I’m taken away from the place blindfolded. We drive in silence, or rather as silent as I can be while I sob.
What just happened?
What really happened tonight?
Is it real or a nightmare?
Dad… how could he have gotten himself into so much trouble? The drug use was just the tip of the iceberg. I just got the visual of so much more.
And… what did I agree to?
What did I offer?
A swap, a trade.
A swap for what? I said I’d do anything. I can make some very foolish decisions. But this… I didn’t know what to really call it. I was trying to save Dad. So, what did I offer?
My body. The answer comes to the forefront of my mind and pangs of terror race down my spine. What else could my offer mean?
It’s clear I’m offering my body.
After all I’ve been through, how could I do such a thing?
But… what else could I do? I have nothing left to give.
My mind flutters and my stomach churns. Jesus… I start whimpering and trying to cry without making too much sound.
The blindfold is only removed once the car stops about forty minutes later.
I blink and register the fortress of a house before me, rising into the night like a castle.
It’s large and impressive, comparable to a stately home. The architecture has a gothic European feel to it, but even in the dark I can see it’s been modernized. I don’t get the chance to look properly, of course; it’s so I can’t identify my surroundings. Salvatore opens the door and picks me out of the car the same way he put me in. Not rough and forceful, just dominant, and I know if I want to have some hope of saving Dad, I need to comply.
I’m numb, so I don’t even register that I’m barefoot until my feet touch the cold ground.
Guards meet us at the entrance of the house. And as we walk into an expansive entryway with double doors and a high ceiling it feels like going into some official’s home. I guess it must be. They all called that guy—Vincent—boss.
This house already looks like someone wealthy and important lives here. I guess too that if Dad stole two million dollars from him, then that’s the kind of wealth I’m looking at, or more.
Salvatore leads me up a wide set of stairs with an ornate crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. We continue down a corridor with marble flooring and go into a bedroom. I walk in, but he hangs back at the door.
Once again, I’m in the biggest shit life can throw my way, but as the lights go on, I take note that the room is beautiful. Fit for a princess. There’s a queen-sized bed in the center with a gold chandelier hanging above it. The lights look like pure starlight. The colors of the room are cream with soft ashes of rose pink.
Nice… but maybe for someone else.
Not me, who’s being held here, captive. Or… whatever it is I am. I have no idea what’s going on.
He didn’t say.
Vincent.
He never said anything when I posed the offer. He lowered his gun, and while my heart lifted, my poor soul wept for myself. I still don’t know, though, if it’s a yes or no to my offer. What if it’s not what I thought?
What if Dad’s dead? What if Vincent killed him already?
“You will stay here,” Salvatore says, cutting into my thoughts. “Someone will bring you up some food in a few minutes.”
I open my mouth to say his name, but I stop myself.
I shouldn’t do that. No names.
I don’t think it would bode well for me if I showed that I know their names. Although they didn’t exactly make any attempt to hide them. I picked out a few: Salvatore, Gabe, and Vincent.
“Please, can you tell me what’s happening?” I ask, my voice quivering.
He looks me over, and there’s a softness about his expression that’s not as vicious as his brother. They’re all brothers. I can tell. They all look too similar not to be. The boss looks the toughest.
Salvatore looks hesitant. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“What will happen next?”
“Doll, please… no more questions.” He shakes his head, and I bite the inside of my lip. “We don’t like questions and definitely not the kind we have no answer to. I don’t have to tell you that your father is in a lot of trouble. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
His phone rings, and he answers, glances at me, then starts speaking in Italian. That’s because of me. He doesn’t want me to hear what he’s saying, or rather understand it. But I do.
Mom wanted me to learn it, so I did. It’s one of the five languages I speak and understand so well I could be native.
Salvatore is saying he’s going home to his wife and child.
I notice a wedding band on his finger. What kind of woman would marry into this? The mob.
These men are all mobsters. The kind that frighten me. I’m well versed in their type. No matter where they come from in this world, they’re all the same. You can’t trust them.
It seems like he’s talking to Vincent. He asks about Dad but gives nothing away in terms of whether Dad’s alive or not.
Salvatore ends his call and returns his attention to me. “Stay here and do not move. Enough shit has already happened tonight. You understand me?”
I nod my understanding quickly, and he leaves.
There’s a chair nearby for me to sit on, a bed for me to lie in, a little sofa by the window bay, yet I move to the wall and sink down to the floor, resting my back against the wall with my knees hugged to my chest.
It’s then I allow the tears to truly come. The numbness leaves me as I cry. Someone does bring me food. I don’t know who it is, or touch it, because I’m too numb to eat. Eating is the last thing I could possibly think of doing in a situation like this.
I don’t know if Dad is alive or dead. I have no idea.
