She could have done that. She could have gone to the cops.

But she decided not to. She decided on another course of action.

The tough part would be pretending to get over it. Pretending to believe Gary’s version of events. Pretending to accept Gary’s argument that retaliation was not the wisest course of action.

Pretending to go along.

But you did what you had to do.

So she kept on working at the Kickstart. Managing the money. The legit and the not so legit. Moving it here, moving it there.

Moving it to a few new places.

It wasn’t even all that difficult. Phony invoices worked best. You drew up a fake bill, you paid it. Except the fake company didn’t exactly have a bank account. But you did.

Once she had enough, she’d be gone. Just wouldn’t come to work one day. She’d take Katie and off they’d go, with more than enough cash to start new lives, with new names, in a new location.

She was doing it for Katie.

This was no kind of world in which to raise a little girl. In a world full of drugs and strippers and hookers and bikers who shoved people into the front of trains. She was going to get out.

And when she did, she was going to rip off this miserable fucker for everything she could.

Except one night, before she had all that she needed, there was a problem. A situation that made it very difficult to go on pretending.

It was after hours at the Kickstart. Katie was with the sitter. Miranda was counting receipts from the night, doing what she always did. And working some new financial magic, shaving off a bit of money into this account here, that account there. Gary, he couldn’t count his own fingers and toes if his life depended on it.

They’re all in the upstairs office, Miranda at her computer, the guys sitting around drinking. The girls—not just the strippers and waitresses from downstairs, but the ones giving blowjobs upstairs as well—have all gone home.

Eldridge and Zane, they’re drunk. Payne’s catching up. Gary’s there too, and his dimwitted friend Leo, the one he treats like a little brother. All a bit giddy. Made a lot of money tonight. There’s piles of cash on the tables. Some obscure Doobie Brothers song, “I Cheat the Hangman,” playing on the radio.