Taking Jana (Paradise South #2)

by Rissa Brahm

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  “Just, you know, keep in touch. Tell me how it goes. And so I know you’re safe.”

  Jana caught the underlying worry, because when Char had left for Vegas, they both wished they could’ve prevented what had happened. But Jana knew they couldn’t have. It was out of anyone’s hands. Jana had even spoken to Char the day before. One day before.

  “Of course. I’ll text you my status after I go down there tomorrow night. Listen, Amber, it was so good hearing your voice. God…you sound like an amazing mama,” she said as a tiny pang of something Jana realized was envy rose up again in her chest. But thank God she had no innocent soul dependent on her now. Because she had her parents to deal with right now, and she could hardly handle them and their debts.

  So, all she could do was to pray that in this lifetime her parents would learn to stand on their own two feet and finally release her so she could live her own life. Her own dreams.

  “Good hearing your voice too, love. We’re out in Morristown now. Come and visit us if you can. I’d die to see you, and you can meet Charlie—”

  “You named her—”

  “—Yeah. Charlene, Charlie for short.”

  “I love it, Amber.” Jana choked on her breath, holding back the sudden grief she had worked too hard to hide for the entire phone call. There had been no funeral, no closure, and as the years passed, Jana thought it best to keep it buried. What was the point of hashing out that shit? “Oh, hey Amber, gotta go, just pulled up to the hospital.”

  “Yeah, sure, okay. Just, stay in touch, love. Please, stay in touch.”

  Jana pressed ‘end’ on her screen and looked out at the road in front of her, the cab still several minutes from the hospital.

  She gathered her hair back into a ponytail, pulling it tight enough to reset her state of mind with a bit of brain-clearing pain. Her trick again—hurt for hurt—this time not for motion sickness but to balance out everything else, topped by thoughts of Char. She divided her hair in two, gave each side one more good yank, the hair band now snug against her skull. She brought her arms down to her lap, and only then noticed a new tiny bruise on her forearm that hadn’t been there hours before, at least not when she was holding her father’s hand at the hospital. She must’ve done it subconsciously. God, she really needed to find some earbuds.

  CHAPTER 6

  Watching Manhattan’s lit up skyline across the river from the window while the cab weaved through the barren streets of Fort Lee, Jana went over her plan in her head.

  She’d relieve her mother, send her home to sleep, then after a three-hour power nap in that horrible hospital room armchair, she’d deal with her father. Her mother would come back and she’d get down to Newark and hope that Eddie was still running The Wet Spot.

  Because Eddie was her ticket. Beyond Amber and Charlene, Eddie had been key to her ability to make the money she had because he made the schedule. And Eddie had definitely favored Jana. He’d never been shy about crushing on her from day one, but besides and despite that, he kept her on as many rotations as she wanted, even though she didn’t reciprocate Eddie’s advances. While most men in the industry would have cut her off immediately for denying them, he put her, and kept her, on the rotation more consistently than any other dancer. She didn’t delude herself; Eddie wasn’t selfless by any means. The bumps in pay he got from Jana being on the schedule were motivation enough. The men she drew into the club made his cover-count skyrocket. And her regulars booked the back rooms as if their money grew like grass in the suburbs.

  She hadn’t seen or spoken to Eddie since she transferred to The Manhattan Sweet Spot. He and his pocket were pissed. And Charlene had been leaving too, heading out to Vegas for bigger things; he’d lost two top earners in a single month.

  But that was the business, and everyone knew nothing was forever in the club scene.

  At that time, she’d been dancing for two plus years, and had figured out that beyond catching her folks up financially, she could actually fund nursing school too. She had reapplied to MMU not expecting to get in. But for a second time, she had. And The Sweet Spot was only a few blocks from campus.

