Music blared from the apartment to my left. It was early for them to be partying this hard. To my right, the single mother failed to quiet her shrieking toddler because she was too busy cursing out her baby daddy who brought another woman home the night before.
All the chaotic noise overstimulated me as I sat on the lid of my toilet. It was too loud. Too much commotion. So many things going on that wouldn’t be tuned out with the paper-thin walls of this shitty apartment building.
Panic and anxiety coiled inside me, spiraling faster and thicker until it felt like a live beast of dread was suffocating me.
I’d been scared before. That night when drunk Lenny almost forced me into those men’s van, I was terrified. The day I realized that Derick had lied to me, cheated on me, and run up impossible debt on all my cards, I had been horrified.
But today, this moment as I stared at the stick in my hand, I experienced an all-consuming trepidation. It was a total sensation of shock and worry that coalesced into a frightening punch on my psyche. This had to be what it felt like when a freight train plowed into someone.
How could I have been so stupid?
The slim piece of plastic in my hand didn’t have an answer for that question. The only response it gave me was a positive. Little lines showed at the end and answered the questions I’d had about why I felt slightly off these last two and a half weeks. With a clear positive reading, it answered my question about why my period was so late.
Pregnant.
The neighbor’s baby wailed right then, as if on cue, and I flinched at the increase of noise in the background and dropped the test stick. His cries snapped me into action, reminding me that I had no free time to freak out like this. Not now. Not here.
I was already running late to get to Stanley’s for a long night of dancing.
But I wouldn’t be up on the stage alone. I’d be dancing with a new life in my womb.
Pregnant?
I stooped to grab the pregnancy test off the floor, but I couldn’t look at it anymore. Instead, I yanked a drawer to the bathroom vanity open and tossed it in there. It was too bad that out of sight, out of mind couldn’t work so well. No longer looking at that stick that told me I’d be a mother, I should’ve been able to force a fake calmness on myself. To ignore it and not even think. To move, like always, on autopilot to get my ass to work and deal with life.
But I couldn’t shut off this concept of how drastically my life would change.
It ate at me, preoccupying all my thoughts as I left my apartment and locked the door. It gnawed on my frayed nerves as I walked through the city to get to the club. And when I arrived in the midst of the other dancers getting dressed or doing their hair and makeup, the fact that I was having a baby threatened to make me pass out.
Of all days, today was a crappy one to miss out on a meal, but I ran out of cash. It became a debate of paying to keep my air conditioning on or getting more groceries. Since I could always drink water to dupe myself into feeling full, I opted for making my apartment cooler than the usual high nineties it was without the air unit on.
Dizzy and nauseous from the shock that I was pregnant, I kept my head down until I could slump into a free chair at one of the dressing tables. Since Nevaeh screwed me over and didn’t have my back at that private event, I tried to keep my distance from her. She was off to the other side of the room, almost ready for the stage already, but even if we were on friendlier terms, I wouldn’t have dumped this news on her.
I needed more time to adjust to it. I had to let this news sink into my brain more before I could plan anything, including who I’d tell.
Getting dressed and ready for the stage, I moved without thought. Suspended in this haze of numbness, I tried to snap out of this funk and plan to think about it later.
No matter how much I tried not to let my mind go there, I was sucked into too many questions and thoughts of regret.
How could I have been so stupid?
I had known better than to go to a private event, and I damn well would always know better than to have sex with a guest.
How did this even happen?
That rugged man who fought off those creeps had used a condom. At the time, I’d been too distracted by the orgasm he gave me with his fingers to realize it, but he did put on a condom. I saw it when I staggered off him and watched him tug it off.
He used protection. I hated that I hadn’t stopped to listen to common sense to demand it, too distracted with lust in the heat of the moment, but I was relieved he’d seen to bagging his dick. Of course, condoms were never one hundred percent accurate…
How can this be happening?
Even though I masked my inner panic while I approached the stage, I couldn’t stem this trainwreck of thoughts plaguing me.
I’m in no position to bring a child into this world.
I was owned by the debt collectors, beholden to paying off the loans I’d taken out to stay afloat with the credit card debt Derick gave me as a parting gift before he disappeared with some skank he’d met.
I was stuck living in that crappy apartment, having to scrape by between ensuring I had money for utilities or groceries but never both.
I was alone, working every single chance I could get.
