DeLuca (Mafia Romance)

Frankie

The car ride to the club was uncomfortable to say the least. Enzo kept glaring at me like I would catch fire if he just stared hard enough. I understood that he was protective and he didn’t want me in any danger but this caveman act was getting ridiculous. I tried to keep my mouth shut, I really did, but by the time we got off the highway and into the city I had had enough.

“What the fuck is your problem?” I hissed at him across the seat.

“Are you fucking serious, Frankie? What’s my problem? You cannot be that fucking naïve. You’re going into a fucking strip club operated by a fucking Russian mobster without backup to audition to be a motherfucking stripper!” he hissed back at me. “You’re going to take your clothes off for the man that just fucking killed Eddie!”

I reared back like I had just been slapped, “That was a low blow,” I seethed, “I’m doing this so you have a way to get in, kill that fucker, and save Carlo. Stop taking your shit out on me.”

“Franny, I-”

“Don’t you dare Franny me right now, don’t you fucking dare,” I said, my voice wobbling a little. He used to call me that when we were kids before I wised up and got people to start calling me Frankie, now he only used it when he was in trouble or trying to convince me to do something. “Enough!” Mia shouted, turning around in the passenger seat to face us, “Enzo, we fucking get it okay. You don’t want her in there, but she is an adult and she made her choice. You need to stop acting like a little bitch and pull up your big boy pants. She’s doing this as planned, all of us are. So get your goddamn head in the game and focus on your fucking job!”

They glared at each other for a full minute before she turned back in her seat. Enzo didn’t as much as look at me for the rest of the ride.

…

Walking up to the front door of the club I handed the bouncer my brand new ID courtesy of Mouse. The license said my name was Emma Milligan, all the other info aside from my address and ID number was the same. The guy barely even glanced at the birthdate before handing it back to me.

“I’m here for an audition?” I said nervously, “I don’t have an appointment or anything but a friend of mine told me you guys were holding auditions for new dancers,” I rambled on.

God I’m bad at this.

He just waved his hand towards the door, “Go see Lana at the bar. She’ll tell you what to do.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said, trying to sound sweet, it did not work. He just grunted and went back to playing with his phone.

I pulled open the heavy door and walked inside. There was a hostess podium but it was empty so I wandered past it and around the heavy black curtain. The room was long and narrow and curved slightly to the left. There was a large stage set up directly in front when you walked in. I could see part of a second, smaller stage towards the back of the building and off to the left. There were large high-back booths set up all along one wall and tables set up on the main part of the floor. Looking to my right I saw a long bar, but nobody was behind it.

Walking towards the bar I called out, “Hello?”

“Just a second,” A female voice called back from somewhere off to my left. I turned to where the voice had come from in time to see a petite blonde woman emerge from the hallway. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah. I heard you were holding auditions today for new dancers?”

She looked surprised, “Yeah we are. You’re early, I like that. Most of you don’t know how to use a fucking watch. No offense,” she said.

“None taken,” I responded.

“Anyway, I’ll show you to the back where you can get changed. Here,” she pulled a huge three ring binder from behind the bar and handed it to me, “these are the songs we have, pick one out. I’ll get it from you when I come back to get you for the audition.”

“Okay,” I said and followed her back down the hall she had come from. As we turned the corner to the dressing room I spotted the door that would lead to the alleyway.

Lana caught me looking, “If you need to go out for a smoke you can use that door, just remember to wedge something in it so it doesn’t close all the way. Otherwise you’re shit out of luck and you’re going to have to walk all the way around to the front.”

“Got it,” I said with a nod and followed her the rest of the way into the dressing room.

“You can put your shit in one of the empty lockers. If you make it through the audition I’ll get you a lock for it. We don’t have assigned stations, no matter what the other bitches tell you, so sit wherever and get ready. Just make sure you pack up all your shit before you leave the room otherwise someone will snatch it, yeah?”

I nodded again.

“Okay, I’ll let the boss know you’re here. Get changed and pick out your song, I’ll come to get you in ten,”

After I changed I opened the binder Lana had given me. The binder was divided into sections by genre so I flipped to the tab labeled ‘rock’ and started going through the pages looking for something I was used to working out to. I had just found my song when she walked in again.

“You ready?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I showed her the song and followed her back out to the main room. Lana walked over to the DJ booth and queued up my song choice before guiding me over to the main stage where four men were seated at the rack, waiting.

“They’re going to ask you a few questions then they’ll signal me to start your song,” she whispered into my ear.

“Sounds good,” I said and walked up the small staircase to the stage.

Grabbing the towel off the railing along my way, I stalked across the stage making my footfalls heavy and adding an extra swing to my hips. I grabbed the pole with the towel in my left hand, and turned so my back was to the men, with the pole directly in front of me, and my legs spread shoulder width apart. I made a show of wiping down the pole all the way to the floor, keeping my legs straight so they had a full-on view of my ass. When I was done, I threw the towel off to the side and turned around to face the men, hand on hip and attitude in full force.

Ivan sat on the far right, arms crossed in front of him. I didn’t recognize any of the others. The man in the middle spoke up, “What’s your name?”

“Emma,” I replied.

He nodded, “Stage name?” Shit, I hadn’t thought about that.

I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, “Mercedes.”

“We already have one of those, pick another.”

“Clementine.” Where the fuck did that come from?

“Okay,” he said, nodding to Lana to play my song, “Show us what you’ve got.”

I turned around to face the pole as the beginning of Halestorm’s I get off started to play. I started out slow, holding onto the pole with one hand, leaning my body out and letting my hair fall to one side while my other hand untied my shirt. I took it off and tossed it to the side leaving me in my white bikini top. As the song started to pick up, I gained more speed and as soon as the chorus started I hopped up, hooking my leg around the pole never breaking the spin. I continued to climb as I spun around and around.

Using my upper body strength, I braced my arms and let go of the pole with my legs so my body was parallel to the stage for a few turns. Swinging my legs back in, I wrapped them around the pole above me so my head was pointed down and the front of my body was facing my audience. The momentum from my body weight threw me into an insanely fast spin. Releasing my hands I stretched out and arched my back. Untying my top, I flung it to the side of the stage.

For the next three minutes I danced my ass off, pulling off the most intricate moves I knew in an effort to secure what would be the shortest employment in history. I opted to only go topless for the dance, mostly because I had no idea how I was supposed to remove my skirt while I was dancing and didn’t want to look like an idiot. The song was coming to an end so I started climbing again. Once I was at the top I flipped upside down and let myself drop until my face was less than a foot from the stage right as the last words of the song rang out over the speakers. Placing my hands on the stage I released my legs one at a time bringing them back down so I was doing a bridge before I slowly stood up. Walking over to my clothes I calmly, but quickly secured my bikini top.

Once I was finished I walked back over in front of the men, “So?” I asked.