by Ana Medeiros
Tatiana left to use the bathroom, and Meredith lingered on the main floor, surrounded by a crowd too at ease to allow her to continue to feel apprehensive. Bodies brushed against her. The usual curtness that came with that type of anonymous contact, which she had experienced at concerts and nightclubs, wasn’t there. The touch of soft fabric, bare arms touching her uncovered skin, the physical awareness with which the people around her moved, all made her feel attuned to her own body.
She saw Tatiana talking to a well-dressed Asian man with shoulder-length hair. In his three-piece suit, he didn’t blend in. He reminded her of the security guards she had come face-to-face with when she had tried to sneak into the lower level. But he didn’t wear all black, and as far as she could tell, he didn’t wear an earpiece either.
By the time she reached Tatiana, the man had walked away.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“An old acquaintance.” Tatiana adjusted her wig, running her fingers through the short bangs. “Let’s go. I need to drink something strong.”
They had just sat at the bar when Meredith spotted Ben, the bartender.
“I was wondering when I’d get to see you again. Where’s Julian?” he asked.
Meredith pondered over her response. She didn’t know how much she should trust Ben. She held Tatiana’s hand. “He’s not here tonight. I came with someone else.”
As Ben took in the faded scars on Tatiana’s body, Meredith felt Tatiana tense up beside her.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
Even without words, Tatiana’s displeasure toward Ben became evident. Awkwardness settled between the three of them and Meredith, mustering a grin, tried to dissipate it. “Bulleit on the rocks.”
Tatiana’s demeanor remained cold. “Mint Julep. Add both to my account.”
“I need your key.”
Tatiana made a sound of disgust. “Jesus, Ben, spare us. Straight up alcohol with no bullshit will do.”
“It’s the rules.”
“I don’t have my key with me, and I know you can add it to my account.” She tilted her head toward Meredith. “Do it for our beautiful friend here.”
“I can’t—”
“Go ahead, Ben.”
The same man Meredith had seen speaking to Tatiana arrived at the bar. He gave a silent nod to Ben, who responded by preparing their drinks.
Tatiana didn’t turn to face him and the man’s eyes lingered on the curve of her neck, his stare as intimate as a caress. Tatiana let go of Meredith’s hand.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your girlfriend?” he asked.
Meredith reached for the drink Ben had placed in front of her. She took a long sip.
“Vincent, Meredith; Meredith, Vincent.”
Vincent extended his hand to her, seemingly not bothered by Tatiana’s hurried introduction. “Pleasure to meet you, Meredith.”
“Likewise.” Meredith gave him a firm handshake. “How do you and Tatiana know each other?”
All his attention was now on her. “The club.”
Meredith waited for Vincent to elaborate, but suddenly, he stepped away from the bar.
“I’ll see you both around.”
Meredith watched Vincent walk away. He carried himself with effortless authority—the type of man that didn’t answer to anyone.
“An old acquaintance, huh? Who is he really?” Meredith asked Tatiana quietly. The background music drowned their voices, but part of her felt that Vincent could still hear their conversation.
“Someone you might want to fuck but not fuck with.”
“How did you two meet?”
“I used to work here.”
Meredith’s eyes widened.
“Not as a sex worker.”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie, Meredith; it’s written all over your face. You’re not as open-minded as you pretend to be, do you know that?” Tatiana chugged half of her drink. “I had Ben’s job.”
For a short second, Meredith thought that Tatiana might be kidding. “How come? And you and Julian never saw each other?”
“I stopped bartending before Julian showed up. By then, I had my own membership. It was easy to avoid him. He always stayed downstairs. Until the day he brought you with him. That’s why he saw me. I guess I have you to thank for bringing us back together.”
“It wasn’t me who brought you two together again. It was your sister.”
“I guess you could say that.”
“How did you get a bartending job here? Do all employees have a membership as well?” Meredith asked.
“Employees don’t have memberships. And I can’t tell you how I ended up working here. That’s against the rules.”
“The same way it’s against the rules to buy alcohol without your key.”
“Some rules, like that one, are there to make you feel like you belong to an exclusive club. They’re meaningless. Others are there to keep you alive. Those rules, Meredith, should not be ignored.”
“Does Vincent work for the club?”
“Sort of.”
“I was expecting a yes or no answer.”
“‘Sort of’ is the most honest answer I can give you.”
Tatiana absently traced the marks on her arms.
“I tried finding a dress with long sleeves.” It sounded almost like an apology, Meredith realized.
“Do you think they’re ugly?” While the question implied vulnerability, Tatiana’s voice carried no such emotion.
Meredith recalled Ben’s reaction to Tatiana’s scars. “People might think they’re unpleasant.”
“For some people here, they make me captivating.” Tatiana chuckled, but Meredith was unable to do the same. “I’ve become priceless.”
At that moment, Ben replaced their empty glasses with new drinks, and even though he didn’t say it, Meredith knew they came with compliments from Vincent.
“I’ve only been here a few times but I never saw anything that I wasn’t, in a way, expecting to see at any sex club,” she said to Tatiana. “Which makes me believe that the people who might find you priceless dwell in other areas of the club; perhaps the lower level?”
