Page 13 of Vengeance

“You’re never here!” Rhonda cries and shakes her jet-black hair around her face. “This was supposed to be a partnership, and we just ended up running it for you while you were out living your best life with your new husband.”

Heidi’s hands shake, and she has to take another step backwards to avoid striking anyone. Hitting your strippers is never good business. “Oh, fuck you.”

“No, Heidi, fuck you! Ever since you got married and started running the Puffy Taco, you’re too good for us. You used to be Starbright. You used to be one of us. Now we’re beneath you,” Starry says.

“I can’t... you know what? If you want to walk out and throw it all away, that’s on you, not me,” Heidi says. “Whatever.”

“No, not ‘whatever.’ You brought us into this and then fell off the face of the earth,” Crimson says. “That was never the deal.”

Whipping to face her, Heidi pulls the silk scarf she wears down to showcase the last of the bruising and bright red scars on her neck. “Sorry, I was a little busy being kidnapped and tortured. My bad. I should’ve told the men who did this to me that I needed to leave and not be choked repeatedly into unconsciousness because I had a strip club to get back to and run. I’ll remember that for next time.”

Rhonda puts her hands in the air. “Okay, we may all be a little heated right now-”

“Heated? This is the first time I’ve been able to leave my house without my husband babysitting me. I was knocked out with a punch to the face and taken to Black Valley, where I was chained in a dirty basement and tortured. For three days. It’s safe to say there were lasting injuries and lasting psychological trauma I’m dealing with here.”

“Heidi-”

“Not only did they choke the shit out of me, I was also electrocuted as I laid chained up to a cot. They hooked up battery chargers to the frames and shocked us through the metal.”

Crimson’s face matches her name as she looks to the ground. “We didn’t know.”

“No, you didn’t. But you know I was kidnapped. On top of that, if that wasn’t bad enough already, I had to watch what those sickos did to my friends. One of them was used as an ashtray,” Heidi says and tries to hold back the shiver the memory causes. “I can still smell the burnt hair and skin mixed with cigar smoke when I close my eyes.”

Melanie made the mistake of laughing when the assholes shocked her, and it pissed them off. To retaliate, they flipped her over and used her back to put out lit smoking elements. As she struggled beneath them, they laughed sadistically, and the smells and sounds wake Heidi up in the middle of the night. And she hasn’t lived a sheltered life.

No one says a word, so Heidi continues. “They used a belt to choke me. They broke almost every vein in my neck in the process. By the time I got home, my neck was a deep purple, almost black. When I passed out, they’d wave smelling salts under my nose to wake me just to start the process all over again. I couldn’t speak normally for almost three weeks. Plus, I’ll probably have scars from the belts cutting my skin, which is a super fun place to try and heal, by the way.”

“Seriously?” Rhonda asks.

“Mel and I got off easy. And if it wasn’t for Melanie, I would’ve left you permanently because they would have killed us. They wanted Lex, and we were just collateral damage. And what they did to Lex... God, I’ll never be able to unhear that. They waterboarded her in the next room while they shouted question after question at her. We could hear them beating her, but we couldn’t do anything. We were locked behind a steel door, and she almost died. Do you have any idea what it’s like to hear someone hurting one of your best friends and not being able to do a damn thing to help her?”

Melanie climbing out of the small window saved their lives. She made it to the clubhouse and told the men where to find the rest of them. Heidi will also never be able to forget the sight of Lex lying limp in Colt’s arms as she passed out after they freed her. It’s by far one of the scariest moments of Heidi’s life.

“Heidi, that sounds terrible,” Starry says.

“It was hell. It’s the only way to describe it. It’s as bad as I’d assume hell is. No food and little water. No bathrooms, and when they did give us breaks to use the bathroom, we had to pee in buckets. The floors were dirt and muddy from what we think was a leaking pipe somewhere. The only thing I can use as reference is what Mexican jails look like from television.”

Crimson glances up and looks back at her feet. She wants to say something, but she holds back. The woman may be quiet, but she has her moments of pure strength. Her on-stage persona comes out, and anyone in the vicinity better watch out.

“As for being above you or all of this, you know damn well I’d love nothing more than to get back up on that stage. I love it up there. There’s nothing like it, and no one else understands the freedom and pure sexiness you feel when you’re in front of the crowd. How the men lose their shit the moment your top comes off while you hang upside down, and they throw money at you. Plus, I’ve never made more money than I did in those days.”

“Then why stay off the pole?” Rhonda asks. “If you love it as much as you say you do, get back up there.”

“Because I love my husband,” she says. “I had a choice between my job or the man I married. And let’s be honest... I only have maybe a few good years left, so I chose the man who adores me. Who’s been there through every bad time and will continue to be there until the day we die. Stripping won’t.”

“You chose a man over what you love to do,” Crimson says and shakes her head.

Nodding, Heidi laughs. “You don’t get it. I love him more than I love being on stage. Do I miss it? Sure. But when I do, I give him a private show. He reminds me of everything I gained when I gave up the job. Hell, he and his club gave us this strip club to manage instead of working for a tyrant.”

“Gave you a strip club,” Rhonda says. “We’re expendable because we didn’t fuck our way into a motorcycle club.”

Her jaw drops. “First of all, fuck you. Second, I came to every one of you and wanted to go into business together before the Drifters ever got involved. You walked away from Christian just like you’re walking away from me now, so I don’t think you get a soapbox to stand on, Rhon.”

“We’re walking away for the same reason we walked away from Christian,” Starry says.

Heidi’s eyes widen. “You think I’m a tyrant?”

“No, but you’re absent. Christian is the problem. You haven’t been here to see, and neither has your club,” Rhonda says. “We’ve been an island alone fighting him off, but we can’t do it alone. We’re not strong enough, and we’re tired.”

---