Sadistic

prologue.

five years earlier

"Mara."

"Mara!"

I tilt my head back, swiping away the white powder from my nose. "Yes?" I shout back, irritated. One would think for as much as I pay to live here, privacy ought to be included.

Quinn answers back, of fucking course it had to be Quinn, "Could you hurry up in there? My Uber is down the street."

Rolling my eyes, I wipe away the remnants of a perfectly good line and fire back simultaneously, "Another date?" I flail the door open so hard it nearly hits the wall. She can't even spare a second to glower at me before she bombards the restroom with her potent fruit-scented perfume. "God, no wonder they never stay," I cough, running to my room in search of fresh air. Through my peripheral, I catch a glimpse of a middle finger aimed at me.

I open my window, desperate enough to take in the stench of New York City, rather than my roommate's discount store perfume.

"You're one to talk. I can't remember the last time you didn't smell like weed or booze."

"I don't remember the last guy you brought back here complaining."

She appears in my doorway and looks me up and down condescendingly. "That guy was a perv, he would fuck anyone that didn't smell like absolute cat piss."

Appearing disinterested in order to get her to leave me alone, I pretend to examine the gold bracelet on my wrist. "So then why'd he fuck you?"

She stomps away with a scoff. Moments later, I hear the door slam behind her.

Finally.

After triple-checking to ensure that everything's in its place, I put on the dress Laurent practically demanded I wear tonight. Only to keep clients coming back, of course. Not at all because it leaves very little to the imagination and Laurent likes to put up a certain look when it comes to 'his girls'. Attractive and untouchable.

He wasted little time putting expensive, scanty gowns in my possession after my eighteenth birthday. No one in their right mind would dare bat an eye; he waited after all.

In order to avoid any cameras tracking our whereabouts, my partner for the night parked just outside the emergency exit of my apartment complex. A sketchy car parked in a sketchy alleyway–how could we possibly attract attention?

"Took you long enough," Thirty huffs. We've carpooled to these events a few times and we still haven't reached a first-named basis with one another. I call her Thirty because of the roman numerals tattooed on her wrist. When she's in a talkative mood, she'll call me Cherry because of the cherry blossoms tattooed on mine.

She might come off as a bitch, but she's a blunt one. I respect that.

"Did you bring it?"

I nod and briefly open my clutch. Just enough for her to see the small bags of coke stashed between the silk interior and the leather.

"Don't tell me you snorted some of your own profit," she mutters, putting the car in Drive.

I shrug, "What good is selling drugs if you can't take any?"

After that she didn't say another word until we got to the venue. That's another thing I like about her. Thirty doesn't press for any details about my life and frankly, she doesn't care to know them. I hate small talk. It's only another form of killing silence and revealing details about yourself that others could care less about.

"Here." She shoves an earpiece in my hand. "Once you get in there, don't speak to anyone. Don't go wandering, don't–"

"...get distracted and if anyone gets suspicious, call Laurent so he can take care of it. Yep, got it."