DEBT (2 page)

My father fumbled for something to say, clearing his throat awkwardly and I felt my teeth clench together.

"If we're done hauling around insults like six-year olds on the schoolyard," I started, lifting my chin when his dark eyes landed on me, "why don't we get down to business."

I felt my father's eyes on my profile, knowing what look he was giving me, and ignored him. He was good at the 'behave, Prue' look. I was just as good as pretending I didn't see it. I was almost as good at it as he was good at ignoring my 'please don't go gambling tonight' look.

"The business where your father owes me two-hundred-and-seventy-five thousand dollars. That business, Miss. Marlow?"

Jesus.

"Precisely," I said, my tone betraying none of the swirling anxiety inside. How the hell could we ever pay back that kind of money? Especially factoring in the reality that my father would gamble away any money he came across before he could forward it to Mr. St. James. That meant the burden would be on me to come up with it. I had a decent job at a bank. But I barely made sixty-thousand a year and I needed some of that to live on. I could give up my apartment and move back with my dad. I could get another job, but not one where I could bring in that kind of money. Maybe if I could talk him into some sort of payment plan.

"There's not much to discuss on that front."

"I'm sure we can work out some kind of payment option for..."

"From where I stand, Mack," he said, ignoring me though I had been the one speaking. The asshole. "there are two options."

"Two options?" I butted in again stubbornly.

His eyes stayed on my father. "There are only two things I want from you at this point."

My father took a deep breath, drawing my attention, and I could see the marrow-deep fear there. It was such a strange, foreign look on his usually jovial, charming face that I felt my mouth falling open slightly.

"Those two things would be?"

"I want your life," he said, coolly, calmly, and my attention snapped to his face, my eyes going wide and disbelieving. No. There was no way. He couldn't have meant that. There had to be some kind of...

His eyes shifted and landed on me. "Or your daughter."

TWO

Prue

Beside me, my father went ramrod straight, wiping away my hope that I had, maybe, just misheard him.

I hadn't. He wanted my father's life. Or he wanted... me?

"I'm sorry, Mr. St. James," I forced my voice to say, "I don't think I understand."

He gave me a nod, pushing off of his desk and moving around it to the other side. He pulled a drawer open, reached inside, and pulled out a gun.

A gun.

"I want his life," he said, putting the gun on the surface of the desk, "or I want you."

"You can't be serious," I objected immediately, forcing my voice to not shake. "Yes, I understand that he owes you a lot of money. But we are here to find a way to pay that back to you. I know your dealings with my father have been..." Frustrating? Useless? Like screaming at a brick wall to try to make it move? "Difficult. But I can assure you, Mr. St. James, I am extremely trustworthy."

"You would have to be, wouldn't you?" he asked and I knew exactly what he meant, and I didn't like it one damn bit.

Yes, I knew my father was a screw-up. Hell, no one in the world knew that fact more than me. But he was all I had in the whole world. He was the one who was always there for me. He was fancy cupcakes at three-forty-five in the morning on every single February third, the exact moment I came into the world, regardless of whether I had school or work in the morning or not. He was high-tea on a Tuesday afternoon when he won big at the craps tables and brought me to the fanciest tea place on the East coast. He was a hug and a hankie the night I came home after my first heartbreak, bawling my teenage eyes out, and the firm insistence that I was the most beautiful girl in the world inside and out and that if a guy couldn't see what a prize I was, he was a fool and he would be damned if his daughter wasted her time crying over a fool.

He was the sun to my moon.

So, yeah. He fucked up royally over the years. He let me down more times than I could count. But he also tried so freaking hard to make up for it that it actually made my heart hurt at times.

And when someone insulted him, regardless of how true the words may have been, my knee-jerk reaction was to pounce.

So with Mr. St.James, I wanted to skewer him, but I took a deep breath and forced my voice to be calm. "As such," I went on as if he hadn't spoken, "when I tell you that we will pay you back, you can trust me. Now, of course, I obviously don't have that kind of money to spare at the moment."

His gaze went slowly down my body, no doubt taking in my cheap shirt, moderately priced slacks, and the shoes I got on clearance. "Obviously."

God, he was a jerk. Not everyone had the privilege of living in some ridiculous mansion and wearing a ten thousand dollar watch.

"But we will find the money and we will pay you back in installments."

"I think I have made your choices here clear," he said with a shrug.

"What, exactly, could killing my father get you? You won't get your money back."

"It will send a message to anyone else who would think of welshing though, wouldn't it?"

"You'd rather make an example than recover your money?"

"You forget there was another option."

Right. Me. I was trying to pretend that part didn't exist.

"Yes. You'll have to explain that option further. Did you want me to like... work for you or something?"

"Or something."

Okay. If my father was like yelling at a brick wall, this guy was like yelling at a cement one.

Luckily for me, I had a lot of practice in patience.

"You can't have my daughter," my father said, his voice so forceful that I actually jumped. That was not my father. My father was all smiles and laughs and cheery tones. He was the light and warm to my dark and cold. That was why, despite all the crap he had put me through, I never gave up on him.

"So the decision is made," Mr. St. James said, giving him a small nod as he reached for the gun.

This literally could not be happening. This could not be my life. I could not be in some ridiculous mansion with the jackoff owner reaching for a gun to
kill my father.
No way in hell.

Before I even knew what I was doing, I flung my body in front of my father's.

"Well, you can't have his life," I said, my voice sounding very much like my teeth were clenched together because they were.

