He closes his mouth and breathes heavily through his nose. Sweat is beading up on his forehead and his cheeks are red with emotion.
"I'm not as interested in money anymore," I explain. "Do you have something else to offer me?"
Lawrence stares up at me silently and after a few seconds, I tell him he can answer my question.
"I don't have anything of value," he murmurs. "Just my shop, but even that isn't worth much. Really, I have nothing."
I spin away from him, pacing towards Courtney. I stand next to her stool and lay a hand on her shoulder. She tries to escape my touch, but I grip her harder. "Don't you, though?"
When Lawrence understands my meaning, his face goes pale. He shakes his head. "No, no."
I shrug. "Fine."
Then, I gesture for my men to move forward. Ready for blood, they advance all at once. Before they reach him, though, Courtney jumps to her feet.
"Take me," she says. "I'll do it. I'll go with you. Just don't touch him."
"No!" Lawrence yells.
For the first time in my relationship with him, Lawrence lunges forward and grabs the back of my shirt. He pulls me towards him.
"Don't touch her. Please. I'll do anything. Kill me. It's fine."
I shrug Lawrence off and turn back to Courtney.
Lawrence would die for his daughter rather than have anything happen to her. Which means this is the perfect punishment. Worse than a monetary fine.
"Six months," I say to her. "You'll come live with me for six months."
"No," Lawrence moans. "No. Courtney, run."
Courtney looks at her dad, and her lower lip trembles. Then, she looks back at me, and she turns to granite. She is fierce and fiery and tough, and I want to explore every facet of her.
"Will you hurt me?" she asks. "Will you kill me?"
I shake my head. "You will be of no use to me gravely injured or dead. Though, if you make any attempt to escape our deal, I will hunt you down and kill you. And your father."
She swallows, and I smirk, lifting an eyebrow.
"Do you agree to these terms?"
Lawrence falls into sobs behind me, but Courtney doesn't spare him a glance. She stares me in my eyes and nods. "Agreed."
I clap my hands together. "See? I knew we could all reach a compromise. Six months with me and this will all go away. Plus," I say, turning back to Lawrence. "This will give you a chance to save up for the seventh month when I come back to collect."
Lawrence has his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. He is still weeping when I order my men to take Courtney out to my car.
4
COURTNEY
H
is car is dark and leather-detailed and smells like warm spice. The seat is warm underneath me, and in any other circumstance, I'd be thrilled to be in a vehicle as nice as this one.
Unfortunately, since the owner of the car is a monster, my excitement is tempered with fear.
Raw fear.
I didn't think before I lunged at him. He hit my father and something inside of me snapped. I hurled myself at him, but the moment our bodies made contact, I knew my attack was useless.
He was pure muscle under his clothes. Slamming my fists against him felt like hitting a brick wall. As useful as standing in the middle of a hurricane and screaming at the rain.
Now, I'm his.
For six months.
The thought makes my stomach turn, and I wrap my arms around myself and look out the window. At first, I try to pay attention to where we're going, but then I remember his threat. If I leave, he'll kill me and my father. And all of this will have been for nothing.
If I want my dad to be safe, I can't run. I have to do what he says.
"I don't usually listen to the radio, but you can turn it on if you want," he says.
The suggestion is so mundane that I can't help but look over at him.
His jaw is strong and square, and his golden blond hair is coiffed on top of his head, the sides buzzed short. The slope of his nose is flat and smooth. If I saw him painted in profile, I'd comment that the artist made him too perfect. No one really looks like that.
Except for crime bosses, apparently.
Tattoos cover his muscled arms, but I can't see enough to know what they are-just swirls of black peeking out from the collar of his shirt and the cuff at his wrist.
I reach out and turn the radio on, jamming the volume up as loud as it will go.
The man takes a deep breath and reaches out to turn it down to a normal volume. I expected a larger reaction.
"That was childish," he says. "Please tell me I do not need to repeat the conditions of your stay with me."
"You said I couldn't escape, and I'm not."
He looks over at me, and I meet his blue eyes with a hard glare.
"Your father's life is on the line." He turns back to the road and grips the wheel harder, his knuckles flexing against tan skin. "Do you really want to piss me off?"
I sink lower in my seat and as my adrenaline fades, the weight of what has happened begins to sink in.
Six months.
I'll miss school. Will I have to drop out? Will I lose the money I've already paid towards the semester? I can't afford to pay it again.
Panic builds up inside of me like a Jenga tower, and all it will take is one false move to make it all come tumbling down.
I poke at the tower gently, testing for an easy brick. Just a simple question to make this whole situation less uncomfortable.
"Who are you?"
The man looks over at me, one eyebrow raised. "Your father never mentioned me?"
He mentioned someone, but never in detail. He certainly never explained he was paying five thousand dollars per month for protection. There were times he would get frustrated and say he wished he had more money to buy me the things I needed-clothes, a car, tuition. But our house ran on a single income, and I understood that. I didn't ask for anything unnecessary, and still this 'lender' hung over my father's head for years, starting back when I was in middle school.
"I thought he took out a loan for the shop or something and was having a hard time paying it off," I admit. "He never corrected me."
"He probably didn't want to scare you," the man says, looking over at me again.
I feel his eyes on me like the lick of a flame against my skin, burning and uncomfortable. "How is that working out?"
"I'm not scared," I say quickly. "I just want to know who I'm not scared of."
He smirks, and I want to slap the expression off his full lips. "Dmitry Tsezar, boss of the Tsezar Bratva."
I don't know who he is or what a "bratva" is, but it sounds worse than a simple loan shark.
We drive in silence for a long while, and I steal glances at him when he isn't looking.
He sits up tall and proud in the seat, chin lifted, eyes focused on the road ahead of him. But I get a sense there is something more to him. A story behind the strong face.
I hate him for what he did to my father, but I also can't ignore that fact that Dmitry could have killed him. Instead, he threatened him, he bargained with him, and in the end, he traded my father's debt for me. It doesn't make him a good guy, but it precludes him from being a soulless monster.
A monster with a heart of gold, then. Or something like that.
That doesn't matter, though. Not when he's holding me captive. I can't feel pity for the man who is going to ... well, I'm not sure what he's going to do, but I'm certain he isn't sending me on an all-expenses paid vacation.
"So," I say, breaking the silence. "What are you going to do with me? Lock me up? Throw away the key?"
"If that's the kind of thing you like."
I turn to him with a frown. "It matters what I like?"
The corner of his mouth turns up in amusement. "I always try to make sure the women I'm with have a good time."
A prickle crawls down my spine as I realize what he means.
Sex. With him. The two of us. Together.
Heat floods my entire body at the same time like a kind of explosion, and I shiver.