“I can’t take you down there.”
Tatiana’s firm answer didn’t deter Meredith. “Why not? Is it because I’m not allowed?”
“Yes. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
“What are your reasons not to?”
Tatiana turned on her seat, toward Meredith. “Dive into BDSM, explore some safe, sane, and consensual fetishes. If that’s not your thing, the club still has plenty to offer. Three floors of it. They were designed for people like you. Healthy, fun, exciting. You’ll meet some amazing men and woman along the way. I guarantee you.”
“The young woman I told you about, Lena, she—”
“It’s called The Raven Room,” Tatiana interrupted.
“Excuse me?”
“The lower level. That’s where the name of the club comes from. There’s no harm in you knowing that. Don’t ask me why that name, though. I sincerely don’t know.”
“Both Lena and Sofia ended up dead because of this place. I can’t prove it yet but I know that’s the truth. I also know that this club killed your sister.”
“What do you want me to do? Call your stepmom?”
The bitterness in Tatiana’s voice warned Meredith that they were about to fall into an argument.
“I’ll be back.” With her drink in hand, Meredith left the bar and made her way upstairs. She needed a few minutes to herself.
As Meredith reached the second floor, she stopped by the banister. The unique scent she had come to love filled her senses. She remembered the first time she had visited the club with Julian. She had felt welcomed, at ease. Such strong sense of belonging had been a new emotion for her. She didn’t want to feel at home in a place associated with murder, but she had to be honest with herself—she loved The Raven Room.
“You look unhappy.”
Startled by Vincent’s sudden appearance, Meredith took a step back.
“You can see your girlfriend from here.”
Meredith followed Vincent’s gaze. Tatiana still sat by the bar.
“She looks even more unhappy than you do.”
Vincent was right. Tatiana looked like she was crying as she slouched on her stool, her elbows resting on the counter, with her head tipped forward.
“Did Tatiana tell you how we came to know each other?” Vincent asked.
“Are you trying to find out how much I know about the club?”
“I’m trying to find out how much you know about me.”
Meredith instinctively leaned away, toward the banister. The nervousness she felt in Vincent’s presence made her overlook her fear of heights. The wooden handrail, which now supported her weight, gave slightly under her. She suppressed a gasp.
“You’re a journalism graduate student at the University of Chicago. How do you like it?”
“Who told you that?” she asked, still holding the handrail. She didn’t have to look at her hand to see that her knuckles had turned white.
“Julian Reeve.”
“You two are friends?”
A naked couple to their left started having sex against the wall. Neither she nor Vincent paid them any attention.
“It’s on your guest file,” he replied.
“So you’re an employee?”
Vincent smirked. “Exactly. What do you think of The Raven Room?”
His question sounded innocent enough, but Meredith worried it carried a double meaning.
“Sex, money, and power. Aren’t those the things everyone wants?”
“The more often you come to the club, the less sex you’ll end up having. At least here,” he said.
Meredith took in his flawless white teeth, his smooth skin, and his well-groomed black hair. Human beings were not supposed to look so unmarred.
“Too much choice?” she asked.
He tilted his head in the direction of the couple. “Not enough clothes.”
She frowned, confused.
“Fully naked people are hardly ever sexy.”
Meredith chuckled at his words.
“You should visit the room on the top floor.” He pointed toward the staircase that would lead her upstairs and his silver cufflinks caught the light. “It’s known as the Black Dragon.”
Meredith remembered a conversation she had had months ago with a woman named Nina. She had drawn a floor plan of the club on a mirror with her red lipstick. She had mentioned that each room at the club was named after an animal and she had pointed out that particular room—the only one with a door, walls, and ceiling painted black. Meredith had yet to go in.
She finished her drink. Her throat felt dry. She couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, Vincent was leading her into a trap.
“I have no interest in the upper floor.” Meredith walked by him, heading downstairs. “Come talk to me when you’re ready to take me to the area of the club that I really want to go to—the original Raven Room.”
Despite her sense of foreboding, when she glanced at him over her shoulder and found him smiling at her, Meredith caught herself smiling back.
Chapter 12
“This is a bad idea.”
“Calm down, Meredith.”
“What if we get caught? What if someone calls the cops? We should just go back to Julian’s.” She followed Tatiana, who walked a few feet ahead of her. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into breaking into a cemetery in the middle of the night.”
“That was our deal. Club first, cemetery second.” Tatiana stopped walking and faced Meredith. “You really need to calm down. You’re making me anxious. Why can’t you understand that visiting my sister’s grave is important to me? I understood that visiting the club was important to you.”
“Yes, but now that I’m here I can see that this is a bad idea. What if we get caught?”
“You were gone for a while. Did you fuck him?”
“Who?” Meredith asked, confused.
“Vincent.”
She didn’t understand why Tatiana would think she would. “Of course not.”
“It’s a sex club. Don’t act like that’s the most outrageous question someone has ever asked you.”
“I didn’t. We spoke, but that was it.”
“Did he come up to you? What did you two talk about?”
“He asked me how my studies were coming along. He said he got the information from my guest profile. Is that possible?”
“Did you believe him?”
