Chapter 3: This Paycheck Is Getting Settled
Lia's POV
"I'll work for one month. Once you're back on your feet, you take over. Your temper's awful, so I reserve the right to quit at any time. Also, I can manage fried eggs—everything else is a gamble. Keep your expectations low before you taste anything."
Walter's lips moved.
"I don't have much—"
"Money, I know. I already checked your wallet. It was a lot more forthcoming than you are."
That finally drew a small laugh out of him.
Lia laughed too, pushing the hair off her forehead with a casual sweep, as though she'd just closed a shrewd deal.
"Yesterday you were willing to pay eighty bucks to watch me dance. Today I'm giving you a whole month—consider it a grand-opening special."
"Lia."
He said her name softly, stopping her.
She didn't look at him.
An old man with reddening eyes was not a situation she knew how to handle.
"Ground rules first—no bad reviews."
Walter said nothing. After a moment he asked quietly, "If you're moving in… what kind of pillow do you want?"
Lia's hand froze mid-rummage in her bag, where she'd been fishing for her phone.
It had been a long time since anyone had asked what she liked.
What to drink, what to dance, what dress to wear—other people usually handed her the answers.
"Soft," she said. "The softer the better."
"I have one."
She nodded, turned around, and started counting money.
One hundred thirty-seven dollars and forty-two cents.
Wonderful. She hadn't even clocked in at her new job and she already had her first management crisis: both the boss and the employee could barely afford to eat.
She was just about to text Ray for her wages when his message arrived first.
"Don't come asking for money. I haven't even billed you for the damage yet."
Lia's eyes narrowed, slowly.
Walter noticed the change in her expression. "What is it?"
"Someone's trying to get two weeks of dancing out of me for free."
She saved the message, then stood up.
"Stay in bed. I'm going to give him one last show."
Lia put on lipstick today.
The reddest shade she owned.
She hadn't slept all night. Her legs were mottled with bruises, and when she stood, her lower back felt like it might snap in half. But the moment Ray saw someone looking beaten down, he'd take it as surrender. She refused to give him the satisfaction.
She stopped in front of the club, pulled a compact mirror from her bag, and checked her teeth for lipstick smudges.
The bouncer blocked the entrance.
"You can't come in."
"I can see that, sweetheart. Otherwise I'd have to assume you were standing here waiting for a kiss."
The bouncer didn't laugh. He used to laugh at Lia's jokes—a greasy grin that made him look like a fat pig.
Clearly, someone had given orders.
Lia put the mirror away.
"I'm here to settle up with Ray."
"He doesn't want to see you."
"Fine. I'll wait right here, and if any customers walk by, I'll tell them you've got a special show tonight called The Boss Who Doesn't Pay."
The bouncer glanced back through the door.
Lia followed his line of sight and spotted Ray emerging from the corridor.
"Well, well." She smiled first. "There you are. I was worried you'd ended up in the hospital too."
Ray stopped in the doorway, looking her up and down.
"The old man didn't die?"
"Alive and kicking, thanks for your concern."
"You put a customer in that state and you still have the nerve to show up?"
"I brought my nerve." Lia held out her hand. "Where's my money?"
Several employees stood behind Ray. One of them lowered her head. A customer nearby, however, laughed out loud.
From the way he was settling in for a show, he'd almost certainly seen the video last night.
Lia recognized the face and blew him a kiss on reflex.
"Today's performance is on the house. You can keep that crumpled one-dollar bill in your pocket."
Now everyone around them turned to grin at the customer.
Ray's expression darkened.
"I don't have time for your mouth."
"Perfect—eight hundred sixty dollars, hand it over, and I'm gone. See how easy that is?"
He held out a sheet of paper.
Lia took it. Her smile faded, degree by degree.
Business-interruption losses. Security fees. Customer compensation. Private-room cleaning.
Not a cent of her wages remained. By the final tally, she supposedly owed the club over two thousand dollars.
She looked up.
"I walked out with one customer yesterday. I didn't strap the entire club to my back."
"You're forgetting the last incident?"
"Oh, that one—when your dear friend shoved his hand up my skirt."
"You injured a paying customer."
"If he'd kept his hands inside his own pants, he'd still be able to hold a glass."
Her tone was light, but her fingertips had gone cold.
Ray really wasn't going to pay.
He'd clearly spent some time preparing this sheet—amounts, dates, her wages deducted down to the last cent with surgical precision.
Lia smoothed the bill flat. One line caught her eye, and her gaze stopped.
"This security fee—the date is wrong."
"Accounting error."
"It's dated three days before I hit anyone with that bottle. Your security guard can see the future? Then how come he didn't stop the bottle?"
Ray reached to snatch the paper back.
Lia sidestepped, held up her phone, snapped a photo of the bill, and tucked the paper into her bag.
She was very good at dodging hands. Not exactly a talent worth bragging about.
"My bill. I'm keeping it."
"Step into the office," Ray said.
"I like it here. Good air circulation, plenty of witnesses."
His face went completely cold.
"You're not walking out of here with a single cent today."
Lia looked at him, and every sharp remark she had lined up suddenly jammed in her throat.
Eight hundred and sixty dollars. Every night she'd danced in heels until her feet screamed, smiled until her face ached, and whenever a customer's hand wandered, she'd had to calculate first whether she could afford to fight back.