  But the real perk, compared to Newark’s club scene, was the exponential money to be had in the City. Even though, at the start, she’d been low on the totem pole—far fewer peak shifts and no private room demand—she’d still made twice as much money as she had in Newark. And once she acquired her own following at The Sweet Spot, well, astronomical history. She had never imagined having so much cash before, every last dollar of which would all go to cover the remainder of her folks’ debt and all of her college tuition. And for the next four years, she worked all night, hit class and studied by day, and grabbed some sleep and food somewhere in between. That’s how she got out of the clubs and obtained her ER spot.

  But here she was again, the Newark club on her brain. Chills shimmied up her spine.

  Just focus, Jana.

  Okay, so the money would be less, but she, logistically speaking, couldn’t afford to get to the City from Fort Lee every day, not with the traffic. And if anyone from her ER saw her on stage, well, that was just unthinkable. She calculated that as long as she got full shifts and lap dance priority in Newark, in four weeks’ time, she could rake in thirty to forty grand, and that was based on figures from years ago. It was always safer to be conservative. From Thursday through Saturday, she’d have no problem pulling in two grand a night. Then, if she worked three weekday nights, she’d add another three to her weekly pot. Nine thousand a week. Yeah, thirty-two in the month would make a dent, combined with her savings and credit card advances. Oh, and she could try to sublet her apartment in SoHo while crashing at her folks’ place here…ugh. Still, she could do this. She could stop this new boulder her parents had hurled at her from steamrolling their lives and her life along with it.

  Finding the financial solution in her mind was only a dopamine rush for an instant, though, as her hand went up to her shirt collar, holding it closed, and closer to her skin from the thought of baring her body again to those men and their starving eyes.

  The cabbie cleared his throat, bringing Jana out of her zone. The cab sat idle in the hospital portico for who knows how long. The driver’s narrowed eyes glared at her in the rearview, showing his obvious readiness to move on with his shift, back to his own never-ending rat race, even though the meter was still ticking up every second she sat there.

  She too had to get on with things. She stared at the bright white light shining through the hospital’s automatic doors, which were opening and closing rhythmically, again and again, because the cabbie had pulled up too close to the damn sensor.

  She began to gather her things as the driver’s expression in the rearview willed her to move her ass.

  Look, asshole, it’s not like you aren’t charging me for sitting here.

  Being rushed to do something she resented and detested—and by this piece of shit!—made her jaw clench and her stomach cramp. She wanted to send Driver Dredge in to her parents, into the hospital, in to pay the damn hospital bill that was mounting every second, and then send him down to Newark after that to get naked and gyrate for an audience of horny assholes!

  She took a few deep breaths, shot him back a look in his little mirror, and tossed a wad of crumpled ones over the divider. For interrupting me and my procrastinating.

  She got out of the cab, and instead of helping with her bags, the driver only sat and straightened out the crumpled bills. Walking through the automatic doors, she glared over her shoulder one last time, only to catch the dickhead gawking at her ass through his passenger side window. She cringed while chills shot up her arms.

  Get used to it, Jana. And fast.

  She sighed long and hard, then continued on, weary and spent, dragging her baggage behind her.

  CHAPTER 7

  Her father was asleep and her mother was glowering at her from her awkward fetal position in that armchair in the corner of the icy
room. Jin had put on so much weight over the years, her fire hydrant stature made the chair look more uncomfortable than it probably was.

  “Go home, Ma,” Jana commanded in a hush.

  Jin pushed herself out of the armchair’s clutches and put up no argument.

  “I sent the cab away because the driver wasn’t nice. Ask the registration desk to call you another one.”

  Jin nodded, red-eyed and drained, but not too exhausted to mention before leaving, “The doctor asked about you, Jana. You should meet with him for a date.”

  “A date, huh? Ma, how about I meet with him about Daddy, here in this hospital room? Go home and sleep. And don’t worry about the restaurant. I added ‘until further notice’ to the hanging ‘Closed’ sign, so you don’t have to open for a few days, at least.” Hoping in the end, she could still convince them to close permanently.

  “Oh no, Jana, Daddy will never have that. I need to open every day. Every day! He made me promise.”

