Free Plata by Ivy Mason Page A

Madison watched his eyes as they narrowed, his brow low, and there was something very dark there. He was a sociopath, she thought. A drug trafficking sociopath. And he was stalking her.
    “Go on,” he said impatiently. “Like I said, I got shit to do.”
    She nodded and, without another word, climbed out of the SUV and closed the door.
    The car behind Ramon honked again. Without missing a beat, he threw open his door and stormed up to the car. Madison hurried down the street in the direction of the club, not wanting to see the confrontation.
    The restaurant where she was to meet Pierre was only a block away, and she thought about heading there as soon as Ramon had gone. Maybe Pierre was still there waiting for her. But when she turned to look back, Ramon was leaning against his SUV, watching her. She gave him a nervous little wave before continuing on to the club. Her legs were wobbly and weak by the time she reached the dancers’ entrance, and pounded on the bulletproof metal door.

Chapter 14
    The next morning, Madison got a call from her mother’s friend, insisting that she come home from Mexico.
    “I’m sorry to be so crass,” she barked. “But I just can’t understand why Virginia’s only child is fooling around with show biz in Mexico while her mother is all alone in a mental hospital,” she barked. “But the doctor says she can no longer improve without the support of family. You’re all she has, Madison. You need to get home.”
    Madison felt sick when she hung up the phone. She sat down on the floor and sobbed for an hour. In the ten days that she’d been at the club, she’d made just over twenty-five thousand dollars. It was more money than she’d ever seen in her life, but it was nowhere near enough to save the restaurant. She had failed her mother in every way.
    She arrived at work feeling very depressed. Upstairs in the camarino, there was the usual giddiness, with half-dressed dancers dishing gossip and screeching with laughter. Though she’d never minded before, tonight everything rattled her nerves. She found the smell of the women’s exotic perfume cloying and the pulsing lights on the stage made her nauseous. And when at last she stepped onto the dining room floor, she couldn’t bring herself to sit with anyone, exhausted at the mere thought of forced banter and fabricated flirtation.
    Instead, Madison spent hours sitting at the back of the lounge with a vodka tonic, fighting back tears, wishing she could go back in time and make everything different. Even when Cesar called her name to get ready to dance, she sat quietly, unmoving. When her song began and the stage remained empty, Cesar called her name again. But Madison ignored it. What was the point? Money or no money, she had to go home.
    As Madison watched the crowd, she couldn’t repress her feelings of resentment for the frivolous way these men spent their wealth. They threw hundreds of dollars at women just for having a conversation or showing a little tit. It galled her that they would never know what it felt like to need money. They would never know how it felt to degrade yourself to get it. She just wanted to be a normal nineteen-year-old girl again.
    “Feeling sick?” one of the waiters asked Madison after she’d spent all afternoon tucked away in the vacant corner of the lounge. He was an older man with salt and pepper hair, and weary eyes. She remembered that he’d once given her bicarbonate in water when she was nursing a hangover.
    “I’m okay,” she said glumly. “Just tired.”
    “Or down in the dumps.” The waiter gave her a paternal smile. He leaned in closer to be heard over the thunderous music. “There’s someone looking for you. He raised his eyebrows conspiratorially.
    “Oh yeah?” Madison replied without enthusiasm. “Who?”
    The waiter grinned and nodded in the direction of a large group gathered around the sofas and coffee tables. She hadn’t noticed them arrive. Among them was Ramon. He was