“You shouldn’t have done that,” I seethe.

He goes to punch me again, but I duck and pop up before he realizes he failed.  Bringing my head forward, I head-butt him right between the eyes and almost smile when he falls instantly.

I’m stopped at the door by the last bartender she was speaking with earlier.  He goes to make a move but pulls up when he sees the look in my eyes.  I’ll fucking kill and I’m sure it’s written clear as day on my face.

“Do it.  I dare you.”  My tone leaves no room for argument.  I’m leaving with her and there isn’t a person on this Earth who can stop me.

Chapter 1—Emmy—Past

“No.  No, Emersyn.  You can’t spin like that.  If you don’t center your balance, the first thing that you’ll end up doing is face-planting on the stage.  You have to grip it like this,” Ivy huffs with frustration.

We’ve been going over this damn trick for the last two hours.  She’s frustrated that I can’t seem to pick it up.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I can. I just don’t want to.  For some reason, I love annoying the hell out of her.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been being ‘groomed’ to become the Princess of Syn, the strip club my parents own.  Great parenting, right?  Who has their kid doing pole tricks at ten?  My parents do—that’s who.  They had me in just about every normal dance class I could take since I was old enough to move.  Then it was time to learn the ‘money makers,’ as they call it.  To them, this is completely normal.  And this weekend, everything changes.  I just turned twenty-one, and according to my mother, Ivy, it’s time for me to stop serving the patrons and earn my keep.

“And remember, Emersyn, when you’re on stage, you need to show them everything they’re going to be begging for.  No more of that shy shit.  You already have The Ram pissed because you won’t take the stage if he’s in the room.”

“Uh, seriously?  Why would I take my clothes off if my father is in the room?  You two are so jacked up.”

Ivy squints her eyes at me.  She hates it when I talk back.  And she really hates that I refuse to do certain things when my own father is in the room.  I’m sorry, but owner or not, there is no way I’m getting naked when The Ram—what Daddy dearest himself makes me call him—is in the room.  That’s just a whole level of icky that I don’t want to deal with.  It’s bad enough that my mother has been teaching me how to take my clothes off and seduce men for years.

“Don’t be an ungrateful brat, Emersyn.  This whole place will be yours one day.  These girls all see you and wish they could have parents that would hand them the world!” she screeches in my face.  “Do the trick.  And do it right this time or I’ll have The Ram come in here and set you straight.”

“Whatever,” I mutter under my breath and roll my eyes.

Reaching up, I grasp the pole with both hands, careful to place them so that I have the most support for my small frame.  Luckily, I was blessed with a body that makes this somewhat easier.  I’m short, but what I lack in height I make up for in legs.  My mother always said that I was lucky to have such great waist-huggers.  Jesus, it’s a miracle I’m not completely screwed up with the douche twins as my parents.  After centering my body, I give a slight bounce, lifting my body horizontal to the stage, and use my momentum to spin.  I hook one of my legs around the pole, using the heel of my five-inch stilettos to keep my balance.

“Come on, Emersyn.  Use those abs and curl up.  That’s it.  Now, grip it again with your hands before you spin out.”

I can hear the pride in Ivy’s voice from the fact that her daughter has mastered the trick she seems to think she’s made famous.  Really, I just climbed the damn pole with my legs and ground my vagina on the rod.  It’s gross.  And I hate every second of it.

Right before I’m about to end the trick and land on my feet, I feel his eyes on me.  Shawn.  My father’s head of security and, as I’ve been told by my mother and father…my future.  The Ram’s been grooming Shawn right alongside me so that he can marry his daughter off and sit back to enjoy his douchebaggery.  Really, those two combined have a level of douchiness that could clean a vagina better than Summer’s Eve.

I’ve hated Shawn since the first day his perverted eyes basically undressed my ten-year-old body.  He is fifteen years older than I am, and there is nothing that makes him craving me as a young girl okay.  It only continued to get worse the older I got.  The Ram didn’t even blink when I told him that Shawn had tried to force himself on me one day.  He literally laughed in my face and told me, ‘Well, Emersyn, do you blame him?’