“Get your fucking hands off me!” Angel tore away from Duke’s grip; he was too drunk to hold her in place any longer. “You people are goddamn nuts. Fucking certifiable.” Angel grabbed her fur and phone from old Steven, who was standing off to the side, proper and impassive, though she saw pity flash through his eyes. She rushed into the open elevator, mortified. No one followed, not even Duke. He simply stood there, dumbfounded, as the doors slid shut.

Chest heaving, she stared into the mirrored walls, at the red handprint on her face and Duke’s angry fingerprints on her upper arms. Kinley and I will have matching bruises tomorrow, she thought, as the elevator plummeted to the ground. Her mind couldn’t find a place to rest. This is a nightmare. It has to be. She had done nothing wrong. Nothing. Except agree to put herself out there for someone else. Never again. It’s me and Jose from now on. That’s it.

Out on the street, her skin pebbled with cold. She didn’t feel it. Her blood ran hot. Stalking away from the building, passing under a row of richly colored awnings, she realized she had no way to pay for the town car that old Steven had called for her, especially not for a ride from Central Park to Mount Eden in the Bronx. She didn’t have enough for an Uber to go that distance.

She ran a hand over her hip, the four-thousand-dollar dress slick under her palm. On Park Avenue, she blended in. The women passing her were decked out in sexy, hip haute couture and bling. The men were in black suits, and liveried doormen were on every block. Jazzy blues floated free from high-end restaurants, and the blooming lavender and rosemary bushes in the sidewalk planter boxes competed with car exhaust. She hated all of it. She blinked, hoping to be magically transported to her own neighborhood, where it smelled like urine, oil, and home-cooked foods, and the hanging laundry overhead snapped in the wind. And the people were real.

Angel drew the fur over her cleavage, keeping an eye out for a bus stop. I bet I’ll be the best-dressed woman using public transportation tonight. She debated taking off her shoes—her feet were killing her—but gagged at the thought of her bare flesh on the disease-ridden pavement. Park Avenue might look clean, but it was just as dirty as the Bronx.

She almost jumped out of her skin when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

It was Duke.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“I wasn’t—”

“Get away from me!”

He seized her forearm, swinging her around. His face was intense as he towered over her. “Come on—”

She went white-hot with rage.

“Let me go!” She tried ripping her arm free, but his grip was too strong. An enraged sob burst free. “You’re hurting me!”