Honor

by Jay Crownover

  “Well, can you sit down for a minute? I have plenty to say to you.”

  I shook my head before he was even done speaking. “No. My section is full. I’m working. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. The Point is dead to me. You’re dead to me.” My voice dropped again as I threw the words out. I really should be a better liar. I used to sell the illusion that I wanted sex, that I loved grabby hands and clawing fingers all over my body every single day, and I did it with a purpose. I could be whoever I needed to be as long as it benefited me in the long run. For a while I told myself that once I had enough money saved up, I would do something good with it, something that would help girls like myself that had no other options, but instead I took the coward’s way out and ran. I was so scared of losing me that I didn’t give a second thought to the good I could do or to the women that needed me back home. Convincing this man and myself that I hated him was a battle I had never been able to win. “I left Honor behind, Nassir. She’s six feet under.”

  He leaned forward in the booth and that sexy, expensive scent that seemed to naturally be a part of him almost brought me to my knees. I wanted to inhale him, to absorb him . . . and that was the problem.

  “I came here to talk to you, Keelyn, not to Honor. I know the difference.”

  I let out a bitter, broken-sounding laugh and pushed some of my short, basic brown hair back behind my ear. “Do you?”

  Honor was the stage name I used when I’d danced at the Point’s most popular strip club, Spanky’s. Honor was beautiful. Sexy. Strong. I was none of those things anymore, by choice, but the reminder of the life I had left behind and the woman that flourished there still stung. Spanky’s was a hive of illegal activity. It was run by mobsters. It was a den of sin and debauchery. It had been home. I refused to miss it or the girl who had grown up there, but with Nassir right here in front of me, that was much easier said than done.

  “I always did.” His accented voice got a little rough and I almost bolted out the front door when shivers tap-danced down my spine. “I have a business proposition for you, Key. I want you to come home.”

  I put my hands on the edge of the table and leaned closer to him. I felt like I was drowning in his scent and being pulled in closer and closer by his unwavering gaze. We were almost nose to nose. I was breathing hard and could see the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down the nearer I got.

  “I. Am. Never. Coming. Back.” I pushed off the table, snatching up the coffee carafe, and pointed a finger at him. “Go away, Nassir. This is a nice place. This is a nice life. I’ve never asked you for a goddamn thing, but I’m asking you not to screw this up for me.” I’d never asked him but he had always shown up and done what needed to be done regardless.

  When other girls had to fight off the advances from the handsy club owner or risk losing shifts, I never worried. When other girls got so desperate for money they were willing to turn tricks and work on their backs, the thought never crossed my mind. When I got sick and had to miss work for an extended period of time, he made sure I saw a doctor and got the proper medical treatment, and I knew he was the only reason I had a job to go back to when I was better. Strippers that couldn’t dance weren’t of any use, and since Spanky’s was one of the few clubs with a guaranteed clientele, I knew I could be easily replaced. It was smart for women to stay inside after dark in my old town, but I had never been trapped indoors and hidden undercover. Nassir pulled strings I never even knew were tied to my life, and because of him, the Point always felt like home, even when it tried to kill me.

  If I hadn’t been so aware of him, so attuned to his every movement, his every breath, I wouldn’t have seen his hands tighten into fists on the cracked tabletop. Nassir wasn’t the type to show any kind of emotion, so that tiny little movement showed me he was hearing what I was saying to him. And he didn’t like it.

  He uncurled his fingers and started to tap them on the table. His eyes glimmered with hellfire and his sexy mouth tightened. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t going to push me. He gave a nod that was just the barest tipping of his chin and then started to slide out of the booth toward me. I knew I should move away, that I needed to keep space between the two of us, but I stood stock-still as he got up and took a step forward so that we were toe-to-toe. He seemed even taller than he had been when I left, more imposing. I had to tilt my head back to continue meeting that amazing gaze.