She couldn't even bring herself to buy decent bandages, and he'd wiped out her entire paycheck with a few lines on a piece of paper.
She hitched her bag strap higher on her shoulder.
"Ray, I want my money."
"Then behave."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "A few clients want to take some girls out for a good time. You go along for a couple of days, and when you come back, we'll call it even."
Lia saw the certainty in his eyes.
He genuinely believed she'd say yes.
First he'd used her rent to pressure her onto the stage. Then he'd used her wages to force extra shifts. Now he'd found a new line of business.
She'd always be short on cash. Sooner or later, she'd agree.
"What clients?"
A smile crept across Ray's face.
"Clients who spend money. Why do you need to know more than that?"
"Just curious." Lia smiled too, but her voice rose a full notch. "How many days would I be gone? How much do they pay you? And would I even make it back on my own?"
The doorway went suddenly quiet.
Ray reached for her arm. She'd already stepped aside.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Then spell it out for me. Location, duration, job description—am I not allowed to ask?"
"Lia!"
That shout finally drew everyone from around the bar.
Good.
She wanted an audience.
"She should've been paid ages ago."
Casey stood just inside the door, still holding the cloth she'd been using to polish glasses. The moment the words left her mouth, she dropped her gaze timidly.
Ray swung around toward her.
"Did anyone ask you?"
"Last Friday you said you'd pay her." Casey gripped the cloth. "I heard you."
Lia looked at her, a rush of warmth in her chest—immediately followed by a knot of worry.
This girl was usually too timid to raise her voice when asking customers to close out their tabs. The last time a customer had cornered her behind the bar, Lia had been the one to pull her out.
Casey had thanked her for a solid week afterward. Lia had joked that if she kept it up, she'd start charging a protection fee.
She hadn't actually meant it.
Now Casey stood there, her face whiter than the polishing cloth in her hands.
"That customer last night—you arranged him for her too," Casey added.
Ray's eyes changed.
Lia saw it clearly.
"That's right." She turned back to him slowly. "I was about to quit. My last night. And you insisted I take that private room."
"Nobody forced you."
"You said if I didn't take it, I'd never see my paycheck."
Ray didn't answer. He glanced around first.
Lia followed his gaze. Employees. Customers. The bouncer at the door.
A moment ago, they'd all been waiting for her to embarrass herself. Now some of them were looking at Ray.
She held up her phone.
"You've all seen the video, right?"
Nobody answered, and the silence told her everything she needed to know.
"Good. Saves me starting from the beginning."
She pulled up Ray's message from last night—whoever took the booking takes the blame—and held the screen in front of his face.
"A customer collapsed in your club. I called the ambulance. I found someone to help. I carried him downstairs on my back. And this is what you sent me. Now you want to charge me a cleaning fee."
A muscle twitched at the corner of Ray's mouth.
"Put the phone away."
"What do you think—if I tack this bill onto the end of that video, will people enjoy it even more than they did last night?"
She moved her thumb toward the screen.
Ray took a step forward. She immediately called out to the bouncer beside her.
"Do me a favor—can you confirm whether he's about to grab my phone?"
The bouncer looked at Ray, then at her, and clearly had no idea what to do with his hands.
Lia's heart was hammering so hard it scared her. If Ray actually lunged, she wasn't sure she could keep hold of her phone.
She kept her eyes on his shoulders, her heels braced against the edge of the step, ready to dodge sideways at any second.
But she couldn't back down.
Ray's voice dropped low. "You post that, and you'll never work on this street again."
Lia lifted her chin, the corner of her mouth curving upward.
"You should've said that five minutes ago. Just now I realized that not working on this street actually has its perks—at least I won't be paying for the privilege of having a job."
A laugh escaped from somewhere nearby, impossible to suppress.
Ray's head snapped toward the sound.
The person laughing wasn't an employee.
Victor stood a few paces away, spinning his car keys around one finger, clearly having been there for a while.
Lia was a little surprised—but not entirely.
Before she'd come, he'd called her. She'd told him she needed to collect her wages before she could even think about a new job.
He'd asked for the address. She'd even thrown in, Aren't you more curious than I am about where Ray hides his money?
She hadn't expected him to actually show up.
Ray's face went dark.
"Who invited you?"
"She said you had a show going on here." Victor glanced at Lia. "Looks like I'm late."
She blinked.
"Not at all. The climax hasn't hit yet."
Victor turned to Ray.
"I'm here to discuss a job with her. How much longer are you planning to hold her up?"
"She's my employee."
Lia held up her phone, displaying Ray's message from last night. Victor scanned it with an amused look.
"At 1:54 a.m. last night, you fired her." He looked up from the screen. "Would you like me to read your exact words aloud?"
Somewhere behind them, a girl couldn't hold it in any longer. She turned away, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.
Ray stared at Lia's phone.
Lia was genuinely afraid he'd smash it. She quietly edged back another half step.
But Victor cut straight to business.
"Twelve hundred a week, guaranteed minimum. Performance bonuses on top. If she's willing to get on stage tonight and dance one number, I'll pay the first week upfront."
Lia's breath caught.
This time, she was the one who needed the bouncer to hold her steady.
