Chapter 13—Tommy
“What?”
Watching the color fade from her cheeks brings me a satisfaction I wasn’t expecting. She’s worried, but unlike when she saw the gun Will showed, she’s talking. Not clamming up. Could mean a few things, but I’m only going to focus on the one I want.
That she isn’t scared of me.
She sees me. She might not see all, but she sees the scar. I made sure she heard me speaking earlier. I want her to fear things, but not to be scared. Some might think they’re the same, but I never have.
Fear, you can work with. Fear can drive a person to not fail. Can make a person do things to overcome it.
But being scared? That shit goes deeper. Scared is what you bring a shrink in for. What you cower under your bedsheets for.
If Bobby were here, he’d say they were the same thing, but in my mind, they’re as opposite as yin and yang.
“You heard me.”
I move beyond the couch and head to the fridge to get some water.
I’m not drunk by any means, but I drank more than I expected.
Water used to feel like it was for the weak, but I’ve grown older.
Not as old as some in the family, but I now know I prefer to wake up without a headache.
And downing water before bed usually helps.
“So, I pay you now instead of them?”
I crush the bottle and toss it into the trash as I shake my head. “Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
She hasn’t left the couch, but her eyes have been on me the entire time. I’ve felt them since I pulled her out of the bathroom. And I’m not going to deny that I like the feel of them. The weight of her watching me. Again, not because she’s scared of me.
There is power in holding her eyes.
I’ve held others’ before, but not like this. They looked at me because they wanted something. Sex. Drugs. Connection to the family. She looks at me as if I could help. Me. Not the money or the family name, just me.
Payton barely has a clue who and what my family is. I’m sure she’s heard rumors, but if she grew up as sheltered as I think she did, very little of my world touched hers till her parents died. That loss sent her spiraling straight into the Kings’ hands—and now mine.
I still can’t believe she went to them. No idea how she even found out about them.
I would thank them if I didn’t know they took her on fully aware that she’d never truly be able to pay them back.
Payton probably didn’t even know that. It’s in the fine print.
The interest rates with loan sharks are the worst, and they get higher the longer the loan goes unpaid in full.
Payment plans are like mortgages in that you pay way more than the original debt is worth.
You just keep paying till they say to stop.
I study her for a heartbeat.
“You belong to me.”
“I won’t sleep with you as payment.”
Her words hang between us. She said them so quickly, as if that was the only thought on her mind. Good or bad, it was there.
Her skin is pale, paler than most. But it’s because she was inside dancing most of her life and had no time for sunbathing.
It’s great for the stage, but not so great to hide a blush.
It starts on her neck and grows up, touching as high as her cheekbones and the tip of her nose.
I would have thought it would have gone all the way up, but since it doesn’t, I wonder if it traveled south instead.
Is she embarrassed by the implication of money for sex or… was she thinking about me and having sex before this?
I’m a guy. I think about sex about as often as any man.
So, hourly at the minimum. It’s a constant thought, always there, in the back of the mind.
But women aren’t like men. Or so my mother and sister say.
They have thoughts, of course, just not always like men.
And if a woman is bringing it up in conversation, it could mean either fear or excitement.
Tilting my head, I look at Payton and wonder which it is for her. The blush could mean many things. I can’t rely on that alone. And while the thought of sleeping with her might have entered my mind, I won’t. Not for money, at least.
There are other ways to be with Payton in that way. And I’m not about to cheapen her by doing as such.
Not that she needs to know that.
“We’ll see.” I turn away and move toward the hallway that leads to my room.
“What if I don’t do what you say? What if I say no?”
I stop and turn back to face her. She’s standing now. Her hands are shaking, but she’s keeping them in front of her. And I note that it’s a minor tremble compared to how they were when I first brought her here.
She seems determined, but her eyes are wide. She licks her lips as if she wishes she didn’t say the words. That she could take them back.
“Don’t.” The hard steel in my voice is more shattering to her than if I’d growled or shouted it from the rooftops till her ears bled.
She looks away, swallowing, then stares down at the ground.
Submitting.
She nods.
“Good girl.” I turn and head to bed.
She can try to leave, but I’ve already locked up the place tonight. Danny’s guys, who’ve been here since the Kings arrived, will stick around till morning as well. If she manages to escape, she won’t get far.
Not that I’d let her.
She’s mine now. I own her. And despite being a twin, I never learned to share or let anything go. Ever.
When she emerges from the guest room in the morning, I hide my smile behind my cup of coffee.
She looks horrible. Circles under her eyes, hair everywhere, and her face is worse than yesterday, like my adopted nephew took purple and blue crayons and scribbled on it.
Which is an insult to him, as the kid’s in double digits and has moved out of the Pokémon stage and into Fortnite.
Coloring inside the lines is way beyond a thing of the past, if he even had time to color.
I’m not sure if he got to really be a kid while he ran for his life with my sister.
The thought turns my smile to a frown as I think about the injustices he faced at such a young age.
I grab my phone and quickly send him some V-Bucks.
The kid only wants one thing right now, and money to buy things in his game is what he’ll get.
Not that I think he ever runs out of funds.
I know I’m not the only one who randomly sends him the credits.
We all feel guilty about what happened to him.
He might not have been born of our blood, but that kid is family.
I shake myself out of my dark thoughts as I set the phone down and take another sip of my coffee, once again looking at the siren who’s entered my main living area.
I have many places where I’ve rested my head, both in New York and around the country.
But this is the only one I call home. The rest were bought with family money, used as tax breaks and as places to sleep that I know are bedbug-free and secure.
This is the only one where I put in any effort to make it the way I wanted it.
Sure, most of the design elements and decor were chosen for me, but I got the key elements that I wanted.