  He reached out and I thought he was going to run the backs of his fingers over my cheek, but the tricky bastard went right for my heart. Unerringly, his palm landed high on my chest and off to the side right where a bullet had torn through me. Right where it had flayed me open and finally shown me that the Point, and the things that I loved in it, were going to be the end of me no matter how tough I was. My heart tried to jump into his hand, and I gasped a little as he smiled at me. A real smile. One that made his sharply angled face softer, made his eyes melt like soft candy. No, my devil wasn’t going to push me . . . he was going to do what devils did best. He was going to tempt me.

  “I think this life is too easy for you. There’s no challenge here. I waited for months because I thought you were going to get bored. You don’t belong here, Key, but if you’re happy here, then I won’t be back. Things are changing in the Point. You should be a part of that.”

  His hand felt like it was searing into my chest. It seemed like the ugly scar the bullet had left behind would magically vanish and the print of his hand would mark me there in its place.

  “The Point always changes, and it’s never for the better. I need you to go.”

  I took a step back from him and it felt a million times harder than all the steps I had taken to get my ass out of the Point and away from him in the first place. Nassir looked down at his expensive watch, gave me one last smirk, and then disappeared out the front door. It should have been easier to breathe with him gone. I should have felt solid, safe, but like he always did, Nassir shifted the world around him.

  The pretty cop was at my side again, and this time the concern on her face couldn’t be ignored. She was looking in the direction in which Nassir had disappeared, and I would bet good money everything inside her was screaming that he was a bad guy. That she shouldn’t let him walk away.

  “Ex-boyfriend?”

  I sighed and waved at a table of customers that were making air gestures at me for their bill.

  “Not even close.” My relationship with Nassir was beyond complicated, but we had never so much as held hands. I went out of my way not to touch him, not to accidentally brush up against him, and the only time he had ever had his hands on me was when he was trying to stop the bleeding when I got shot, and then today when he placed his hand on the same spot. “We used to work together. He’s an unwelcome blast from the past.”

  She waited on me while I cashed out a few customers and refilled some drinks. I got a new table, and by the time I got the new customer’s order started, she was leaning against the front door. I didn’t have to keep talking to her, but she was sweet and she knew nothing of my life before, so there was no judgment in her chocolaty-brown gaze as she watched me scuttle around.

  “I have to go . . . my shift starts in a few.” She smiled at me and lifted one of her rusty-colored eyebrows. “I know we aren’t exactly friends, but I am a trained observer and I know a thing or two about the kind of guy that oozes trouble and secrets like that one does. You can totally tell me that I’m crossing the line, but I feel obligated to tell you to be careful.”

  I gave her a weak smile in return. It was so funny that anyone thought they had to warn me about anything. I used to be the girl that was the warning. Don’t end up like Keelyn. Don’t make the same choices Keelyn made. Do you want to be a stripper like Keelyn? What does Keelyn have to show for a life of hard work and fighting to survive? I had me and I was bound and determined to hold on to her until my very last breath.

  “Believe me, I’ve always been careful around him. He won’t be back, though, so I don’t
think you or I have to worry about it.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt like I was going to fall over. I would never see him again. I would never hear that smoky, lilting voice again. I would never smell that spicy, mysterious scent again. It felt different when I had been the one to walk away, but now that I’d sent him away, told him in no uncertain terms that I was never coming home, it felt so final. It burned worse than the bullet that had almost killed me.

  “Well, if you’re ever interested in getting out and about, I know some very cute single guys.”

  That made me laugh. Sex and anything having to do with the opposite sex had been the last thing on my mind until the second Nassir had popped back up in my life. The last six months had been the longest I had ever gone without a companion, without boys telling me I was beautiful and giving me whatever I wanted. Being by myself had been enlightening, but it had also made the impact Nassir had on me all the more tangible and strong. My skin was still too tight and my heart was still beating too fast, proving it wasn’t just any pretty boy with a wicked smile who could turn my life inside out.

