Tess's Tale (The Chanel Series Book 3) Read Online Free

she partly hit a note and Liss nodded. ‘She is that,’ she said. ‘But what I need is someone who can draw a crowd.’
    ‘Helene doesn’t?’ I was sure every man there would have been panting over her. With her shiny, black bob and her heaving bosom she was Betty Boop meets Marilyn Monroe.
    ‘Certain type of crowd. I need a voice so mesmerising, so intoxicating that men come just to hear it. I need a voice that will make each of them feel like the most powerful man in the universe. Then we’ll get the clientele I want.’ She reached back to the bar and picked up a drink. ‘This lot,’ she nodded at the men staring at the stage, ‘soft cocks too scared to leave their bleating wives.’
    Thor put the last of my order on the tray and I picked it up and carried it to the table. Liss was still there when I got back.
    ‘Why don’t you get that type of voice?’ I asked.
    ‘That type of voice don’t work in a joint like this.’ Her voice was low and throaty as she laughed. ‘Quite the conundrum. I can’t be the type of joint a voice like that would work in, until I get a voice like that.’
    We were silent for a while as Helene crooned her way through the rest of the song. When it had finished Liss turned to me. ‘Your mother had a voice like that. Biggest shame in the world when she was injured.’
    Injured?
    Thor leaned over the bar, looming above me. ‘Of course, what was an even bigger shame was her ending up with the bastard that did it.’
    I tried to keep my face neutral but my shock must have shown.
    ‘You didn’t know?’ Liss asked.
    She watched as I shook my head. I may have spent sixteen years living in the same house with her but I hadn’t really known anything about my Mom. A flash of guilt raced through my mind. I’d been so preoccupied with how sucky my life was, I hadn’t stopped to think that perhaps hers wasn’t the way Mom would have preferred it.
    Liss reached into a pocket in her voluminous dress. She pulled out an ornately-carved box and plucked a cigarette from it. Thor leant over the bar and proffered an already-lit lighter. She took a deep suck on the cigarette and then tipped her head back and slowly breathed out. The smoke curled out of her nostrils and floated languorously towards the ceiling.
    ‘Rose had a voice that made every man in the room feel as if she were singing just for them. Sultry and sexy, she stroked their egos and inflamed their desires.’ She took another drag of the cigarette, this time blowing out smoke rings. ‘Men came to listen to her and then took their sexual frustrations out on us working girls. Quite the combination.’ She stared off through the room, her eyes seeing nothing, her mind seeing everything. ‘But that wasn’t enough for Lou the Brain.’
    ‘What happened?’
    My words snapped her out of her reverie. She swirled and stubbed the butt of her smoke out on a drink coaster. ‘He stalked her. Then one night he strangled her. Her voice was never the same again.’ Her dress swirled as she strode away from the bar.
    I felt like I’d been slapped in the face with a cold case of reality. My Mom had once been something more than what she was. Lou had taken that away from her and had broken her spirit. If I hadn’t already hated him, the seed was now well and truly sown. My hatred grew, blooming into something bigger. I would make him pay for what he did to my Mom if it were the last thing I did.
     
    ***
     
    The sun was high in the sky when I crawled out of bed the next morning. The evening before had continued in much the same way. Men drank and listened to Helene sing and then skulked upstairs with one of the girls. The only thing that hadn’t continued was Liss talking about my Mom.
    I wasn’t sure if I was sad about that or not. I wasn’t entirely comfortable having my vision of my childhood disturbed. I was more comfortable being the only victim, and I wasn’t yet ready to share the title. And yet a part of me yearned to know this