A Bitch In Time (Marina: Part One: Naughty Nookie Series) Read Online Free PDF

their
choice.  They decide where they’ll be going and a few of them will
probably give it up anyway.  If you close the doors, they have a choice
about their future.  As soon as the mob gets involved, their lives are
endangered.”
    She tightens her hand about
mine.  “This place you’ve created, Marina, it’s a haven for women like
us.  It’s unbeatable.  What you charge, the rates and the clientele
you’ve enabled the girls to have, they can go private.  It’s only because
you’re so fair, and they love you, that they haven’t already.  This place
is glued together by you.  You’re what keeps us all here.  Without
you, they’ll go their own way. 
    “It’s sad, but sadness is
preferable to being shepherded off to the Russian mob.”
    “But won’t they just come
after us if we close down?”
    “Undoubtedly.  But we can
hide.  They can’t tout the clients, because they don’t know who they
are.  They might have an idea, but I think that’s why the mob wants in
anyway.  You have some A-class clients, Marina.  State secrets, with
the right woman… pillow talk has caused many a downfall for a lot of
businessmen and politicians.  And why not make it treason?”  She
sighs.  “I don’t think you have a choice, honey.”
    “And the girls won’t mind?”
    “Of course, they will! 
They’ll miss you.  Just like I will.  But safety is always the
priority.”
    The idea of giving up four
years of my life is an abomination.  So is conceding defeat.  But
with the evidence before me, of what these guys are capable of, I know Anna is
right.
    “When do I close the doors?”
    “Tonight.  When the last
customer goes, that has to be it.  The last time.  We’ll have to
leave.”
    “I can’t leave.  I have a
mortgage on this place.”
    “Yeah, but you can’t
stay.  What if they decide to torch this place too?  Then you’ll die.  At least if you’re out of here and they do set fire to this place,
you have insurance.  You can afford for that to happen.  You can’t
afford to put your life in danger.  You’ve got to get out of town. 
We all do.  We need to expect retaliation, Marina.”
    I want to refuse and
completely reject Anna’s words, but I know I can’t.  It seems incredible
that this is the end.  I look around the place I’ve called home for nearly
half a decade and my heart shrivels a little at the idea of having to leave.
    I’ve been happy here. 
It’s an unorthodox situation, an even weirder business to have established, but
it has suited me.  And I’ve enjoyed it.  It’s been surprisingly
fruitful and I’ve been useful, too.
    Jenna was the first prostitute
I’d ever met.  And I mean ever .  In Mona’s building of all
places, the one currently being eaten alive by starving flames.
    I met her after a visit to
Mona’s.  Jenna had been beaten up pretty badly.  Her eyes swollen,
puffy and bruised.  Her lips bleeding, her nose a raw wound.  She’d
walked with a gait that said her ribs had been fractured or broken.  Her
arms wrapped around herself as though that could stop the agony.  I’ve
fallen off a horse way too many times to count and I’ve hobbled around just
like Jenna had that day. 
    Mona had just moved in and I’d
been helping her unpack as well as trying to convince her she couldn’t live in
the dump of a building she’d rented.  But after her divorce, that shack
had been all she could afford and she wouldn’t accept money from either Eddie
or myself.
    We didn’t know it, because the
crappy furniture had come with the rental, so I’d stood outside the elevator
waiting for it to arrive, when Jenna had stumbled past me on her way to the
stairs. 
    Her voice had been filled with
pain as she’d whispered, “The elevator’s always broken.  You have to take
the stairs.”
    I’d been taken aback at the
extent of her injuries.  She’d been battered.  I’d never seen such
wounds.  And back at my family’s ranch, I’d seen guys