  “Maybe I’ll take you up on that one day. Right now I need to finish my shift and pretend like I’m not totally freaking out on the inside.”

  “Okay. And just so you know, I am very familiar with the things that can hide in the dark. If you ever want to talk about where that beautiful man came from and why he made you turn as white as a sheet, it’s a story I would be happy to hear.”

  I waved at her as she walked out the front door. I never had many female friends, at least not any that didn’t take their clothes off and grind on laps the same way I did, and I really liked the pretty policewoman. The last thing I wanted to do was pull the curtain back and introduce her to Honor. I didn’t want that crafty bitch anywhere near Denver.

  I shook it all off—Nassir’s surprise visit, the cop’s probing questions, the reminder that I used to have a very different life—and focused on finishing up my shift. It was mindless. Take orders, get the food out, refill drinks, smile and nod a bunch. Repeat for nine hours and then drag my butt back to my tiny little studio so I could scrub out the smell of bacon and eggs from my hair and veg out until it started all over again the next day. Only today, after my shower, I couldn’t stop the past from pulling at me. I couldn’t get Nassir out of my mind. Couldn’t get all the memories that were attached to him from buzzing around in my brain.

  I started dancing at Spanky’s when I was barely eighteen. A runaway with a nightmarish home life and a stepdad with wandering hands. Back then, I’d been scared out of my mind and achingly desperate to have a life and a place of my own. At that point, a callous and cold-blooded crime boss who went by the name of Novak held the club—and the city— in a choke hold. Even though there was a no-touching rule in effect when the girls were onstage, it was hardly ever enforced. I was doing a routine to some stupid pop song, trying hard to stay upright on shoes that were too tall and too ridiculous for words, when a burly, drunk patron lunged at me. I was trapped under his sweaty flab while he groped at my naked boobs and pawed at my barely-there G-string. It was terrifying and all too familiar. Just when I thought the worst was going to happen right out in the open, in front of everyone, the bulk had disappeared, and what looked like a fallen angel loomed over me, offering me a hand.

  Even back then he dressed like a million bucks. His hair was nothing like the midnight locks he wore now; then it was military short and he was much leaner than the tightly muscled warrior’s body he had now. His eyes glowed like hellfire, and I almost threw myself back to the ground at his feet. He was that potent. He smiled at me with that sinful mouth and asked me if I was okay. I told him I could have handled the situation myself because I really wanted to believe I could have, but it was clear in those magnetic and mysterious eyes, the first time we stared at each other, that he wanted to take care of things for me. It scared me. That kind of possessiveness from a man I didn’t know . . . a man that made my young heart quiver and my foolish body warm and melty. I didn’t have anything of my own yet and all I wanted to do was hand what little I did have over to him. That kind of acquiescence terrified me. The desire to simply let him take control of a life I hadn’t yet gotten the chance to live made me throw up every single barrier I could think of, and had started the dance between us that we had been doing for years. He almost killed a man in front of me with his bare hands, and yet it was the threat he posed to my newly found freedom that had me keeping him at arm’s length when I really wanted to pull him as close as I could.

  After that unforgettable introduction, the only time I saw Nassir was after backroom deals with Novak at the strip club, or when I made my way to the underground club he owned. Nassir quickly became the guy in the Point that could get his hands on anything and everything that was bad for you. If he didn’t have it on hand, he knew the people that did. Novak was now no more than dust and bad memories, but Nassir’s power had only grown.

  Last year his club—the front for all his illegal activities—had burned down when the city found itself caught in the middle of a war for control after Novak was killed. As a result, Nassir had moved into Spanky’s, and every single day I went to work felt like I was dancing for an audience of one. His eyes watched my every move, and even though I worked mostly naked, I felt even more exposed than I was. He kept me safe while letting me grow into the undeniably sexy and powerful woman I was meant to become, and all the while I tiptoed around him and the fact that I knew if I ever let him have me, I would belong to him heart and soul forever. We played a tense game of advance and retreat, but I knew enough to stay out of the kill zone, and for whatever reason Nassir let me play with the fire but never let me get close enough to burn. I never understood his motivations, but since his actions let me live a full and mostly happy life in a place that destroyed most people’s souls, I never questioned why he did what he did.