How will I have time to go to appointments? Who could watch this baby? How can I afford a babysitter? How would I manage to pay hospital bills to have this baby?
Questions stabbed me nonstop, but I trudged on, getting through the first few hours of the night.
When we had a break and the one bartender offered leftover food that guests hadn’t taken home, I sat and tried to stomach nibbling on a breadstick. I couldn’t, though, too torn up inside to have an appetite. If I ate anything, I’d be bound to throw it up on stage, and that wouldn’t help my tips at all.
Breathing slowly to calm myself down, I tried to work my way through what I knew versus all the unknowns that were freaking me out.
That man is the father.
This was the only fact that couldn’t be disputed. I hadn’t had sex with anyone else. Not before him, and not after, either. When I first suspected Derick was cheating on me, I stopped being intimate with him, and that was almost two years ago. And following that night when the suited man got me away from those three creeps who’d been pawing at me and targeting me, I hadn’t wanted anyone else.
But who is he?
Before this break could be done and we’d all have to get back up on the stage, I figured I could try to get a name. It might not matter if I knew who this guy was, but now that he’d given me a baby, a lasting reminder of our time in that private room, I wanted to know.
I shoved my plate aside before getting up and taking it to the tray where we could stack all the things for the kitchen. Then, making my way through the dressing rooms and backstage area, I avoided Lenny or the other supervisor, Brent, from overhearing me as I asked around about that private event I had gone to.
Getting over my grudge with Nevaeh would’ve made this easier. She was there that night. She might know who that man was—granted, she was too busy blowing guests and making extra tips to notice. But Nevaeh wasn’t back here. She was out back in Nicky’s car during the break while he “visited” her.
I was too damn mad at Nevaeh, anyway. If she told me who that man was that I’d danced for in the private room, I would doubt her and suspect she was lying. Just like she’d lied to me about working that private event at all.
Another dancer, Felicity, told me the day after that event that the only way Nevaeh could’ve gotten the chance to work that private party was if she had someone else as her partner. We went in twos, and that was why she’d tried so hard to get me to agree.
All these nights since that party, I reminded myself again and again that this was why I could only count on myself. I could only rely on myself and never anyone else.
To that degree, I debated finding out who this baby’s daddy was.
I wouldn’t count on him.
I wouldn’t ask him for a damn thing.
Because this little baby growing inside me would always be able to rely on me.
“What’s up, Sloane?” Felicity asked after she tipped back a shot. She sat with another dancer who finished a drink as well. I didn’t know her name, but I recognized her. The rumor was that she sometimes slept with one of the owners. That wasn’t why she was familiar, though. She was the other dancer who’d been working that same private event. She was the stripper who was fingering Nevaeh while she sucked off a guest.
“Hey, um. Strange question,” I said, faking a smile, “but uh, do you remember that VIP party a couple of weeks ago that I was at?”
The other dancer grinned. “Yeah, I remember. Lenny and Brent have been talking about seeing if you’d be a regular at them. Lots of compliments about you that night.” She winked.
Ew. Fuck no. I didn’t like the idea of the managers singling me out at all.
“Huh. Interesting. Do you remember my giving a guest a private dance?” I asked, feeling like this was a long shot.
The other dancer nodded and lit a cigarette. “Yeah. That’s why Lenny and Brent think you’d be good with the VIPs from now on.” She huffed a laugh, getting a smile out of Felicity. “It’s not every day we get a boss from the Invanov family showing up and leaving pleased.”
I froze. Blood drained from my face as what she said registered in my brain.
What?
“You took one of the most elusive Mafia bosses into a private room, girl.” Felicity smacked my ass playfully. “You sure know how to find the fattest wallets.”
While she laughed with the other dancer, I struggled to believe it.
Of all the men in New York, I had to give a private dance to a member of the Ivanov Mafia? Even I had heard of them. Those Russians were bloodthirsty, violent, and dangerous. Among all the crime organizations, they were the ones we all knew to fear.
Here I’d spent that night thanking that man. A boss. A prince.
And I have his baby as a receipt.
The dancer smoked and raised her brows at me, curious.
Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Good on you, Sloane,” Felicity cheered. “I bet he paid well.”
Oh, he paid for that night, all right.
He didn’t only give me a handsome tip for my time in the private room. He’d deposited something I could never give back.
Fear climbed higher once more, and I turned away to panic before they could see how I was freaking out over the shocker that I would have a Mafia ’s baby.
