The Anatomy of Jane (WJM #1) Read online

  Copyright © 2016 Amelia LeFay

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written consent of the author except where permitted by law.

  The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Amelia LeFay

  Formatting by Elaine York/Allusion Graphics, LLC/Publishing & Book Formatting

  Dedicated to:

  Alessandra Torre,

  Jodi, Christy,

  and last but not least, you,

  Suebee, for always having my back.

  Thank you all for your support!

  I would never have written this book without you all!

  “Life gives us something that we could hardly imagine.”

  ~ Marcel Proust

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Author's Notes

  Prologue

  Saturday

  I never met my parents, but I’d like to think they would have wanted more for me than just stale peanuts, glitter pushup bras, and body shots. However, since they left me in a crack house somewhere on Fremont Avenue, I’m pretty sure their bar wasn’t very high to begin with…but a girl can dream right? After all, the only thing I had left was my stupid dreams.

  “Damn it’s cold,” I muttered to myself, zipping my leather jacket up to my neck, hugging my arms around myself as I waited on the corner.

  “Hey! Sweetheart, please don’t tell me you’ leavin’?”

  Ignore him.

  “I’m talking to you sexy.”

  I’m not here. Please leave me alone!

  “Hey, bitch!” He grabbed on to my arm and pulled me to him. “Why you bein’ so unfriendly?”

  I still didn’t look at him; instead I stared at the taxis as they passed. Men around here were like wild dogs, and if you made eye contact, you’d have to beat them back with a stick.

  “I’m off the clock, but if you’re looking for a friend, I suggest you head inside.” I took a deep breath and ripped my arm away.

  “Well, I’m not inside—”

  “Aye, Gavin. What did I tell you about messing with my girls?” I knew that voice. I hated the rough sandpaper sound of it almost as much as I hated the gallon of Axe body spray he dipped himself in every night before coming out.

  When he stepped behind me, it took all my effort not to gag.

  “We were just having a chat—”

  “Chat with someone else; either come in or get lost,” Allen barked at him, and just like that, the asshole let go before wandering into the back door of the Bunny Rabbit. That wasn’t a metaphor for something but the actual name for the strip club—I mean ‘gentlemen’s club’—where I worked. The Bunny Rabbit was Allen’s dream ticket to becoming the next Hugh Hefner…only he would want to be a perverted old man.

  “You’re being difficult Janie.” I hated that too, how he thought it was cute to add on to the end of everyone’s name.

  “How is asking for a raise being difficult?” I finally turned to him but had to look down, partially because of the heels I was wearing and also because he was so damn short. At five foot six, which was really five-four without the lifts in his damn shoes, he was almost always the shortest man in the club. Sometimes the girls said he looked like a kid waiting for his mother to get off work. The fact that he was only twenty-five and had a round, childlike face didn’t really help either. The only positive thing was…give me a second and I’ll think of something.

  “Janie—”

  “And for the record, I’m not one of your girls! I don’t strip. I’m a bartender and your manager and accountant and the girls’ tailor—”

  “I get it; you do a lot.”

  “I do everything!” I screamed, lifting my hands up for him to see all the bandages I had been collecting on my fingertips. “See! This one I got from sewing Jasmine’s bra back together. Do you know how hard it is to sew through sequins, Allen? Too fucking hard!”

  “Jane—”

  “And this one”—I pointed to the bandage on my thumb—“is the price I paid for your stupid attempt to save money on a fucking stapler, Allen! Your fifty cent stapler bit me.”

  “I get it!” he yelled. I folded my arm back over my chest, looking away from him and glaring at the John Hancock tower in the distance. “I get it, Jane. I know you do a lot, and you know I’m grateful—”

  “No, I don’t. People show gratefulness with money in our line of work. No money means ungratefulness.” Well, it actually meant no service, but I was too upset right then to frame it better.

  He sighed. “You’re so damn stubborn.”

  “As a mule,” I agreed.

  “Do you know how much it costs to run a business in this—”

  “I know, but if you cut out the Jell-O shots no one drinks, stop serving the shrimp which only end up on the floor, and change all the lights to LED bulbs, we could save three hundred dollars a month. My earning an extra two hundred would mean my not having to choose between groceries and my damn electricity bill.”

  I had only started to do the books about a month ago, and I’d almost cried when I realized how much money I wasn’t making by keeping my clothes on. On top of that, I knew exactly how much he made from the other girls while I was struggling day in and day fucking out.

  We both came from the same group home, but he was a year younger than me. Part of me still saw him as my brother; I’m not really sure why. Maybe it was because I was a quiet child, and he always stood up for me, even when he would get beaten up for it.

  Usually parents who adopt loved newborns, but I was a ‘drug’ baby and that was just like having the plague. No one would touch me. I was passed around from one group home to another until I left at eighteen, and Allen came to find me. He helped me find work waitressing, being a janitor, a barista, and things like that until he opened his club three years ago.

