Asylum

Chapter 1: An M4 Sherman

Wednesday night

Fuck, fuck, fuck. In that instant, I froze, mind stumbling over Stefano's question.

I ducked my head in what I hoped would pass for embarrassment, as panic made my thoughts ricochet around the inside of my skull like a 3D pinball game. For the tiniest fraction of a second I considered coming clean with the truth – I'm an NYPD officer sent here undercover to investigate your new boss, who is a money launderer for a Mexican drug cartel – but even in my fractured state I knew that was a beyond-bad idea. I cleared my throat.

"When I came back from Paris last year, I was ... a bit of a wreck," I began. "Something happened there ..." I paused as though too disturbed by a memory to continue; I would let his imagination fill in this part. "And I just wasn't really ... functional ... for a while."

I could feel the color rise in my face as the lie slipped past my lips, and I saw in my peripheral vision how Stefano was shifting uncomfortably in his chair. This was definitely not the conversation he'd been expecting to have right now. Good; deceptive as this was, I needed it to work, even if it felt like I was doing something I should definitely go to Hell for – if I believed in actual, biblical, judge-y Hell. I pressed on.

"I stayed with my grandmother for a while – months, actually – and she helped me ... get my shit together. By the time I could think about working again, it was October, and I started dropping off resumes at bars and nightclubs all over the city.

My lips twisted as if in wry remembrance. "Most of the time I couldn't even get past the bar staff to talk to the manager, but even when I did, it was always the same – 'I see you haven't worked in almost a year' and 'So you haven't bartended anywhere in New York, or in the United States?' Everyone thought I was either too rusty after not working for so long, or flat-out lying about ever having been a bartender at all."

I drew in a shuddering breath. "After a couple of months of constant rejection, I decided that if I said I'd worked in New York, and at a busy club like Maelstrom, then I could at least get my foot in the door and show that I had the necessary skills. And then, someone would hire me ... or not hire me ... based on whether I could do the job, not on what they were guessing from a work history with a big hole in it."

Sucking in a breath, I risked a glance up at my manager, but he was gazing down at my resume, or rather through it, his eyes fixed in a thousand-mile stare.

After another moment he looked up. "So why Asylum?" he asked. I didn't hear any anger in his voice anymore, and a tiny flame of hope sputtered to life in my chest; I might have a chance of pulling this off. "We kind of have a reputation of being a pretty tough club to get a job at."

I nodded, my color still high as my brain raced. "That was why I didn't bother to apply here when I first started looking – it seemed like too much of a long shot, since I didn't know anyone who might vouch for me. But by the time I'd decided to ... adjust my job-hunting strategy, Asylum was one of the few places that I hadn't already been to and dropped off my ... unadjusted resume with. I knew it was still a long-shot, but Asylum was one of the few shots I had left."

I waited, and waited. After what could have been two minutes or five minutes but felt like hours of Stefano turning my story over and over again in his head, he seemed to reach a decision in a blink.

"Right," he said firmly. He pulled out a drawer from his filing cabinet and slid the even-faker-than-he-realized resume back into a folder and pushed the drawer shut. "It's past time for you to prep your station. I told Chauncey to start on it, but judging by your outfit, I'm guessing you might need a little extra time for set-up."