Page 33 of Dark Prince

SASHA

It’s been a week since I started working with all the women Ren hired to perform. They aren’t like the women back at the club in New York. I wasn’t friends with any of them, but these girls want to know everything about me, and it’s like they genuinely care. It’s weird, but oddly, it doesn’t get on my nerves either. They’re all nice and try to help each other. There is nothing cutthroat about the women here. Maybe it’s a Southern thing, or maybe all of society isn’t the dicks I’ve always thought them to be. I haven’t the slightest clue.

“I thought you said they were ready?” Domenico says from the other side of Ren as we watch from the end of the main stage. Two days ago, the building was completely gutted and rebuilt with a new layout. I’ve never seen construction be completed that quick before.

The main stage is circular, with a forty-foot pole in the center. There is a runway the girls dance down before they come to the dance pole. Seating with wide tabletops buffer the stage so that patrons can’t touch the women. I love that Ren—or maybe it was Dom for all I know—added that to the design. It’s important for the girls to feel safe and know they can make an exit if they think someone is trying to take a participation role in the show.

There are also two smaller stages that branch off to the side of the main one, which will add so much to the show once the girls perfect dancing in sync with one another. I can’t wait to see them live with customers watching. When I’m finished, this establishment is going to bring in more than just men wanting to ogle breasts.

I want to punch Domenico for ordering me to teach and Ren for backing him up, but I must admit, I’m having more fun than I’ve had in a long time, if ever. It’s rewarding to see the girls master moves that took me countless hours of performing to nail down.

“What did we do wrong, Sasha?” Jessi, the oldest of the three women on the stage, asks. She’s twenty-five, a year older than me, but she’s the motherly type and tries to nurture all the girls at times, me included. That I don’t like, however, she’s a sweetheart, so I don’t call her on it.

It’s not what she did wrong, or even Rachel, but Cynthia is another story. Dancing is not her calling, but I haven’t broken it to her yet. I keep holding out hope that it’ll click, but her body just isn’t limber enough. I don’t know what Ren saw in her when he hired her, but it wasn’t the kind of talent needed for what I have planned. She’s either going to transfer to the waitstaff or find a run-of-the-mill strip joint. This one isn’t for her, so I guess the only way for her to come to terms with that is to show her.

“Cynthia,” I call out as I push away from the table in front of the main stage and stand up. “Come sit and watch please.”

“Watch what?” She places her hands on her naked hips. The new outfits arrived this morning, so for this afternoon’s test run, I selected the tight-fitting long-sleeve top that has an elastic band under their boobs. They aren’t wearing a bra, of course, so their nipples are on display through the sheer black fabric. I paired the top with short, cutoff shorts that reveal a smidgen of their ass cheeks, and they’re all in black six-inch heeled boots that rise mid-thigh.

They look hot as fuck if I do say so myself. This is my favorite of all the pole dance attire I ordered. I even got a set for myself, which I’m wearing under the long flannel shirt I threw on to cover myself in case I didn’t have to get on stage like I’m about to do now.

“I want you to watch me perform with Rachel and Jessi. You’re offbeat from them, so I’m hoping seeing it from afar might help. If not . . .” I trail off, leaving my unspoken comment to hang in the air for her to decipher.

“What she means is that if you can’t hack it like the other two, then you’re fired,” Dom pipes up.

“Or she could wait tables,” I suggest as I throw my booted leg onto the long, wrap around table and climb onto the stage. There isn’t a way to get on the platform any other way except from the back of the stage and I do not feel like dealing with that hassle.

“I’m a dance—” she starts to sass, but I hold up my hand, stopping her from continuing that train of thought that will get her ass canned.

“Jessi, will you take Cynthia’s spot.” I roll my head, eyeing Cynthia where she’s still standing on the smaller stage on the opposite side of Rachel. “Hop down. Sit wherever you like. Keep an open mind. I’m trying to help, and I don’t know if you realize this, but helping others isn’t my normal, so it’s best to take what I’m offering. Got it?” I question as I unbutton the oversized shirt.