"You're not getting my daughter, St. James," my father insisted again, grabbing me and moving me away from him.

"What's to stop me from killing you and then taking her anyway?" Mr. St. James proposed, effectively shutting my father up. "Yeah, thought that would shut you up," he added and I had to curl my hands into fists at my side to keep myself from crawling up on his desk and clawing the skin off his face.

"St. James she's..." my father's voice sounded dipped in emotion and when I glanced over, his eyes were swimming. My father never cried. Never. Not once in my entire life.

"I won't hurt her, Mack," Mr. St. James said, sounding almost annoyed at my father's obvious distress. "Not in the way you're thinking anyway," he added and I felt my stomach flip.

Well, there was that at least.

"I'll do it," I said automatically. It was the only way. I wasn't going to lose my father; he was all I had in the world. Alright, so he wasn't the best role model and I spent a lot of my time as a kid worrying myself sick over the bills he never paid on time. But even when the house was a studio apartment with no lights and roaches in the sink, he filled it with so much love that I never wanted to be anywhere else. He was the only ever-present person in my life, the only person I could lean on when life felt too tough. I would not let the cold-hearted bastard in front of us take him from me.

"Prue..." my father hissed.

I turned to him, shrugging a shoulder. "You know it's the only way."

"No, honey. We will figure out..."

"Tick tock," Mr. St. James' voice called out, making me shoot a scathing glance at him.

"If there was another option, Dad, trust me, I'd be all over it. But it's either you die or I become chattel to some egomaniac." I heard a snort from St. James and rolled my eyes at him. "He said he won't hurt me."

"Honey, you don't know what he..."

"Nuh-uh-uh," St. James' voice broke in, drawing our attention. "No spoilers, Mack," he added and my father sighed.

"This isn't a movie; it's my life," I shot back at him.

"Not anymore."

That cut off the words on the tip of my tongue as I stood there and bit into my cheek. Because that was true. It wouldn't be my life anymore. I was right when I referred to myself as chattel. That was exactly what I was. I belonged to him. And, what's worse, I had no idea what that even meant.

But because he seemed like a bastard and his house had all the warmth of a glacier in the arctic, I didn't imagine my life would involve my usual trips to the coffee shop in the morning and my long, boring day at the bank, or going home to my economical, but cozy apartment where I would cook when I felt like it, order in when I didn't, and bake until my counters had no space left and I needed to start knocking on neighbors' doors to unload some of the sugary goodness.

Hell, I wouldn't exactly have been surprised if the jerk put a freaking chain on my ankle.

"Honey..." my dad said, reaching for my hands as he shook his head.

"She already made the deal, Mack," St. James cut in, drawing my attention to find his dark eyes on me. "She's going to clean up your mess as I imagine she has had to do quite a bit in her life already. You want this to be the last hard lesson she has to learn on your behalf, shape the fuck up. Miss. Marlow," he said, addressing me though his gaze literally hadn't left mine the whole time he was speaking to my father, "you have until ten a.m. tomorrow morning to get your affairs and order and report here."

He said it as he flicked a hand and turned away from us like it was the end of the discussion.

"Ah, Mr. St James?" I prompted, feeling my father squeeze my hand like he was trying to shut me up.

"What?" he barked, lifting his head with the gun in his hand, everything about his body language implying that he was annoyed by me. Why, then, he wanted me to work for him
or something
when he obviously wanted nothing to do with me was completely beyond me.

"I'm going to need more clarification about what..."

"You're going to go home, pack up the shit you need day-to-day, quit your job, sublet your apartment if necessary, throw out all your food and shit, say goodbye to your father, get some sleep, get your ass up bright and early and get the fuck back here by ten tomorrow morning. Do I need to be more clear than that?"

Quit my job? Sublet my apartment? Pack my shit?

What the hell?

"Quit my job?" I went with, my voice a weird whisper-sound.

"Yes. Quit your job. You work for me now."

Okay. Alright. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my pounding pulse and the swirling feeling in my stomach. It was just a job. A bank job. It was nothing. True, I had worked there for a couple years and I had a lot of respect from my managers, but I could work at another bank at anytime. I could even save face by claiming a family emergency for the reason I had to quit. They knew nothing of my personal life because, well, who wanted to hire a bank employee who existed around huge sums of money when they had a shameless gambler as a close relative? If anything, my managers would probably be worried for me and tell me that they'd try to save my job for me when I sorted things out.

I could live with that.

"Okay. But... sublet my apartment and pack my things?" I pressed, always being the kind of person who clarified every small detail to the point of it almost seeming obsessive-compulsive and anal. But, what could I say? When you grew up with a man who would say things like 'I'm going to go out for a bit' and I didn't press for how long, I learned it meant that he would be gone for three days straight God-knew where doing God-knew what while I lied to my neighbors and told them he was sick with the flu so no one got the idea to call child services because I was home alone at eleven.

To that, Mr. St. James sighed heavily like I was a slow child and lifted a brow at me. "You live here now. Enjoy your last night at your apartment, take the things with you that you absolutely need, things like: shampoo, soap, conditioner, razors, makeup, tampons, a small supply of clothes, indispensable mementos, and leave the shit you don't need: all your books and pictures and sheets and everything else you don't need to survive day-to-day, and then drive here tomorrow morning because you live here now. Is that clear enough for you?"

It actually was. And, normally, I would have truly appreciated that fact. But, well, he was a complete douchebag so all I managed was to small-eye him and jerk my chin. "Yep."