Page 7 of Ruthless Bonds

I had two months before the submission deadline, and nothing was going to stop me from winning the grand prize.

Fifty thousand dollars and a solo exhibition at the Karsh Lovett Gallery.

Winning meant no more struggling to put food on the table or pay bills. It meant getting Dove professional help to deal with her trauma. It meant not having to worry about sleazy landlords trying to corner me late at night.

It was more than a competition. It was a lifeline.

I had to win.

Which meant I had to get that money back from Dylan, because if I had to pawn my camera, I wasfucked.

I barreled out the door and navigated through the maze of empty beer cans and liquor bottles until I found Zeke sitting at the bus stop across from our building. He had been living outside our apartment ever since we had moved into the neighborhood. He never said much, but was always grateful when Dove and I gave him extra food. I knew what it was like to go hungry. To have nobody to help. And even though I didn’t have much, I was willing to share it with another lost soul like myself. His face lit up as he sniffed the muffins, his hand going over his heart.

“Blueberry this time. Maybe we’ll get lemon cake again this week if we’re lucky.” I chuckled and unlocked my old Buick.

I tried calling Dylan again on my way to work, then threw my phone in the passenger seat when it kept going to voicemail. What a nightmare this was. I had to stop going soft on him. Apparently, my version of tough love wasn’t tough enough.

Maybe I needed to borrow Mrs. Fortino’s rolled-up newspaper.

*** ***

I wiped down the wooden bar top for the hundredth time, the familiar scent of beer and whiskey hanging in the air. The Altar wasn’t necessarily a dive bar, but it wasn’t going to win any beauty awards either. The atmosphere was a constant buzz of clinking glasses, rowdy laughter, and the occasional creep who liked to get a little too handsy.

“Hey, Alora. The usual.” Frank slid onto his regular stool at the far end of the bar, away from the younger crowd.

“Coming right up, sugar.” I reached for the bourbon. My hands moved on autopilot, the motions ingrained in my body after years of making drinks for people.

My best friend, Solene Salinger, owned the bar with her older brother, Drake. It was a converted chapel that had quickly become the neighborhood’s favorite watering hole. I’d walked in here six years ago desperate and lost. The place had been in chaos, and Solene had offered me a job on the spot. Years later, the three of us worked in perfect harmony.

Solene and I worked the front, her devastatingly beautiful and charming, and me… well, definitely not charming, but I had an excellent resting bitch face and could make a Bloody Mary with my eyes closed. Drake ran everything behind the scenes, including security. Over six feet tall and covered in tattoos, he was the walking definition of tall and dangerously handsome. Customers rarely acted up when he was around.

Their younger sister Mira used to run the back office, but had started a new job a few months ago at Club Mayhem. She wanted to make more money, and apparently being a hostess at Mayhem was well worth it. Most nights she stopped by for a nightcap after her shift was over, eager to show me her wad of cash wrapped in a rubber band. Things had been heated between the siblings for a while after Mira had left, which had sucked because they were practically family to me, but thankfully, things were getting back to normal.

The next few hours went by with its usual Monday night chaos—flushed underwear clogging the women’s toilet, underage kids trying to buy drinks withfake IDs, and a heartbroken guy getting shitfaced after his girlfriend caught him cheating. By the time he was ready to leave, he was stumbling all over the place.

I reached out to steady him, slipped my hand into his back pocket and took his keys. Years of swiping wallets and jewelry off people had taught me to be quick and never get caught. There was no way I was letting him drive out of here. I handed him over to Drake, who tossed a basket of cheese fries in front of him and let him cry in the corner while he waited for a cab.

A little after midnight, Margot showed up dressed all in black with a hat covering her red curly hair. She made a beeline for me and slid her satchel onto the corner seat at the bar.

“Ugh, you would not believe the night I’ve been having.” Her fingers flew across her phone as she texted. “This guy I’ve been tailing is not only cheating on his wife, he’s also cheating on his girlfriend.”

Margot and I had met last year at the community center where we both were taking a photography class. I was taking the class because I wanted something useful to put on my MIP application. She worked for a private investigator who took on divorce actions. Her job was to get evidence to help her boss’s clients, which often meant taking photos of men or women cheating on their spouses or doing other terrible, and sometimes hilarious, things.

I poured her a glass of red wine without her asking. “Where’s the loyalty nowadays?”

“That’s what I said.” She glared down at her phone. “Not only have I been chasing this doofus all over the five boroughs, ruining my night, but now my boss wants me to fly out to Detroit next weekend for anew case.”

“Anything juicy?” I placed my elbows on the bar and cradled my face. Margot had the best stories. My favorite had been the husband who was convinced his wife was cheating on him because she would disappear every Sunday for hours and claimed she was going to book club.

Newsflash: it wasn’t a book club. She was a dominatrix. Men paid her to humiliate them and fulfil their fantasies. She would forever be my idol.

“The client who hired us thinks his dead wife is alive and living in Michigan, so hell yeah, it’s juicy.” Margot chuckled. “Mira just got off. She’s headed over.”

A large bachelorette party wandered in, and I left Margot while I served drinks and waited on tables. A short while later, Mira strolled in looking like a million bucks. I was convinced the Salingers had a touch of magic in their blood. They were all tall and naturally beautiful with charismatic laughs that made people stop in their tracks.

An expensively dressed man sat at the other end of the bar and tapped the counter to get my attention. I rolled my eyes as he yelled into his phone, his Russian accent thick.

I was not in the mood to deal with aggressive assholes this late. He ordered a double of vodka and told me to keep them coming. Something about him didn’t sit right with me. Maybe it was the way he was eye-fucking me, or the fresh cuts on his knuckles. He also had red splotches on the collar of his shirt. It could have been lipstick for all I knew, but I was betting on it being blood.

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