Electrified by Rachel Blaufeld, Pam Berehulke Page A

was barely recognizable even to herself, and the feeling wasn’t exclusive to what she saw in the mirror. It had been so long since Sienna had any friends other than Asher, Petal, and Mike, she barely knew what her personality was other than Sienna Flower, adult dancer. She internalized the idea of her body, her stage persona being the entirety of her.
    There were times when Sienna yearned to have more friends, to have someone special to wake up next to, but she couldn’t allow it. She’d sacrificed all that when she left her old life to recreate herself.
    In her old life, she might have woken up every morning next to someone, but to him she was a nothing. Her husband thought he was someone, especially when he was throwing her into the bookshelves or raping her against her will. She still wore the faint scar on her hip from when her husband had brought a candelabra down on her repeatedly when she’d resisted him, with no regard to the pain radiating through her hip bone.
    Everything he did went against all she’d ever been taught. Growing up, she’d been led to believe that as a wife she would be considered precious, that she would be doted on by her lover and partner, and together they would create a family. But that was far from her reality.
    Within a few weeks after the marriage ceremony, her dreams became a living nightmare. Beatings, rape, and emotional abuse were all doled out on a regular basis, yet kept secret from their tight-knit religious community in New York City, where they lived.
    She had absolutely no one to turn to when the torture started. She knew that the clergy would turn a blind eye, her family wouldn’t risk being shamed in front of their friends, and her in-laws would never believe anything but the best about their son.
    Intent on staying alive, she had slowly conceived an escape plan, and executed every detail with precision and caution. When she crawled out of the window on that dark and cold night, her body had burned with fear. But the fear of what would happen to her if she stayed was worse.
    Lila crawled out the window wearing ratty jeans and a tight black turtleneck with her hair uncovered and flowing freely down her back. The clothes she had found in a thrift shop outside their neighborhood when she went to the dentist. Her hair hadn’t seen the light of day since she was married, so it was longer and darker. Minutes before leaving, she had hidden in the bathroom and cut long bangs with shaky hands to partially conceal her eyes.
    This quick disguise got her to the subway and into one of the other boroughs, where she boarded a bus to Chicago, then Kansas. Her plan was to make a few stops, which she hoped would throw anyone off her master plan to land in Vegas.
    She’d come a long way from the scared young woman on the run who didn’t know what to do next.
    Thankfully, now she was firmly planted in Vegas with a very different appearance than she’d had back in her early twenties. She was gorgeous but unattached, lonely, and remained an enigma to most.
    She didn’t have anything even remotely close to a social life, and now she was walking out the door to have coffee with a man. A man she only knew because he had watched her dance at the Tunnel, and now she was dreaming of having more with him.
    God, I’m stupid.
    Canyon Coffee was a ten-minute drive from her house. Nestled in an upscale shopping center near an organic grocery store, yoga studio, and a small Italian bistro, it was a quiet location. Sienna rarely took her car out except for quick local errands, but today she put the top down on her little foreign convertible and enjoyed the ride. It was nice being chauffeured in the back of a town car, but there was something liberating about driving on her own. It gave her yet another small sense of freedom, one she’d never had in her old life, and could rarely enjoy in her new one.
    As she pulled into a parking spot, she saw Mike in his big SUV. Parked in a front spot with a direct