  “Look, how about we talk about this later? You know it gets crazy on the weekends here—”

  “Jane!” Before he could finish, Lady poked her dark head outside the door and I could see that the purple glitter star she had on her left boob was smeared. “Jane, thank god! The snap on my bra broke, and my boobs look lopsided. Can you help me?”

  “Don’t you have another one?” Allen snapped at her. Lady placed her hand on her hip, rolled her eyes, and popped the bubble gum she was chewing.

  “Yea, but if Crystal gets pissed at me havin’ a better Supergirl costume, I’ma tell her it was you who told me to change.”

  “Supergirl?” he questioned, and this time I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s Heroes Night,” I reminded him. How could he forget his own stupid ideas?

  “Right, hold on—”

  “My set is in five. Jane please,” she begged me.

  “Jane…please,” Allen ad
ded, already walking to the back door. “I swear we will work this out tomorrow. We need you tonight. It’s Saturday—”

  “Jane,” Crystal called again. “Please…please…please—”

  “Fine!” They were like kids, so damned annoying! Turning back to Allen, I stuck my finger in his face. “If you do not give me a raise tomorrow, I’m quitting for good, just so you know.”

  He raised his hands in surrender and like a weakling I caved before adjusting my purse strap and heading inside behind Lady. I didn’t need to look at Allen to know that he was now back in his own oblivious world, most likely erasing the conversation we had just had from his mind.

  Entering the girls’ dressing room, I reached into my bag and pulled out the saving graces of all strip clubs everywhere. “I have a glue gun, a sewing kit, pushup pads, and body glitter. Who’s first?” I asked when their grinning faces turned to face me.

  I was like a dirty Mary Poppins.

  Sunday

  “You’re here,” Allen said when I walked into the almost empty club. Angel worked on Sundays. She was one of the older girls but could work a pole better than anyone else. She always started her Sunday afternoon routine in white, but by six, she’d be in red with devil horns.

  “I’m here. Yesterday you said we would talk about my raise.” I started moving over to the bar, putting my bag on the glass counter and sitting down. “So let’s talk.”

  “Janie—”

  “Don’t Janie me, Allen. You promised—”

  “Did you get it in writing?” He smiled and I glared at him. “Jane, we don’t have the funds—”

  “Bullshit Allen! Why are you doing this to me? We are basically family.”

  “There is no money Jane! It’s gone. I lost it,” he snapped, and the moment he said it, I knew he regretted it. He tried to avoid my gaze by moving to the other side of the bar where he pretended to clean the counter.

  “Allen what do you mean? You lost it?”

  No answer. Instead, he threw the towel down, sighing deeply as he ran his hands through his thick curls. “I invested in some…”

  “Stop bullshitting me, Allen. How exactly did you lose everything?”

  “Have you ever wondered how I was able to open a club at twenty-one?” he asked.

  “No.” Because I knew it wasn’t legit and knowing stuff like that was how people ended up in ‘car accidents’. I’d seen enough shady shit go down in the Bunny Rabbit to know better than to go poking around into things that weren’t my business. But Allen, unfortunately, was my business, so… “Now I am wondering. What happened?”

  “Three years ago, I made a deal with Aaron—”

  “Fucking hell, Allen.” Just hearing the name made my stomach drop. I had no idea who Aaron was, nor had I ever met him, but I did hear his name here and there. He handled all the drugs out of Boston. He was like the monster under the bed or in the shadows; you fucked with him and he killed you. Period. The end. “What was the deal?”

  “Jane…I—”

  “Let me guess. You let him use the club as a place to clean his money, and he gave you a small loan to start your own club? What happened with the deal? Did you lose his money?”

  “How did you—”

  “I’m not a fucking idiot, but you might be!” My head was on fire. “How much?”

  “A lot.”

  “Numbers Allen, speak in numbers.”

  “Two hundred.”

  “Two hundred?”

  “Two hundred and ten thousand.”

  My mouth must have fallen to the ground because I couldn’t feel my face. In fact, I think my soul was leaving my body. “Please repeat that.”

  “Two hundred and ten thousand —”

  “How is that possible?”

  “He also had products here.”

  I nodded casually now and reached for my bag. “Well Allen, thank you for the explanation. It’s been interesting working for you, but I’m going to just quit before getting sucked into your shit storm—”

  “You’re kind of already in it,” he said when I moved to walk away.

  “What?”

  “Your name, I put you as co-owner.”

  “Come again?”

  He nodded his head. “When I first opened up, I put you as co-owner just in case anything ever happened to me. You’re my only family—”

  The moment he said that, I marched around the counter, pulled my arm back, and punched him as hard as I could across the face, sending his ass to the ground.

  “Ah fucking hell, Jane!” he yelled, gripping his nose. Pulling my leg back, I kicked him in the side. “Jane! Stop! Jane!”