  “Jesus, Mom. You can promise all you want, but you can’t function without him there, and from the looks of the place tonight, you can’t count on the staff either. They don’t give a damn. I wouldn’t eat there in its current state.” And she grew up eating the food cooked in that kitchen, never spotless-eat-off-the-floor of kitchens, but she’d never gotten sick. Now, though, Jesus. She wouldn’t send Ilana Simon to eat at the place.

  “Jana, you don’t understand…we can’t make our customers mad. They count on us.”

  “The numbers say that not too many people do count on you, Ma. And one or a dozen patrons, you don’t want anyone to get sick, do you? The place needs some serious attention,” Jana offered, wanting to shout at both her parents for how oblivious they were about their health code violations, their staff, and of course, their own finances! But she reeled herself in an instant later, seeing the hurt in her mother’s eyes. “Look, your husband had a heart attack and open-heart surgery. Your customers will more than understand. It would even make them think bad of you if you didn’t close for a few days.”

  “You can open the restaurant for me in the morning. After you get a few hours’ sleep,” Jin said too loudly; her father moaned and shifted, but didn’t wake completely.

  “Ma, the shop is closed today. You’re sleeping, then coming back here to sit with Dad. I have a meeting tonight I have to go to.”

  “A meeting?” As if to say that a meeting of Jana’s during this horrible tragedy was unimportant and maybe even inappropriate, while the woman was insisting that Jana open the damn sinkhole of a restaurant?

  “Yes, Ma, unless you would like to find a mere two hundred thousand to almost cover this.” Jana swept her arm out to show Jin the equipment-filled hospital room. “Isn’t that what you asked me to handle last night? Because I am sure you didn’t even think to ask Dane, right? Not for financial or even moral support?”

  Jin shook her head, embarrassed maybe, or ashamed? Disgusted even? Or maybe just defensive? Both her parents still touted for her brother, even after everything he did to them, to her. “Dane and Alexa are having another baby. He can’t be here. And they need the money for when the child arrives. You don’t have children, Jana, so you couldn’t understand.”

  Wow. When she thought her parents could not shock her further. Her brother was broke with another kid on the way? And that was her problem how? In the very few flings she’d had over the years, she’d used birth control. Had they heard of it?

  But that wasn’t her business. Apparently, what was her business, and her problem still and always, were her parents’ problems, and they always all rested solely on her.

  Maybe it was because she was the childless spinster who had all the time in the world to spin a few hundred grand out of thin air. The insanity; that was what hurt most. That her mother was completely serious, with not an ounce of awareness as to the sickness of her comment, of her mindset.

  “Mom, you’re exhausted. Go home. Rest.” She attempted to sprinkle her words with sugary sweetness, but they turned out to be a powdery poison instead. Whatever. She needed the woman out of her face.

  Jin picked up her purse in a slight huff and left, thankfully, without another word.

  Jana folded herself into the chair her mother had made warm for her, and despite the ridiculousness of the hard arms and seat of the damn thing, and the maddening thoughts overrunning her blood-boiling mind, she fell asleep.

  *

  Antonio had told dispatch to ignore all of Jocelyn Carlson’s future requests. And he’d deleted all of her lengthy and abusive voicemails from his company cell, too. Pathetic.

  Now he had to prepare for a high-ticket replacement, or replacements. It would more than likely take a few better paying clients to make up for the loss of his one, but he had no choice. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he crawled back to that depraved lunatic and her obscene displays, her oozing, deplorable melodrama.

  Making the phone call to Jake Demonte would be somewhat easier to stomach than letting that wealthy, gold-digging whore back in his back seat.

  Before Antonio had left his seaside town on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, he’d had a great cooperative arrangement with Jake Demonte. The man owned the largest gentlemen’s club in Vallarta until, rumor had it, competing drug cartels had pressured him out for allowing one source over another to supply his club’s patrons and dancers. It became too much of a hassle, and Jake owned a chain of other clubs that he could fall back on anyway in Florida, Jersey, and New York.