Big open space. Lots of windows to see out, no one to see in.
Danny’s the one who made them bulletproof.
He’s also the one who added the safe room, something he requires in every Leone home.
I watch as she takes in the space in the light of day.
I always felt like this place had two sides to it.
The dark and light, just like day and night.
At night, the moody elements come into play.
The fireplace comes on as soon as I enter.
The sconces are on a timer, and shadows enhance the mystery of the place.
During the day, it’s the opposite. It feels bright, welcoming, and inviting.
Not that Payton got the message. She’s still standing at the entrance to the hallway that leads to the bedrooms, tugging on the sweater I lent her last night. It reminds me why I smiled in the first place when I saw her.
Not because she looks like shit, but because she’s here, and what that means. That the dream of owning her isn’t just a dream anymore. It’s the truth. It’s tangible.
And it’s time I start collecting on my investment before Bobby wakes up to find out what the fuck I did and starts yelling at me before I finish my first cup of caffeine.
“Please have a seat.” I tip my chin toward the chair opposite me. The one she sat in last night. The one she never pushed back under the table when she went to bed. I might have turned in before her, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t watching her.
As expected, Danny has cameras all over this place, though he only gets access if I turn them over to him, or he overrides them.
Right now, I’m the only one who’s seen the feed from last night.
The only one who saw her stay up for an hour after I left.
I watched as she just sat there, at war with herself about what to do.
It was clear in her eyes as she looked to the elevator hallway, her only exit, and then to the one that led to her bedroom for the night.
The way she debated with herself, constantly biting her lip.
Her remembering that it was a bad idea each time after she did it because of the cut.
It was compelling. She kept getting lost in thought so much that she looked past the reminder of pain and bit her lip again.
Over and over. I was half willing to go out there and spank her ass as a reminder to stop hurting herself, but before I was pushed to the breaking point, she got up and went to bed.
And from the looks of her, her mind didn’t stop the battle even then. I bet she only got an hour of sleep at the most, adding to the bags beneath her eyes.
“Breakfast?” I gesture to the selection of pastries between us, along with a carafe of coffee and orange juice.
She nods after a few moments, selecting an everything bagel before grabbing the juice and pouring herself a glass.
“Thank you.” Her words are a whisper on the air and send my spine tingling. The part of me that’s more Leone than anything vibrates with power.
My grandmother used to say that we were descendants of lions, and that’s why the name was chosen at Ellis Island.
She claimed that our grandfather’s grandfather killed so many and drank their blood that it was in our loins, passing from one generation to the next, making us part man, part beast. And it’s that beast’s blood that drove the Leone family to the top.
And Payton has just been claimed by me. I just haven’t decided in what capacity yet.
I give her a second to get a bite of food into her mouth before I begin—I’m not a savage, after all, even though I feel like one.
Especially when the prey before me looks good enough to eat.
Another thing in the Leone DNA. Sometimes the ones under our care look like something more, be it the enemy or the siren.
I want to do something more than just protect Payton. I want to devour her.
“Who told you about the Kings?”
She stops chewing, her eyes wide, before she swallows her food.
Her gaze darts around the room, though I’m not sure if she fears them being in the shadows or looking at me to answer.
When her eyes finally settle on me, I feel an ounce of pride at seeing her face her demons.
Or me, in this case. Before last night, it was them, the ones who held the reins. Now I’ve become her new fear.
“Someone outside a pawnshop told me.”
My eyebrows rise at her words.
“Who?”
She shrugs as her attention moves to her bagel. She might not be watching me, but I have my full focus on her.
“Some homeless person, I think. I saw them twice before when I went to pawn off some things.”
Doesn’t take a genius to work out what she was pawning, but I ask anyway.
“Family shit?”
She nods. “Didn’t know the house already had a second mortgage out on it before… before they died.”
Typical. Bet the banks didn’t even wait a week after their death before coming to collect on her.
“I’m assuming the banks weren’t willing to set up a payment plan or wait till the life insurance came in.”
She shakes her head. “There wasn’t any. Life insurance, that is. I found out they spent everything on me to go to that… that school.” Her voice wavers on the last word.
“What else?” I could guess, but I want her to tell me. I need to know how far she fell to understand how to build her back up. And despite what so many might think, I don’t want to break Payton. Not in a way that she can’t move on. I want to see her strong. Stronger than me one day.
We share so many similarities. Both grew up with loving parents.
Where I lost one at a young age, she lost both at an older age.
Yet we still had to grow into ourselves without knowing what that meant.
What it would look like. Though unlike her, I had family to guide me.
Not that it helped. One bullet to the throat, and my world was upended.
Which is where our similarities come into play again. Parental death was one fall. Meeting me was her second. But unlike the doctor who attempted to fix me, I’ll leave more than a scar in its place. I’ll build her back up, brick by brick, no matter how long it takes.
Another harsh swallow from her before she continues, not looking up at me as she picks off some seeds from the bagel. “Tuition was due. Scholarships were already given out, and unless there was a check in hand, there was no place for me.”
“So you hocked everything you owned, paid what you could, still not enough.” She shakes her head, and a tear falls down her cheek, which she brushes off forcefully. “Someone mentioned the Kings, and with no other options that you saw, you turned to them.”
She nods.
“Who told you about G-Spot?”
Her eyes flick to me before casting down once more. “They did. Said I needed to make them money to pay it off. That I was given a few weeks’ reprieve, and if I didn’t get a job, they would find me something. I thought they owned it or something.”
Interesting. The Kings have never sent someone to our places for work before. Not that I know of, anyway. Something to talk with Vinny about.
I would believe her to be a spy based on what she just told me, but one glance at her and it’s clear she’s desperate.
Just how desperate is the question.
“Strip.”