Chapter 5 Leila
LEILA
Itry to stall by taking a bite of one of the stuffed mushrooms. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever tasted, which makes me feel guilty for enjoying it.
How can I sit here eating a meal that probably costs more than we spent on groceries in two weeks while my mother is at home sick, probably scared, and confused, and wondering if she's ever going to see me again?
But I can’t remember the last time I ate before the sandwich earlier, and my body doesn't care about my moral dilemmas. I finish off the mushrooms on my plate before I answer, and Ronan refills my water glass from a crystal pitcher.
"Tell me what happened," he says quietly. "From the beginning."
I balk at it. I don’t know why, exactly.
He’s acting as if he wants to help me, but I feel myself digging in my heels, wanting to block him out.
I don’t know him, and I think it’s understandable that the last week has made me incredibly wary of strangers, especially strange men. “I already told you—”
“Leila.” His voice hardens slightly. "You're sitting in my house, wearing clothes I provided, eating food from my table. I pulled you out of a cage in a warehouse where a very dangerous man trafficked women. I think I've earned the right to know how you ended up there."
He's right, and I hate that he's right. I set down my fork and look at him—really look at him.
He’s unsettling in more ways than one. Handsome, well-dressed, sophisticated, obviously rich, powerful.
He could do anything he wanted to me. He could destroy my life or change it for the better permanently.
He has so much power that it makes my skin crawl, and I stare at him for a long moment, at the chiseled lines of his face, the confident set of his shoulders, the hardness around his mouth.
This is a man who isn’t told no. Who gets what he wants.
And I can feel myself relenting.
I look away quickly, focusing on my plate. "My mother has cancer."
"I know." His voice is calm. As if I just told him that it snowed.
I take a deep, slow breath. "The treatments are expensive. Even with insurance, we're talking about tens of thousands of dollars that we don't have." I take a sip of water, buying myself time. "I tried everything legitimate first. Payment plans, medical loans, and even asked my boss for a raise."
"But it wasn't enough."
I shake my head. "No. It wasn't enough." The words taste bitter. "My boss gave me a card, said he knew someone who could help with a short-term loan. Just to get through the worst of it."
Ronan's expression darkens. "Your boss sent you to Rocco?"
“He sent me to Neil,” I correct. “I don’t know his last name. The card only had a number on it. I called it, and I was told to go to Flanagan’s Bar downtown. The bartender sent me to a back room.”
Ronan stares at me. “And you at no point thought this was a bad idea?”
Anger flares in my chest at the thought that he’s being condescending.
“My mother has cancer,” I repeat. “She could be dying. We need money. So yes, of course I thought it was a fucking bad idea. I also didn’t think I had a choice.
” I sneer at him, motioning to our surroundings.
“Not that I would expect you to understand what it feels like to be desperate for money.”
He doesn’t flinch. My appetite for the fancy food has vanished.
“You didn’t know he was a loan shark?”
“Of course I knew once he told me the interest rate. But again, I didn’t think I had a choice. And I thought—" God, how naive was I? "I thought it would be like in the movies. High interest, intimidating collection methods, but ultimately just business."
Ronan breathes in and out slowly. "How much did you borrow?"
“Thirty thousand. With a thirty-five percent interest rate.” I feel my cheeks heat as I say it out loud, and I see Ronan’s eyes widen.
“Thirty-five.”
“I didn’t—”
“I know. Please, continue.” He sits back, waving off a member of the staff as they come in to take our plates, and I let out a sigh.
“The payments seemed manageable at first. A thousand a week, which was steep but doable if I was careful."
Ronan nods. "What changed?"
I think about those first few weeks after I took the money, how relieved I felt to finally have a solution to our problems. Mom's treatments continued without interruption, the doctors were optimistic about her response to the chemo, and for a brief, shining moment, I thought I'd actually figured it out.
"Mom's treatment changed. Became more aggressive, more expensive. The chemo made her weak, so she needed someone at home during the day to help her. I needed to take out more money. Another ten thousand." I'm staring at my hands now, unable to meet his eyes. "The payments went up. I fell behind."
“And the first time you were behind?”
“The interest went up to forty percent on that payment, like he’d told me it would.
I sold some things of mine, scraped it together.
