Page 73 of Scarred King

“You haven’t ruined anything.” He puts his arm around my shoulder. “She did it all by herself.”

“How many people will be hurt because of me until I can leave this stinking place?” I answer angrily and stand up again. “I can’t stand this.” I take a step back. “And I can’t stand you.” I run to the counter and sit on a barstool.

Charlie puts a glass in front of me and fills it with wine. “Don’t take it too hard.”

“I don’t have an order for this,” I snap.

“It’s for you.” He leans his elbows on the counter. “I’ve seen everything there is to see here,” he says. “Young girls, students, older women, single moms, abused women, everything.”

“But why do they choose this shitty life?” I sip the wine and peek at the door to the club. “Why don’t they choose to do something good with their lives?”

“Sometimes people get lost on the way. Sometimes they’re led astray. And sometimes they don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” I insist. “Nobody can make decisions for us. At the end, the decision is ultimately always ours.”

“Not always,” he answers, looking sad. “I don’t believe anyone would choose this if she had a choice. Look at Amber,” he points at the brunette who is stroking an elderly man’s arm. “Her husband left her with his debts. Some bad guys came to collect, and then social services took her kids away.” I look at her and shudder. “Sweet kids, three and five years old, who were sent to foster care. And then she found out they were being abused there.” My eyes widen in fear. "She had to be able to pay rent and pay for their living expenses to get them back. They’ve been back with her for a year now.” He smiles.

“It doesn’t make sense that they’d give a prostitute her children back,” I raise my voice and he shushes me angrily.

“Elena, in our world we have ways of proving that any kind of job is legal.” He winks at me, but I really don’t understand what he means.

“Well, that’s different,” I stutter, the story of that poor mother and her children echoing inside my head. “It’s all about her children.”

“Then look at Heidi.” He points at the slender blonde who is skipping up the stairs followed by a black man with his hands on her ass. “Her husband beat her so badly that she ended up in hospital five times in three months.”

“That’s terrible,” I murmur.

“He used to bring men home to have sex with her and keep the money. Until one night she picked up a knife and finished him off.”

“He deserved it.”

“Yeah. But the law decided that since he wasn't armed when she did it, she was a danger to the public and she went to jail for a year.”

“That’s really terrible,” I feel the tension spreading through my back.

“When she got out, she found this place. No one beats her without her permission here and she makes a good living.”

“Your stories make this place sound like a charity organization.” I don’t even try to hide my disdain. “These poor women are exploited to make even more money.”

“You choose to see everything in black and white. It’s not that clear.” He shrugs.

“It still makes me sick.” I take another sip of wine and rub the back of my neck.

“That’s okay, sometimes life is sickening.” He straightens up and points at a new customer who just walked in. “At least your friend ended up in our place,” he sounds proud. “It could have been much worse somewhere else.”

I walk over to the customer and immediately after that a few more walk in. Every free minute I get, I go over to the connecting door and stare at it with a sense of dismay. I have no idea what’s happening in there now, and the images that are running through my head are disturbing.

“Elena, come sit with us,” Liam calls me and I look away from the steel door. I don’t feel like sitting with them and I’m really not in the mood for Ralph’s rudeness.

“What can I get you?” I ask dryly.

“Nothing,” Liam answers. He pulls me down next to him and caresses my thigh.

I squirm uneasily. “Stop, don’t touch me now,” I ask quietly.

“You are something special,” Ralph says drunkenly. “You know that my 3,000 dollars offer is still on the table?”

“You know that my refusal is still on the table too,” I answer and flip my hair forward distractedly.

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