His name was Steve, but they called him Mr. 187. The nickname came from the police code for murder. Nikki and I met him at one of our first tour stops: the Pink Poodle in San Jose, California. He was exactly the kind of bad influence we were looking for.

The Pink Poodle was a wild place, an all-nude strip theater that was always at the epicenter of some major scandal. The girls there were among the raunchiest performers I’ve seen onstage in this country. Nikki and I weren’t willing to do much more than get fucked-up and fall all over each other onstage, so our tips suffered accordingly.

The only thing that redeemed the night was meeting Mr. 187 —a former marine, an erstwhile middleweight boxer, and the sergeant-at-arms for the West Coast chapter of the Hell’s Angels. Mr. 187 was a badass motherfucker who was angry at the world and enjoyed nothing more than snapping a guy’s arm for looking at him wrong. So naturally, we took him on tour with us.

Nikki and I were angry at the world in our own way, and Mr. 187’s function was to justify and enable it. He’d fan the flames of our Vicodin-and-vodka-fueled rage to the point where we got so out of control that even he couldn’t handle us. I’d smash out mirrors in dressing rooms; Nikki would clamp guys in leglocks until their heads turned purple; we’d kick drinks in guys’ faces; and we’d pass out on top of each other onstage.

We were as destructive —and self-destructive— as a rock band. With both of us at the top of our game as porn stars, it was our greatest-hits tour. Most guys will watch a favorite porn clip more than they watch Star Wars or Zoolander, so when they saw us standing three inches from their faces, they went insane. Hundreds of people would chant our names before each show and fight to get close to the stage.

We brought feature dancing to a new level: Where some girls were getting $250 a show, we were getting $5,000, simply because we had the balls to demand it. Add to that Polaroids, tips, and merchandise, and we were pulling in over $100,000 for a three-night engagement. We insisted on five-star hotels with room service, limos to and from the club, and at least two security guards accompanying us at all times.

And we got away with it all until Toronto, where there’s a no-touching law for strippers. I was so shit-faced I forgot that in Canada, there are coins (as opposed to bills) in the amounts of one and two dollars. So whenever a guy threw one of those coins at us, I’d whip it back at him because I thought he was trying to insult us. During our second show, Nikki and I were grinding on the pole simulating sex with one another, when we were literally yanked off the stage by the police and put in handcuffs.

In order to stay alive and out of trouble, we sent Mr. 187 home, where he went on to achieve modest local fame by beating a Pink Poodle patron to death. His spirit, however, hung over the rest of the tour. If we weren’t getting enough money from a show, we’d flip off the guys and walk offstage. At a Déjá Vu club one night, I swung around the pole and nailed Nikki in the eye with my heel. Even though her face was gushing blood, she kept dancing, probably because she didn’t feel a thing. My platforms ended up doing six stitches’ worth of damage. I don’t even know why anyone paid to see me: I was so thin from the crash dieting that my bones were sticking out everywhere.

For us, living wild, free, and fucked-up wasn’t about sex, like it is for most people. It was about using our sexuality to get away with as much as we could. Our life became a never-ending bachelorette party. I found the party girl inside me that I had never explored. It was also one of the best times of my life, because since leaving Jack my entire existence had revolved around work.

When we weren’t dancing, we’d go out on the town and wreak havoc at local clubs. After downing enough Sapphire, I’d dance on the bar while Nikki pulled my clothes off. Then I’d lay down on the bar half-naked, and Nikki would grab a candle and drip wax all over me. We never failed to attract a crowd.

I remember looking around one night as the wax fell hot on my breast and thinking, “What the fuck have I become?” I was in a downward spiral, but I was enjoying it too much to stop. I had never been a drinker and, after downing a bottle of Grey Goose a day on that tour, I knew why: I’m not a good drunk. Alcohol brings out the anger that is, and always will be, inside me. I enjoyed abusing the little power I had won since my success at Wicked.

Every so often, however, reality would intrude on my good time. I’d go backstage and see a huge bouquet of roses in my dressing room with a note from Jay. That bastard wouldn’t let me forget about him.

And then, one afternoon as I was waking up, the phone call came from my dad. As soon as I heard his voice, I knew he wanted something. That’s all he called for any more. Ever since I’d started making money, I’d been taking care of him.

“I need your help,” he said.

I tried to ignore my massive hangover and focus on his words.

“There are six —no, seven— bounty hunters outside,” he continued. “They have us surrounded.”

I would have thought he was joking, but I’d never heard my dad joke before. Instantly, my hangover disappeared and my brain snapped into alertness for the first time in months. I wasn’t mad, upset, confused, or even curious. Just as my father did when I called him on the brink of death after Jack had left me, I went into instant fix-it mode. I needed to save my family.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“In Miami, at your house,” he said.

I heard Tony’s voice in the background. “Dad,” he screamed. “They’re coming through the door.”

There were footsteps. My dad was running through the house. I couldn’t believe this was happening. “If you take another step, I’ll blow your fucking head off,” my dad said coolly. “I’m well-armed, and in range.”

“What the fuck is going on?” I asked.

“Jenna, I’ll explain later. I need a lawyer.”

“Should I call the police?”

I could hear more commotion in the background. Tony was yelling something about the windows. “A lawyer!” he repeated.

I called Jay, who put me in touch with a lawyer he knew. I had never wanted to know about the trouble my father and brother had gotten into in Las Vegas so many years ago, but now suddenly I was in the middle of it all. With the lawyer’s help, I began to put the pieces together: Tony and my dad had been running a construction company for my uncle in Las Vegas, and were building multimillion-dollar homes for rich and powerful clients. However, one of their office managers was commingling funds, taking hundreds of thousands of dollars of clients’ money and spending it as if it were his own. Evidently, one client found out and put a contract out on my dad and brother. (I know my father and brother couldn’t have been at fault, because they didn’t have any money or new, expensive purchases.) It didn’t matter to him whether they were directly involved or not; it was their company, and thus they were responsible. My dad paid the client back as much as he could, until he simply ran out of money. Next thing he knew, he was criss-crossing the country trying to escape from bounty hunters.

Evidently, they had tracked him down, through Tony’s social security number, to my home in Florida. At the suggestion of the lawyer, I got on the phone with the bounty hunters. They demanded that either I paid the $25,000 my father still owed, or they’d bring him back to Vegas to serve time. I ran out to a branch of my bank, withdrew the money from my account, and wired it to one of the bounty hunters in Florida. I would have paid a million dollars if I had to: he was, despite everything, my father. And if anything happened to him, it would kill me.

One of the bounty hunters ran to a bank to pick up the money, while the rest of his men stayed in position around the house. When he returned with the money in his hands, they all left.

I never thought I’d see the day where I had to save my father’s life. After that, our relationship seemed to reverse itself. He started to reach out to me more, while I pulled away. I felt used by him. It seemed like he was only calling me now that I had the money to save him and put him up in a half-million-dollar house in Florida.

Soon after, my father moved in with a rich woman in New Jersey, and basically became a kept man. When he told me he was driving a brand-new Harley and wearing a gold Rolex she had bought him —without even halfheartedly offering to pay me back the money I’d wired the bounty hunters— it only confirmed my disappointment in him. He seemed to have hit rock-bottom as a human being. So for several months, I simply stopped talking to him. Fortunately, I was on the road, where escape from all trouble was only a bottle and a pill away.