Then I was late again, right before Thanksgiving.
I’d expected a holiday bonus from my boss, and it didn’t come through.
” I touch my face gingerly, just below my eye. “That’s when I got these.”
Ronan’s jaw tightens. “And after Thanksgiving?”
“I was supposed to have the payment, plus the forty percent. I didn’t have it. I asked him for another week, and—” I swallow hard. “He called that morning, warning me to show up with the money or he'd come looking for me."
Ronan tenses. "What happened when you got there?"
The memory comes back in flashes, each one worse than the last. The smoky bar. The way the customers looked at me, the way they always did, that felt harder to tolerate each time I went back, Neil's predatory smile as I walked into that back room.
"He said I owed the full amount then and there, since I’d missed three payments. With interest." My voice sounds small, distant. "I told him I didn't have that kind of money, and he said there were other ways to pay off a debt."
A small muscle jumps in the side of Ronan’s jaw. "What kind of ways?"
I can feel my cheeks burning, but I force myself to continue. "He said I was pretty. Young. Educated. That there were men who would pay good money for someone like me."
Ronan's knuckles are white where he's gripping his water glass, but his voice remains carefully controlled. "What else?"
"He asked if I'd fucked anyone." The words come out in a rush, like maybe if I say them fast enough, they won't be real. "I tried to lie, told him I wasn't a virgin, but he didn't believe me."
"Jesus Christ." Ronan’s accent thickens as he swears.
"He said virgins were worth more. A lot more.
That he knew just who could find the right buyer for me, someone with specific tastes who would pay well.
" I'm shaking now, the memory of Neil's hands on my face making my skin crawl. "I told him I wouldn't do it, and he said I didn’t have a choice. That I was going with him, and if I wasn’t a good girl, he’d send someone to pay my mother a visit. "
Ronan is very still, the kind of stillness that feels dangerous, like the moment before a storm breaks. "And then?"
“He drugged me.” I touch the crook of my arm.
“I woke up in a bedroom in a strange house. He had a doctor come to examine me, confirm I was a virgin. He hit me again, for lying, and told me not to do it again. He told me if I was good, and worked hard, and pleased who I was sold to—this man, Rocco De Luca—I’d be allowed to go home when my debt was paid off.
I spent most of the time there drugged, before I was taken to the warehouse. They put me in the cage, drugged me again, and then—” I swallow hard. “Then I woke up here.”
Ronan takes a deep breath. “It must have been a shock to wake up in another strange house. I’m sorry.”
He sounds genuine, and I feel that urge to believe him—to trust him. I push against it. When Ronan finally speaks, his voice is rough with an anger that doesn't seem directed at me.
"Neil Sawyer works for the Italian mob here in Boston. When someone can't pay their debts, especially a beautiful woman, he passes them along to work off what they owe in whatever way will benefit the don the most. Clearly, he thought Rocco—the don—would take a special interest in you."
Beautiful woman. The words hit me unexpectedly, sending heat through my chest that I don't want to acknowledge. I tell myself it's just a clinical observation, that he's simply explaining Rocco's business model, but the way he says it, with that accent and his eyes on me, makes my pulse quicken.
I push the feeling away. My new captor might be unfairly handsome, but that doesn’t mean I need to dwell on it.
"What kind of work?" I ask, though I think I already know the answer.
"The kind you're thinking of. And worse.
" Ronan's expression is grim. "Neil specializes in finding women who are desperate enough or isolated enough that no one will look too hard when they disappear.
Women with sick family members, mounting debts, nowhere else to turn.
When they inevitably fail to pay, Rocco sells them and benefits. "
"Women like me."
"Women like you." Ronan pauses. “He wouldn’t have let you go when your debt was ‘paid’. It would never have been paid. If you survived that long. You would have been sold to someone out of the country, more than likely. They wouldn’t have let you go.”
The reality of what almost happened to me settles over the table like a shroud. If Ronan hadn't shown up when he did, if he hadn't decided to raid Rocco's warehouse for whatever reason…
"I need to go home," I say suddenly, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. "My mother is depending on me. She doesn't know what's happening, and she needs me to take care of her."
"You can't go home."
"You keep saying that, but you don't understand—"