Her husky smoker’s voice became saccharine. “Well, you did tell me not to let her hang out here anymore.”
This bitch.
“Not an answer,” I seethed.
Calm was my specialty. When you’re something of a housemother to over thirty working girls, the number varying by the day, you learn to pick your battles. Missing money? You wade in. Missing lipstick? You steer clear. Catfight over a john? You let them hash it out. Catfight over a john where one woman pulls a butcher knife and chases the other woman around the building? You learn to trip a bitch with a water hose.
I was accustomed to catty. Especially from Chrissy. But right then, a volcano of violence was dangerously close to erupting inside me. I did not have time for her little games. But if she wanted to play…I was damn sure going to win.
“You have two seconds to tell me if she’s in there before I call Dante.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a death sentence. And not one I would issue lightly. But there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for Savannah.
She blinked, but her smile vanished. “She came to me in the middle of the night. What was I supposed to do?”
My breath tore from my throat in a combination of relief and rage.
“Let me in,” I demanded.
“Cora, seriously. I didn’t—”
I silenced her with a glare. “Do not make me tell you again.”
The door closed, and I heard the slide of the chain before it swung open.
Purposely, I clipped her with my shoulder as I shoved inside. God, that place was a hellhole. None of the apartments in that three-story, fifteen-unit building were anything that could be considered nice, but most of the girls took pride in the little they had and transformed their spaces into something habitable. Not Chrissy though. I couldn’t be sure if she’d ever mopped the floors. Forget about the kitchen or, God forbid, the bathroom.
My stomach rolled as the stench of marijuana and filth invaded my nostrils.
And then it rolled for a different reason.
On a sofa that had once been brown but so much of the pleather had peeled off that it was now mostly white mesh, Savannah was sound asleep surrounded by beer cans and fast food wrappers, a pipe still clutched in her hand.
I wasn’t her mother. However, that scene would have been any parent’s worst nightmare. But, for me, without a sign of new track marks like those she’d come in with, her only being drunk and high was a massive victory. Hell, for a moment, I considered throwing a “welcome home” party when she woke up. That is until my stomach sank as I took in her black sequined dress so small that it barely covered her breasts and her ass at the same time and the red stilettos kicked off on the floor.
Blood thundering in my ears, I spun to face Chrissy. “You took her out to the street?”
She waved me off and stabbed out the joint in an ashtray. “She said she wanted firsthand experience from a professional.”
Fury radiated through me at lightning speed. “Firsthand? Are you kidding me? Firsthand would have been letting her watch you sit on your ass while you wait on Marcos to text you with a job. You haven’t worked a corner in over decade.”
She glared. “No. But that’s where we all started. She won’t be any different.”
Stepping up into her face, I roared, “She’s sixteen! She’s supposed to be in school, not working a corner!”
She cocked her head to the side and bulged her eyes, her lips twitching with humor. “Well, good news: She only stood on a corner, Princess Cora. She didn’t fucking work it.”
My body started to hum. The beating I had taken when Marcos found out I’d snuck Savannah out of Dante’s house was unrivaled. However, in the six weeks she’d been giving me hell, I’d never regretted it. I had two years to do the impossible and save the unsavable. And I’d be damned if I was going to let Chrissy guide her into the flames of hell for no other reason than misery loved company.
“How many times do I have to tell you that she’s off-limits?”
“And who decided she was off-limits? Sure as shit not her. She sneaks her ass down here every damn night, begging to go to work. She belongs on the first floor, Cora, not up in that ivory tower of yours on the third.”