Ren is seated at the front of the stage with Dom and my brother at a table behind him. The bartender is around here somewhere, but I don’t know why when Ren is the only one drinking at two in the afternoon. Kent and a couple of his guys are here, sitting at another table and conversing with another captain from either Alabama or Mississippi. I don’t know which, nor do I care. They’re all sleazeballs and I’m surprised Domenico is keeping them employed. If they were part of the Bratva, my Dad would have ordered Krishna to execute them by now.

Sliding the shirt off my shoulders and down my arms, with my back facing Ren, I say, “Cue the music.” This will be the first time I’m knowingly dancing in front of him this way. Back in high school, he came to a few of my dance classes to pick me up after I’d finished, so he has seen me move.

I just didn’t know he was that guy. It wasn’t lost on me that the same man watched me. I could see him from the waist down, and it baffles me that I didn’t put two and two together. That makes me feel stupid.

A soft melody starts to hum low with the volume increasing, the beat picking up when my palm wraps around the pole, my actions mirroring the two other girls—or their actions mirroring mine, if we’re being technical. My body leans outward and then I twirl myself around the pole, knowing the other women are doing the same. The point is to be in sync with each other, putting on a performance for the audience.

As I round the pole, I twirl myself again, but this time I lift my feet off the stage floor, then I twist my body around so I’m facing Ren as I go around the pole once more. Our eyes don’t meet. I can’t look at him just yet, knowing the truth will mess me up too much, so I lose myself in the song and the performance. I don’t even pay attention to the other two when they’re who I’m supposed to be focused on to make sure they keep up with me.

My hands migrate up the pole, pulling my body higher. I wrap the back of my calf around the metal and make myself speed up as I go around the pole three times, and then I climb higher, gripping the pole between my thighs to push upward. When I’m rounding the pole again, I flip myself upside down and drop fast, having to tighten my thigh muscles around the pole, halting my body to keep my head from hitting the floor.

I wasn’t high from the platform, so that move was easy. It’s much harder the farther up you are, which I don’t expect the girls to be able to do at this point. It took me a year of practice and a lot of leg exercises to accomplish a stunt that dangerous.

I start again, twirling and climbing the pole, wrapping myself around it like it’s a natural body response, and maybe for me it is. I enjoy pole dancing. It’s made me a better fighter. If I was a better sister-in-law, I’d gift Sienna with this information, but then I remember I can’t stand the sight of her face because I’m a jealous bitch.

Knowing Ren is watching, I can’t help but climb farther and farther up the pole, twirling and flipping myself upside down and then right side up again. When I’m nearing thirty-five feet off the stage floor, I flip upside down again and twirl around and around, increasing my speed with each twirl, then right before I reach the dizzy zone I drop, free-falling upside down. It’s only seconds, but this is the part where my stomach tries to come through my throat until the moment I clench my thighs, catching myself with an abrupt stop and jolting my body.

If I were to miss my mark or falter, I’d break my neck and probably kill myself. I’d never do this stunt if I weren’t confident in my abilities. I had a talk just yesterday with all the girls—not just the three here today—about knowing what you can do and knowing what you have not yet mastered. It’s important, because it could mean the difference in walking out of this place on your feet or not at all.

I pause to catch my breath, my thighs still hugging the pole.

“Everyone out,” Ren bites out, and I see both girls flinch from where I’m facing them with my back to my husband. “Now!”

There is anger and something else laced in his heated tone, arousal if I had to guess. The one thing Ren and I don’t have a problem with is attraction. When I say Lorenzo is the hottest man I’ve ever laid eyes on, I mean it, and have thought the same thing since I was in grade school. He was my first crush, my only crush.

Looking from Rachel to Jessi, if I didn’t know better, I’d think these girls were more afraid of Ren than they are Domenico. How that’s possible I don’t know, other than he’s currently their boss, so perhaps he does come off scary to them when I’ve never seen him in a dark light.

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