All those things he did, all those people who were hurt by it. He’s right. He did do terrible things. It’s terrible. All so terrible.
I can’t excuse his behavior. How could I? It all involved money. All of it, and there’s only one thing Dad uses money for: drugs.
Nobody would have two million dollars in their possession and live in that gritty little apartment. It’s drugs. He used all that money to buy drugs, and there was mention of prostitution.
It makes me sick to think of him with hookers, but shit, I’m not even thinking of the glaring thing I never knew. Dad worked for mobsters.
Vincent is his boss.
Why would he take a job like that after all we’ve been through?
He’s been working with Vincent all this time at Renovata, and I didn’t know he was working for a mobster. I thought he had a normal job. I’m so stupid. Dad’s the kind of man who does what he has to, to survive.
Mobsters though? And, they seem to be the worst kind. They have serious money.
Now, what the hell’s going to happen?
I’m still trying to figure out how I missed all the signs that Dad was in so much trouble. Have I been so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t see all the signs? This occurrence tonight isn’t just a sudden thing that’s happened. It’s been brewing a while. I’ve had my own stuff to deal with at work though.
The opportunity that would change everything for my career came about a few months ago, and I got sidetracked. I know I did. I won’t deny it.
There was a competition to do the special edition issue on Coral Winters, and I got down to the final two. It was something I could only dream of. I was excited, and apart from getting to study at Browns, it seemed like the first time I was truly getting to do something I loved. Browns was the steppingstone. The place that furnished me with my journalism talents. But coming home and landing the junior editor’s position at Escada, one of the most prestigious women’s lifestyle magazines, was something else. It almost felt like I could have some part of my life back.
Now this…
What am I going to do?
Assuming they don’t kill me, what will I do?
Hours pass while I sit and worry. The tears dry up, and my head dips as sleep claims me.
I must have been out for a few minutes when the door creaks open. It startles me, and I jump.
It’s him.
Vincent.
My gaze goes straight to his face. He’s looking at me, and I can’t quite read what he’s thinking.
All I want to know is if Dad’s okay.
The shaking resumes, but cautiously, I rise to my feet and run a hand through my hair while I press into the wall.
“There’s a bed you could have lain on if you were tired,” he states, glancing over at the bed. “Why didn’t you sleep in it?”
With his piercing dark brown eyes trained on me, he walks in, and just from his stride in those black slacks, it’s evident he’s the leader.
He’s tall with solid muscle and has that edge to him that’s rugged and raw. I place him at being in his early to mid-forties for the slight gray that graces his temples. He’s one of these men, though, who could be a hundred and would obliterate a twenty-year-old guy in a fight.
He unzips his black leather biker jacket, revealing a gray T-shirt, then quirks a dark brow to study me. Probably as much as I study him.
He wants an answer to his question. It’s clear he’s not the kind of man you don’t answer, even if you’re scared shitless.
“I didn’t want to sleep,” I reply.
He walks up to me, filling up my personal space, and stops far too close. I try to hold his gaze but can’t, so I bring my hands together and look down at them instead.
I can’t look at him because I don’t know what he’s done to Dad, and if he’s killed him, I don’t want him to see me crumble if he confirms that as truth.
To my surprise, however, he reaches forward and catches my face, lifting my jaw up with his forefinger so my eyes can meet his.
He’s tall, tall, at well over six feet, and I have to crane my neck to truly look him in the eyes the way he wants. I hate myself for thinking in that moment that he’s handsome. Dangerous and beautiful all at the same time.
“Did you kill him?” I ask, my voice weak and broken with a rasp.
The corners of his mouth slide up into a little smile. It’s like the laugh of sarcasm earlier. Not funny. Not even close. “No, I did not. I’m still trying to decide what to do with the two of you. Especially you, Ava Knight.”
“You… know my name.”
“Don’t you know mine? Your father said it several times. I guess that skipped over introductions.”
A chill races through me. He’s obviously checked me out. What else does he know?
“What are you going to do with him? Is he safe?”
“For now. He’s safe for now. What I’m not sure about,” he pauses and drops his hand from my chin, “is if you truly know who your father is. I don’t know if you’d still think he was worth a trade.”
“He’s not a bad person. He just lost his way,” I say quickly, too quickly.
His brows knit together, and his eyes crinkle. He tilts his head to the side, allowing a lock of his hair to fall over his eye. It draws my attention to the silver taper of the edges.
“Bellezza,” he begins.
Bellezza… I’m familiar with the Italian endearment used often to describe a beautiful woman. I just don’t like it coming from him.
