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On the night of my college graduation, Alpha Lucas—the man who had chased me for six months—got me drunk and forcibly marked me. When I woke up, he smiled and said lightly, “You weren’t exactly alone with me last night, were you?” Then the internet exploded. Photos of me in bed with a group of unfamiliar, middle-aged men went viral, stamped with a vicious caption: [Shared s1ut—first day on the job after graduation.] I went to confront him, demanding answers. All I got was a single sentence, cold as ice. “Always had a thing for being the other woman, didn’t you? Guess you got it from your mother—being her daughter, you had to outdo her.” That same night, when my mother saw the trending posts, she collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage. When she woke up, her intelligence was permanently reduced to that of an eight-year-old. To keep her alive, I became the queen of the night scene—a pole dancer in a bar. Years later, under dizzying lights, my hips swayed to the music. I lifted my eyes—and saw a pair of eyes I knew all too well in a VIP booth. … Sweat soaked through me onstage. As the cold metal pole spun rapidly against my inner thigh, a bu//rning pain flared. Years had passed, yet my skin had never truly adapted to the friction. But I couldn’t stop. Every cheer from the crowd could turn into m0ney—m0ney that could become my mother’s specialty medication tomorrow. Spin, invert, split—I was mid-backbend, executing a high-difficulty move when my gaze locked with a pair of familiar eyes. I froze mid-move—and then plummeted straight down from the pole, over six feet high. Bang. I hit the floor hard. A sharp, searing pain sh0t through my ankle. Boos erupted from the audience, mixed with crude laughter. “What the he11 was that?” “If you can’t dance, get off the stage!” The manager rushed up in a panic. While bowing and apologizing to the crowd, he yanked me to my feet and hissed through clenched teeth. “Freya Marlowe! Are you trying to get fired?!” “Do you have any idea ho
