Chapter 9 Bargaining With The Devil
"Because what's the alternative? Go back to Marcus, who'll use you up and throw you away the second you're no longer useful? Keep selling yourself in bathroom stalls until someone decides you're not worth keeping alive anymore? Watch your mother work herself into an early grave while your sister stays silent because the world isn't safe enough for her to speak?" Falcone leaned back slightly, giving Cedric space to breathe, to think. "Or you could be mine. Protected. Provided for. Wanted. Seen."
That last word hit Cedric like a physical blow. Seen.
"You ruined my life," Cedric repeated, but there was less conviction in it now.
"I know." Still no apology. "And I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Because you're here now, exactly where I wanted you, exactly where you belong."
Cedric should run. Should scream. Should do literally anything except what he did next, which was ask in a voice barely above a whisper: "What if I say no?"
Falcone's smile widened, like he'd been waiting for exactly that question. "Then you walk out that door right now, and I let you go. The debt still exists, Marcus still owns your loyalty, and you're right back where you started with nothing changed except now you know how badly you're fucked from both sides." He stood, moving toward the door with that predatory grace. "But if you say yes..."
He paused, hand on the doorknob, looking back over his shoulder with those dark, devastating eyes that seemed to see straight through to Cedric's core.
"If you say yes, Cedric Santos, I promise you'll never be invisible again."
The door opened. Beyond it, Cedric could see the hallway, the path back to the club, to Marcus, to the wire he'd thrown away, to everything that was familiar and safe and slowly, inexorably killing him piece by piece.
Falcone waited. Patient. Certain.
"I need time to think about this," Cedric managed, his voice shaking.
"No, you don't." Falcone's voice was absolutely certain. "You made your choice the moment you took off that wire and threw it in the trash. The moment you walked through those curtains and looked at me like I was salvation and damnation wrapped in a suit. You just haven't admitted it to yourself yet."
He was right. Fuck, he was absolutely right, and they both knew it.
Cedric stood on shaking legs, the room spinning slightly from the whiskey and adrenaline and the sheer insanity of what he was about to do. "If I do this…if I stay…I want proof first. Proof that you'll actually handle the debt, that my family will really be safe and not just more empty promises."
"Done." Falcone pulled out his phone, typed something with quick, efficient movements, and showed Cedric the screen.
It was a bank transfer. Five hundred thousand dollars, showing a balance zeroed out completely, stamped with today's date and time.
"The debt's gone. Your family's safe as of right now." Falcone pocketed the phone. "What else do you want, Cedric? Tell me what you need."
"I want…." Cedric's voice cracked. He swallowed hard and tried again. "I want to know why. Why me? Why go through all this trouble, all this planning? You could have anyone. You're rich, you're powerful, you're…." He gestured helplessly at Falcone's perfect face. "Why the fuck would you do all this for someone like me?"
For the first time since they'd entered the room, something genuine flickered across Falcone's face. Something almost vulnerable, almost human underneath the crime lord exterior.
"Because I've wanted you since the moment I saw you walk into that biology classroom six years ago." The words came out quiet, intense. "Because I watched you waste yourself on people who didn't deserve you, watched you dim your light trying to fit into spaces too small to hold you, and it made me want to burn the entire world down just to clear a path for you." He moved closer again, backing Cedric up against the arm of the sofa. "Because you're brilliant, broken and beautiful, and I'm selfish enough, obsessed enough, fucked up enough to want to keep you."
"That's not love," Cedric whispered. "What you're describing….that's not love, that's obsession."
"I never said it was love." Falcone's hand cupped his face again, the touch tender and terrifying all at once. "But it's yours if you want it. Every dark, twisted, possessive piece of it. I'm offering you everything I have, everything I am. The question is whether you're brave enough to take it."
The door was still open. Cedric could still leave. Could still run back to Marcus and the wire and the false promises of protection.
Instead, he heard himself say, "What happens now?"
Falcone's smile was pure triumph. "Now, I show you exactly what you've been missing."
Falcone’s hand slid down to lace with Cedric's fingers, an oddly intimate gesture that felt more possessive than if he'd just grabbed him. "Come with me."
He pulled Cedric toward a different door at the back of the room, one Cedric hadn't even noticed before. It blended seamlessly into the wood paneling, the kind of detail only someone with serious money would bother with.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere private." Falcone glanced back, and the look in his eyes made Cedric's stomach flip. "Somewhere I can properly teach you what it means to be mine."
The door opened onto a private elevator, all mirrors and soft lighting that made everything look dreamlike and surreal. Falcone pulled Cedric inside, their reflections multiplying into infinity on all sides, and pressed the button for what had to be the top floor.
The moment the doors slid shut.
His mouth was on Cedric's.
Hot and demanding like he's been starved of his favorite food,absolutely devastating, like he'd been holding back this entire time and couldn't contain it for another second. Falcone's hand fisted in Cedric's hair, angling his head exactly where he wanted it, while his other hand pinned Cedric's hip against the mirrored wall hard enough to bruise.