“Bellezza,” he says again with slightly more emphasis. “I think you have a very clouded view of who your father is. No one in that room with you tonight can be considered not bad.” He’s talking about himself too. “You know what’s worse? I keep finding out more things that your father did to rub me the wrong way. Right now, I’m not sure if I should be more upset that my money was used for him to sleep with barely legal girls or if I should be mad as fuck that he tried to drag me into the shit too with the cops or feds.”
I blow out a ragged breath. It can’t be the same person he’s talking about. That’s not my father. He wouldn’t do that.
I look down again, then back to him. “He has a drug problem, and things haven’t been the same for him since my brother died,” I say, but I know it’s useless.
Maybe I’m looking for some kind of explanation that won’t make me feel so ashamed, clutching at whatever I can to explain this whole occurrence. I’m saying all the things that I know are true, but it doesn’t excuse any of what he did.
“I sympathize, but I’m still screwed. If I were to act like your father and truly give into what I’m feeling now, you’d both be dead.”
My breath catches because I know he means it. He’s serious. He’s being serious as fuck, but I don’t know what that means in regard to what he’s actually going to do.
“Are you scared, Ava?” he asks. I’m not sure why he would ask me that. Anyone who looks at me can tell I’m so frightened I might just die from the fright.
“Yes…” I rasp.
He leans closer, and the scent of his musky aftershave tickles my nose.
“I don’t think you’re nearly as scared or frightened as you should be. If you were, you wouldn’t make such an offer, and not to a man like me. A trade. A trade where you’ll do anything.”
He’s right. I hate to admit it. He is completely right. However, he’s just right about one part of his analysis. I’m terrified, but I made the offer because that’s all I have. I can’t pay back two million, and from what he said, that’s just the start of it. It sounded like there was more.
He doesn’t know that I would offer myself because of how much I owe my father.
I owe him everything, including my life. It’s nothing in comparison to what he lost just for loving me and my mother.
“Do you accept my offer?” I ask, surprising him.
Fury re-enters his eyes. “Ava Knight, do you know what it means to offer yourself to someone like me? In my world, a debt repaid in the way you offer means you trading your body for the repayment.”
He means I become his whore.
I can’t take my eyes off him now. I’m not stupid. Of course, I know what it means, but I’m not thinking straight. I haven’t been in years. I think the part of me that used to be able to do that is gone. Damaged by the past. It exists now as a shimmer that may lend itself to me from time to time. This, however, doesn’t feel like one of those times. What I’m acting on is that fight for survival. The instinct to protect… no matter the cost.
“Bellezza, it means you belong to me. You would be mine to do as I wish. Anything… you said anything, so that’s permission you give me to do what I want to you.” He speaks in a low voice that captures my attention. It works its way into me slowly and purposefully. It lingers with effect, along with his stare. A stare that draws me in and makes me take in the full beauty of his face.
Angles and planes all chiseled to perfection. He’s the kind of man who looks better as he gets older, and everything about him has more effect.
What he’s saying though… I don’t know what I’m supposed to answer because what else am I supposed to do?
This is a nightmare. Is there a difference between being forced into it and offering it? Forced into using my body or me offering it to save Dad.
“Ava… listen to me carefully,” he says, probably seeing my internal conflict. “I will only say this once. Think about what you’re offering. Maybe this one time you should walk away and allow your father to suffer the consequences of his actions.”
Consequences… I swallow hard. He’s giving me a chance to walk away. How can I do that though? How am I supposed to allow Dad to be killed?
I won’t excuse his mistakes and all the wrong Dad did, but I can’t do nothing either and just accept that he deserves the consequences.
If I walk away, that’s it. It would mean death.
Vincent must be considering my offer if we’re here talking about it. He must be. It must be the only thing keeping Dad alive.
If I am, then that’s something. It’s hope.
“No, I can’t let you hurt him, or kill him. He’s my father.”
He growls, and I shy away when he looms even closer. “I gave you a chance.”
“And I’m still offering.”
“You are foolish.”
“He’s my father.”
“It doesn’t matter who he is.”
“Don’t you want me?” I throw back. It sounds like the last part of my soul speaking, crying out.
He steps back, away from me. He looks me over, and desire fills his eyes, but his face is still hard.
“Yes,” he answers, and it’s a shock to my system.
A spark of arousal flickers deep inside me, and my nerves scatter. It’s crazy. I’m crazy because I shouldn’t feel that. His confirmation is enough to throw me, but maybe it’s the way he looks at me. It’s not really any different to how most men look at me. It just has more effect coming from him.
He sighs and stalks away, heading to the door, but stops just before he gets there.
“You have until lunchtime tomorrow to think about it. After that, everything is set in stone.” The dangerous, dark look returns to his eyes, and he leaves.
The door closes, and I’m left wondering what tomorrow will bring.
I know I won’t change my mind though.
I won’t.
It’s not even a question if it will help.