  Antonio had made out well promoting and bringing new clientele to Jake’s Vallarta club at the time. The kickbacks from Jake had actually funded Antonio’s travel to New York.

  But more than a good business co-op, Jake made it clear that he felt he owed Antonio. “You need anything when you’re up there, Tone, anything at all, you call. You hear me? I still haven’t forgotten what you did for my kid,” he’d told Antonio before he’d left. Jake was referring to the time Antonio had pulled his son out of the way of a dumb-ass drunk in the club parking lot some ten years back. Antonio had been in the right place at the right time was all; anyone would’ve done the same.

  But still, he did as Jake told him and didn’t hesitate to call. He hadn’t really had a choice after he was laid off by the Manhattan limo company, an inevitable next step after Michelle had slept with the owner of the damn outfit. Antonio had had nowhere else to turn. A proud Mexican man would never risk whatever vestige of pride that remained by calling on his family for help. His brother-in-law had already done enough by hooking him up with work papers and the New York connections.

  Instead, he’d called Jake Demonte.

  And when he had, the man hadn’t hesitated to help him get out of the City and over to Jersey. Not only was Antonio’s New Jersey limo license thanks to Jake’s connections, but so was his access permit to the Newark International Airport and his first round of regular higher paying clients. The man also contributed to the down payment for his first owned limo and then financed everything else Antonio needed as his business grew. And Jake didn’t gouge him with the interest rate on the loan, but he wasn’t doing too badly for himself either. It was more or less a win-win, and Antonio knew it didn’t have to be. Antonio needed Jake, not the other way around.

  But Antonio, being the most prudent of the twelve Ruiz kids, knew to be careful and stopped asking for help for a good long while. Even though he knew Jake Demonte wasn’t connected to any big-time Italian families, the bottom line was that the man had money and clout, which was all gotten by less than pristine means. He was just not a man Antonio wanted to get on the wrong side of.

  And now, being in such close proximity to Jake’s smallest club, The Wet Spot in industrial Newark, Antonio, ever-wary and a skeptic at heart, waited for Jake to call in favors as compensation. The credit for pulling his kid out of a car’s path had to expire sometime, right? He’d worry and plan what he’d say. “Sorry, man, my trunk’s too small for a dead body today.” And he’d laughed it off
each time.

  Because Jake never did call for any other reason but to throw him Jake’s own personal business when he had it. And Jake always paid him more than fairly. Antonio was very rarely surprised by people, but the strip club mogul had turned out to be an upstanding guy, one who happened to be in a super shady business.

  And so now, after the sufficiently long hiatus on favor requests, he’d turn to Jake once again to help replace the money stream that was Jocelyn Carlson.

  He took a deep breath then pressed Jake’s personal cell number, really the only way to reach the man. It rang several times before the voicemail greeting came on, Jake’s thick Jersey accent with the always-gruff tone: “Leave a message for Jake Demonte. Beep.” The “Beep” was spoken. The message spelled out the man to a ‘T,’ Antonio thought.

  “Hey, Jake, it’s Antonio. Please call my cell when you get this. All is fine…just a quick question. Thanks.” He didn’t want to worry his financier. He didn’t need Jake thinking the call was about him needing to miss a loan payment or anything like that. But he also didn’t want to leave details that he wanted a lesser favor. More business.

  Antonio looked down at his legal pad to add some figures, then he pinched the bridge of his nose. He was so damn close to his number, so close he could taste it. If only Jake would call back today and not next week or the week after that. Jake Demonte always came through, but when was often the question.

  *

  His cell rang, jolting Antonio out of his number-crunching zone.

  “Tony, Jake Demonte. How you doin’, son?”

  Antonio put his pencil down and spun around in his desk chair to stare at his computer monitor with his target number as the screen’s background. Clear your mind. “Jake, thanks for the quick call back. Good, I’m good, thanks. How are you? And the new club on the Island?”