending me on little errands. Dry-cleaning, mail pickup, check deposits. I took care of all our grocery shopping. Errands were my way of “earning my keep,” Sam cheerily told me. So when he asked me to drop off a package in the city . . . I dropped off a package.
    Simple.
    When Sam handed me an ID with my face and some other person’s name and told me to sign up for a weekly dance class at that same dance studio in Queens, I figured it out pretty quickly. Still, I went along, not saying a word.
    He rationalized it by saying we were giving people a good time and making a bit of money. It wasn’t any different from selling booze during Prohibition. I bought that bullshit in the beginning. But, then again, I was only sixteen.
    I was naïve.
    I was stupid.
    It