Richer Than God - Amelia Wilde Page 0,3

myself onto one of the cars. Make myself small. Get out of the city, at least. My muscles tense, abs pulling tight to lean and sprint and fly, and I’m going to do it.

A big breath of night air and I’m on the balls of my feet, ready, set—

The door in the side of the wall opens.

For a heartbeat, I can only see a silhouette—curves and curls and the drape of a gown. Two blinks, and the shadow resolves into a woman. Dark hair. Lipstick the color of oleander. I take a half-step back, but she only smiles out at us, turning her head in both directions before she looks down at the crowd of desperate women. “Is this everyone?” Her voice is low and sultry, and I bet she makes hundreds of dollars a night, just from the way she speaks—like each word is an invitation to something dirty and wonderful.

It makes me feel like a child.

I don’t sound like that.

I’ll never sound like that.

How am I supposed to convince a man to buy me if I don’t sound like that? How will I get the money I need to buy my way out? This seemed relatively simple, when I lay awake in my bed and thought about it. Lie down. Let a man have his way with me, or two, or three. Be confident. Charge a high price. Walk away.

It doesn’t seem simple now.

I made a mistake. The words rise to the tip of my tongue, hovering there. Only they won’t come out. I haven’t ordered the wrong coffee at the café down the street from what used to be my house. “I’m sorry. I forgot my wallet. I won’t be having the drink after all.”

The lady in the doorway laughs. “Don’t look so nervous, girls. I won’t bite. Come in, come in. We don’t have long to get ready. They’re the ones who bite.”

I take my final moment outside to relax my face. To let go of the urge to run. I’ll feel it—that’s fine. But I won’t show them anything.

2

Zeus

I’ve finally found a problem I can’t fuck my way out of.

It’s a mindset issue, really. Being this despondent makes it difficult to be interested in sex. It’s not that I can’t do it—that would be a cold day in hell—but that I have no interest. I might as well be dead. As dead as all the people I’ve killed. My hands flex, thinking about slim throats in my palms. It’s not the killing that gives me a rush, I’ve decided. It’s being the one to go on living.

At any rate, it’s very charming, this desolate look I have going on. Staring out the window is a regular habit in a whorehouse, where one needs to rest his eyes every so often to avoid too much tampering with the merchandise. A certain amount is allowed if you’re the owner, which I am, but even now, I’ve cleared out the prizes I usually use to decorate my office. They’re useless when I feel like this. When all the adrenaline has gone out of me from a brutal fight and there’s nothing left but old instincts and an enormous pile of money.

It’s late.

The women like to show up late and in the middle of the week, when things are quieter. Perhaps they think it’ll be simpler to deal with the men who are the most desperate for a fuck. I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that there was a bit of a crowd not long ago at the back door. I’ve never posted an ad online looking for new whores, and yet they all find their way to the correct entrance anyway. I’ll admit that I long for the day one of them shows up at the front and makes a fool of herself. It would be fun for me. As it stands, the street in front of my establishment waits quietly, the occasional car edging up to the curb, depositing a client, and disappearing into the clear night. No clouds. My brother’s mountain will be visible from here. It would look so lovely going up in an inferno, rock hurtling into the sky, various screams....

It would be a filthy prospect. I try not to get involved in those at this point in my life. But there’s always one more, isn’t there? There’s always someone barging into my office to fight me over a simple misunderstanding. So irritating.

A knock at the door.

“Come.”

Savannah is pretty, like all the