Page 2 of King of the Bronx

Erica got to me first and engulfed me in a big hug. The smell of sweet lavender filled my nose. It was Erica’s favorite scent. She said it kept her relaxed.

“Are you okay? I’m so sorry, Raven.” Erica wore a silk nightgown with a robe over the top, despite the fact that it was three o’clock in the afternoon. They were all probably still asleep when he’d busted in the front door and started destroying things.

“It’s okay. He’s gone. We’re okay.”

“He’s going to come back,” Erica said.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I couldn’t let him come back, not again. I had to have the money this time. I just had no idea how I was going to get it. I looked around at the girls. I counted nine. They were all women of different shapes and sizes, most coming from the same terrible background I’d come from, and many from foster care or abusive relationships with nowhere else to go. At least here, they had a roof over their heads and money to earn so they could buy the things they needed.

“Where’s Evelyn?” I asked.

“In the bathroom…he came up here earlier,” Erica said.

I walked past the girls to the shared bathroom at the end of the hall. I knocked on the wooden door, aware of the eyes on my back.

“Evelyn?” I asked. The door opened, and Evelyn stood there with a towel wrapped around her body. Her blond hair was wet and stuck close to her face. She was the smallest of the girls. She’d lost a lot of weight after getting into some bad drugs a while back, but I had a strict rule: No drugs or I’d kick you out. Evelyn had sobered up quickly but hadn’t gain any of her weight back. My eyes instantly zoned in on the red mark around her neck.

“Are you okay?”

Evelyn nodded. “Yeah, he has a little dick.”

I smiled and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m sorry—”

“It’s fine, Raven. It could have been worse—we’re fine. The house is still standing. It’s okay.”

*****

It took two hours to clean up the mess in the lobby area. I bet it only took a matter of minutes for him to completely destroy it. I sat at the front desk, going through paperwork. I had eaten with the girls in the kitchen after they cleaned up, but I needed to focus on the money. All I had was a month to get the Irish the money I owed them. $30,000 dollars. I was surprised that Niall even let the payments get so high. I knew it was because he was just holding out. If he tried to sell my girls, they would bring in four times that amount. I flipped through pages of financial statements and credit card receipts, but there was nothing there. No hidden money or payment anyone owed the brothel. The girls kept seventy-five percent of what the clients paid. The other twenty-five percent went into the business. I took enough home to pay for my apartment and the things I needed on a daily basis, but never more than that. Compared to the foster homes I lived in as a child, this was luxury.

“Are you okay?” Erica asked as she walked toward the desk and leaned against the front.

“Just trying to figure out where to get this money from,” I said, leaning back in the chair and putting my hands on top of my head. I needed to think. There was only one person I knew who might loan me the money, and even that was a stretch. The door chimed as a man walked into the house. Erica stood up straight and pushed her chest out. She was naturally pretty with silky black hair and a lean body. Small freckles covered the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. It gave her that young and innocent look. It hadn’t taken much for her to get a few regulars.

“How can I help you?” Erica asked her voice low and sultry. The man smiled at her. He was dressed in a business suit. I wondered if he was stopping by before going home to his wife. The man took out a wad of bills and set it on the desk. They always paid first before going upstairs with the girls. I grabbed the money off the desk and counted it before nodding at Erica. She grabbed the man by the hand and led him up the stair, swishing her hips as she did. I counted the money again, set aside twenty-five percent aside, and then rubber-banded the rest together. I wrote Erica’s name on the first dollar and set it in the safe under the desk. At the end of the night, I’d give each girl their money. They trusted me to be honest and fair, and I wasn’t going to betray that trust no matter how much trouble I was in. If I was in a different part of the country, I probably could have saved up the money to pay the Irish by now. But the rent in New York was so high, I didn’t have much leftover for myself.

The night went on, and more men came into the brothel. Usually, one of the girls was downstairs, and they could lead the men to their bedroom just as Erica had. At one point, a couple men waited on the sofa across from my desk for their turn. I had become desensitized to the reality of what was going on at the brothel. Some people might call the women whores, but wasn’t it really the men that were the gross ones? They paid to have sex with someone, not even caring about the potential to catch STIs. Men were pigs. The men that came in with nice clothes and watches, I could only assume that they had wives and kids at home. I imagined their wife finishing up dinner while her husband finished up in one of my girls. That’s the part of the job that grossed me out, not what went on upstairs. I kept track of the women each time they came down to grab a new client. If one of the girls was up there too long with a man, I’d go check on her.

At 5 a.m., we shut down for the night. The house was open seven days a week from 4 p.m. to five a.m. We don’t take holidays off, and Christmas was usually when we were the busiest. Men got lonely during Christmastime when they didn’t have any family. I locked the door, said good night to the girls, and walked home. I chose to keep my apartment close to the brothel so that I didn’t have to take the subway and I could pop over if there were any issues. I crossed my arms over my chest as the wind blew, lifting up my hair. The sun was just starting to rise, and the streets were almost quiet. The smell of food lingered in the air, and my stomach rumbled. I turned the corner in the opposite direction of the apartment and walked into the empty diner. The bell rang as I opened the door.

“Hey, Raven,” the skinny boy at the counter said as he closed the cash drawer.

“Hey, Jeff. You’re here early.” I took a seat at the counter.

He shrugged. “I got suspended from school, so not much else to do.”

I reached over the counter and grabbed his chin. I turned his head so I could see the bruise on his cheek. It was an ugly mix of green and purple. “Fighting again?”

The boy smirked. “Gotta hold my own out there.”

New York public schools were notorious for being rough. I knew because I’d gone to public school too. It was either fight or get chewed up and spit out. Most parents sent their kids to private schools, but that could get expensive.

I shook my head. “Where’s your dad?”

Jeff pushed his shaggy, brown hair out of his eyes. “Ran to the store real fast. You hungry?”

“Starving.”

Jeff turned away from me to grab some ingredients out of the fridge in the back room. He carried all the items to the front and got to work. He didn’t need to ask what I wanted.

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