“I don’t know. Why can’t you just tell me who he is?”
Tatiana started to go through the contents of the clutch purse hanging from her wrist. Meredith watched her put something in her mouth and swallow it.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking a benzo. Snatched a few from Julian. I’d be a wreck without it.”
Meredith shook her head in disapproval.
“I’m not like him. I only take them when I’m in a really bad place,” Tatiana said.
In an attempt to reduce her own agitation, Meredith lit a cigarette. Tatiana asked her for one and Meredith passed her the whole pack. They stood, side by side, two burning red specks in the dark.
“Now, can we focus on finding my sister’s grave?” Tatiana held the shoes in one hand and the cigarette in the other. “This dress is killing me. Tugs in all the wrong places.”
Throwing away what was left of her cigarette, Meredith threaded her arm through Tatiana’s, pulling her close. She guided her toward a grave two rows away from the path they were on.
“We’re here,” Meredith said.
“I can’t see anything.”
Meredith and Pam had been the only two people who attended Sofia’s funeral, so she had a clear memory of the grave’s location. She used the screen of her phone to illuminate the headstone.
“Who paid for her funeral? For everything?” Tatiana asked.
“Your husband was going to but Julian wouldn’t allow it. He took care of it.”
“Did Julian attend?”
Before she had left for the cemetery that day, Tatiana had been in bed, dazed from a high dose of painkillers, and Julian had been sitting in front of the window of his bedroom, staring at the Chicago skyline. The tallest buildings were lost in the morning fog. When Meredith had returned hours later from burying Sofia, Julian had yet to move. She had tried to find the words to console him, but none had felt right.
“He didn’t,” Meredith replied.
They sat on the grass, and Meredith removed her jacket and draped it over herself and Tatiana.
“I remember.” Meredith read out loud the words on the headstone. Julian had been the one who had arranged it so she knew the phrase had come from him. “Do you know what it means?” she asked.
Tatiana didn’t reply.
“Tell me something about Sofia. Anything.”
Tatiana’s silence, together with the stillness of their surroundings, unsettled Meredith.
“She was a great storyteller,” Tatiana said. “When we were sent to live with our aunt in Lawrence, after everything we went through, I started to have really bad nightmares. I’d wake up and cry for hours. But then, she would hide under the covers with me and come up with stories that would go on and on. It always worked. I’d calm down and fall asleep. I wish we had never stopped being that close.”
“What happened?” Being an only child, Meredith couldn’t speak from experience, but she always imagined that if she had siblings, they would always remain best friends.
“She wanted to get as far away as possible. I didn’t. As soon as we turned eighteen she left for Russia. I returned to Chicago. Both of us knew she wasn’t planning to come back so it was an awkward goodbye. Like we were pretending we were going to see each other soon.” Tatiana rested her head on Meredith’s shoulder. “When she called me saying she was back in Chicago I was shocked. I had barely heard from her in
the last twelve years. But I was also happy. My twin sister was back.”
“How did Sofia end up at the New Jackson? The place is close to being condemned. Why wouldn’t she stay with you?”
“When she called me she was already living there and I didn’t ask her if she wanted to stay with me. I thought she would be better off away from me and Steven. We were going through a really rough patch. Vicious arguments.”
No one, including Tatiana, knew why Sofia had arrived in the city eight months ago. Meredith had found out, through Colton, that Sofia had boarded a flight in Moscow, destined to Chicago, with one stop in London’s Heathrow Airport. Not one person from her life back in Russia had come forward inquiring about Sofia. At least not yet.
“How did you meet your husband?” Meredith asked.
“I was waitressing at this restaurant; I was nineteen. We got married a year after that.”
“The police said two years ago he filed a missing person’s report for you. What happened?”
Tatiana leaned forward and caressed the dirt on Sofia’s grave. “I got pregnant. I didn’t tell Steven, and I went ahead and had an abortion. He found out. He was so angry. I think more than angry, he was hurt. He felt betrayed.”
“So you left him?”
“He hit me so hard he cracked several of my ribs.” The sound of Tatiana’s voice dropped a notch. “I loved him, but after that I couldn’t stay with him. I hadn’t worked since we got married. I had become a lady of leisure with a monthly allowance from my husband. So I took a chunk of his money, as much as I could get my hands on, and left.”
“But you went back to him.”
“I was living in San Francisco when one morning he showed up at my doorstep. I asked how he found out where I was staying but he refused to tell me. I got the sense he’d find me anywhere I went.” Tatiana grabbed a handful of dirt and held it between her hands. “He apologized. I apologized. At that point we had been married for seven years. We thought we could get over what had happened.”
Tatiana had left her wig in the car, and Meredith kissed her hair. “Knowing what he did to you the night your sister died, I assume you were wrong.”
“It was over for us a long time ago. The fights, the broken furniture, the bruises…it kept getting worse and worse. He couldn’t let me go, and I was too afraid to pack up and leave like I’d done before.” Tatiana pressed her hands tighter together and some of the dirt fell on her lap. “Steven had access to my bank account. He knew exactly how much I spent and saved. I had tried to find a job before, but Steven said he could give me in a day what I’d make in a month at any job I was qualified to do.”