  When the war barged through the front door of the Point and I ended up bleeding out on the floor of a strip club, I realized his motivations came from a place deeper than the undeniable attraction we had for each other. His heart was in his eyes as he tried to stop the steady stream of blood leaking out of my shoulder and I would never forget that it looked just like me.

  I was never ashamed of being a stripper. I was proud of how long I lasted, more like thrived, in the Point, but it was Nassir ripping his shirt off to hold it to my bleeding shoulder and looking at me like I was the only thing in the world he cared about, that really made me feel like I had to leave. That look was enough to make me give him everything I had once and for all, and if I did that, there would be nothing left of me. I would just be some pretty girl tied to a dangerous and powerful man, and when his life turned on him like it was bound to do, I would be left alone with nothing. That wasn’t something I could bear. So of course I left, and now I had sent him away, making sure he knew I would never be going back to him or that life.

  It was enough to keep me up most of the night, hating the girl who looked back at me in the mirror as I brushed my boring and nondescript hair the next morning. I groaned when I pulled out my work shoes and scowled at the drawerful of T-shirts, folded-up jeans, and yoga pants when I started to get dressed for my shift. Normally, I found all of these basic things comforting and calming; what I wore was a solid costume and the girl that wore it served me well. But for some reason, today she made me furious. Somewhat defiantly, I pulled on the frilliest, most see-through, sexiest, completely nonfunctional underwear I had brought with me from my old life, under the drab garb. Instantly the part of me that had spent so many years being Honor sparked with signs of life. I hated how good it felt, but I didn’t change my outfit. No, I took it a step further and slicked on some lip gloss that was also buried in the back of a drawer. It was the closest I had come to dolling up or appealing to my own vanity in what felt like forever.

  Refusing to acknowledge how deeply Nassir’s visit rattled me, I headed the short distance to the diner,
prepared to immerse myself back into my routine. There was absolutely nothing wrong with slinging greasy food to hipsters. It was a perfectly acceptable way to make a living until I figured out what I wanted to do with my sizable savings from my old life and the chances of catching a bullet or falling for an enigmatic and mysterious crime boss were almost nil. I was happy-ish here. I was secure here. I didn’t have to fight to survive here. Nassir was right: there was no challenge and that’s what I wanted. I had earned a break after all the Point and he had put me through.

  Since I worked the morning shift, I got to the diner just as the sun was coming up over the mountains. It was really early and the parking lot was empty like it was every single day. But for some reason, today it seemed even emptier. I locked the car door behind me and made my way across the asphalt, my mind still stuck on my surprise visitor from yesterday. Once again I was reminded that I had lost my edge, that I had gone soft, when hard hands grabbed my arms from behind and spun me around, almost knocking me off my feet.

  I gasped in surprise and jerked myself away from the grasping hands. I had seen the guy around before. He liked to hang out in front of the diner and beg for change. Usually the cops chased him off and sent him on his way, and usually, if I thought about it, I would make him a box of goodies when the kitchen switched over from the breakfast menu to lunch. He had never spoken to me, and I was stunned he put his hands on me now.

  He lurched forward, his eyes a little crazy and his hands outstretched as I stumbled back another step.

  “Hey, buddy. Knock that shit off. I don’t have anything for you.”

  His eyes were wide in his dirty face and I could smell his rancid breath as he stumbled closer and closer to me. I didn’t know what was wrong with him, but when he reared back and took an actual swing at me with his closed fist, I had had enough. I shoved him away from me, and when he stumbled and fell back on his butt, I put my hands on my hips and glowered down at him.