  I was about to kill him, but Tommy, the bouncer, pulled me back, though that didn’t stop me from struggling. “Let me go! Let me go! I’m going to kill that little bastard! Are you kidding me! Not only am I getting screwed as an employee, just barely making minimum wage, but I’m now a co-fucking owner with a massive debt! Are you kidding me?”

  “Jane, calm down.” Tommy pulled me back away from him. “Breathe! In through the nose and out through the mouth.”

  Doing what he said, I breathed—angrily, like a raging bull, but I breathed. I hated to admit it, but it did make me feel better…though only a little.

  “Tommy, I’m good.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yea, thanks.” I nodded when he set me back on my feet, releasing his grip.

  “Jane—”

  “I don’t want to hear from you.” I pointed to Allen when he came over to me, blood now staining the ridiculous zebra striped shirt he was wearing. “Talk to whoever the fuck you need to talk to, and get me out of this shit, Allen, or I swear to god if they don’t kill you, I will. Got me?”

  “Okay.”

  Nodding, I grabbed my things and headed toward the door, but I paused and turned back to him. “Oh, and I quit!”

  Mary Poppins was flying far, far away.

  Monday

  “I’ll take anything. Mary, please!” I begged her. At this point I was ready to rub her shoulders and be her footstool. Okay, may be not quite that extreme, but I really needed a job.

  “Jane, I love you; you know I do. And I will be forever grateful to you for helping me get away from Ryan—”

  “But…” There is usually a ‘but’ after these types of statements.

  “But you’ve never done well with authority.”

  “That’s not true!”

  She made a face at me before reaching for her phone. “Hello, Mary’s Magnificent Maids, how can we help you? Yes…of course…yes. No, thank you.”

  Two years ago, Mary was known as ‘Spice’ and was the only stripper I had ever met that could do a split in the air, while turning, in six-inch heels. You couldn’t tell now with her buttoned up ruffled shirt and cardigan—she looked more like a principal with her red hair tied into a bun and her glasses resting on her nose—but I was proud of her.

  “Sorry, what were you saying?” she asked when she hung up the phone.

  “I was saying I don’t have a problem with authority.”

  “Jane, you pulled a gun on my ex-husband.”

  “First of all, it was a fake gun. Second, he was abusing you and little Andy.” How could she hold that against me?

  “Okay then, what about the time you threw a drink at one of the guys at the bar?”

  “I—”

  “Or the time you threatened to drag one of the girls by her hair if she didn’t stop stealing.”

  “You are making me sound like some violent, crazy person. Each thing I did—”

  “Some things should be done to protect others. I know, Jane. You are a good person—heck you’re probably one of the most decent people I know. But this is my business. I can’t take the risk of you attacking someone or being rude to them if one of my clients, for example, asks you to re-clean her windows. I’ve worked really hard to get to this point in my life. This job is all about good references.”

  “Mary I swear you won’t hear
a peep out of me okay? I’ll work twice as hard as anyone else. I really need this job.”

  She sighed and tucked her red hair behind her ear. “Fine.”

  “YES!” Thank you, Jesus.

  “Ground rules: No cursing. No personal shit. And most importantly, you do whatever the client wants, as far as it is legal.” The way she added that last bit didn’t go unnoticed.

  “I got it. You won’t regret it. I promise.”

  “God, I hope so,” she muttered, ripping a piece of paper before handing it to me. “I just got this client from another service.”

  “I thought a maid’s client list was as personal as an escort’s. Why would someone else give you their client?”

  “Apparently the maid is retiring, and the other service is closing. The other owner just so happened to be a former guest of mine at the club and is giving me his clients. This is a good starting point to see whether or not you can hack it. The maid is leaving tomorrow, so you can get the keys from her. You clean twice a week: Tuesday and Saturday.”

  “Thank you so much and any other clients, please send them my way,” I said to her as I moved toward the doors.

  “And Jane…”

  “Yeah?”

  “You should try smiling more. You’re beautiful when you aren’t scowling at the world.”

  “Smile, got it.” I even flashed my teeth before leaving. When I stepped out of her office, I came face to face with my own reflection in the elevator doors.

  I smiled at that moment, but I couldn’t take myself seriously. The great thing about being pretty was that it made for great tips, but it also encouraged assholes to get handy. The bastards were even worse if they recognized me outside the club, so I always kept my light auburn hair in a ponytail, wore my Patriots baseball cap, and used no other makeup than cat eye eyeliner. Some people love their boobs, skin, or legs, but I always loved my eyes. They weren’t sexy or eye-catching, just plain old hazel brown, but supposedly brown-eyed people had at least one parent with brown eyes. I didn’t know my parents, but one of them had brown eyes; at least I knew something.

  When the elevator came, I glanced back down at the address in my hands.