DEBT (3 page)

"Mack, spend the night with your daughter. It's the last time you will see her for a while. But not," he went on to add as I felt my heart constrict in my chest at the idea of not being able to see my father, "the last time you will see me."

"You said..." I started to object, pulling my hand from my father's and moving closer to his desk, ready to pitch a holy shitfit if he was going to go back on his word.

As if sensing my argument and having no patience for it, he held up a hand at me. "We have some things to discuss. I give my word that is all it is for now."

"Yeah, well... I have no idea how much your word is worth," I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest.

"It's worth
everything,
" he said in a heavy tone, putting his hands wide on his desk and leaning slightly over it in a way that was so threatening that I had to fight to not take a step back. "Now if you're done acting like an impertinent child, I have business."

Impertinent child?

Impertinent child?

"Let's go, Prue," my father said suddenly, his arm going around my waist as he forcibly turned me away from Byron St.James, knowing because he knew me like no other, that I was seconds from absolutely losing my mind. "We will talk, St. James," my father said, his back to the man in question as he led me toward the hall.

Any time I tried to speak on the way out of the house to the car, my father actually shushed me.
Shushed me.
This was a man who was completely incapable of tolerating silence in any way. If he wasn't waxing on and on about something or another, doing so with so much enthusiasm and flourish that you were incapable of being angry about him interrupting whatever you had previously been doing, he was singing loudly to music; if he wasn't doing that, he was reaching for your hand and asking you about your day, about your life, about your hopes and dreams, about your fears... and
listening.
When Mack Marlow's attention was on you, it was on you and you felt like the most important person in the world.

Quiet was never something that was afforded me when I was in my father's presence.

So him shushing me, yeah, that was a giant, blinking, neon warning sign to shut the hell up.

So I did.

Until we got into the car.

Until we got out of the driveway.

Until we got across town to almost the Atlantic City limits where my apartment was.

Until we climbed the stairs to my apartment and closed ourselves inside.

Then and only then did he finally speak.

"We need to go. Now," he snapped, moving around my apartment, grabbing various items into his arms as he went.

"Dad... what are you doing?"

"Mexico. Canada. The islands. Europe. God damn Ukraine. I don't give a damn, but we have to get the hell out of this country right now, Dear Prudence," he said, grabbing my picture off my bookshelf of the time he took me to Disney and we posed with Belle who was, as anyone with a brain knew, the best Disney princess.

"Dad. Dad," I said louder, almost yelling to try to catch his attention. When I did, I saw nothing but fear and worry and regret in his face. "We can't run from this. You know that. I bet if you looked down at the street that one of his body guard guys or whatever they are is sitting in a car outside. He knows your instinct will be to run."

"You can't go work for him. You can't go
live
with him!"

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my own nerves that were screaming the exact same thing in my head. As was almost always the case, I had to be the level-headed one, I had to be the grown up. "I have no choice, Dad. And he said he wouldn't hurt me."

"He said
not like that.
"

"Exactly so he won't..."

"Beat or rape you, no," he said, the bluntness there making me flinch. My father wasn't blunt. My father was flowery words; my father was waxing poetic; my father was purple prose. "But you don't know him. You don't know what he is capable of."

"Dad, he was willing to shoot you. In front of me. I'm pretty sure I get that he's the bad guy to end all bad guys. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't see any way out of this."

"There's always a way out. There's always..."

"A shortcut? A side exit? Some slight of hand to give you a chance to escape? No, there's not, Dad. There's always someone who has to go back and collect the shit and put it to rights. There's always someone who has to settle the debts and..." I clamped my mouth shut before I could say anything I would regret, anything that would hurt him, that would imply he had done anything other than his best for me. Because, while he had screwed up a lot and I did have to grow up fast and shoulder a burden too heavy for my little shoulders, I knew that was the truth. He did his best he could by me. He was
sick.
His addiction was no different from a heroin-user, a smoker, a pill popper, an alcoholic. He got high off the thrill and the win. He crashed when he lost it all. Then he needed that high again, by whatever means necessary. It was an illness. And it wasn't right for me to be angry about it.

"And that has always been you," he said, surprising me as he dropped everything he was holding onto my couch and sat down beside the pile, holding his head in his hands.

"Dad..."

"Don't, Prue. Don't try to smooth it over. I know it's true. It's always been you. Before you, it was your mother. I scared her away. And now I'm having you taken from me. I'm such a..."

"Don't," I said, moving to sit next to him, my ass half on the pile of my stuff.

"Dear, dear Prudence..." he started, his voice thick.

"I said don't," I interrupted, making my voice steel even though I felt like my insides were all cracking. "This is a mild setback. He can't keep me there forever. I will go. I'll do my job. And then we will get back on track. Stop worrying about me. I'm a big girl. I can handle myself."

"Yeah," he said, shaking his head, not looking at me. "I guess you've had a lot of practice over the years."

"Dad..." I tried again, wanting to take that tone out of his voice, the weight off his shoulders.

"Okay," he said suddenly, clapping, surprising me enough to jump. "Let's have a going-away party then, shall we?" he asked jumping up and going for my fridge. "Leftover Chinese
and
pizza. I'll throw together a salad with all these greens. And we can use up this milk with some giant milkshakes for dessert," he said, his tone almost Santa Claus-cheery. But I would take fake happy over real sad with my dad any day.

So as he moved around my kitchen, humming some song I didn't recognize because it was probably older than me, I walked into my bedroom under the pretense of changing into comfortable clothes and quickly and efficiently starting to pile necessary items into a box and a suitcase. I figured that would be the maximum amount of items that would be considered practical and I rolled my clothes to make as much room as possible, packing things that were practical: a few blouses, pairs of slacks, jeans, a couple tees, a sweatshirt, pajamas, socks, undies, and bras. Then I socked away all my bathroom essentials, grabbed a picture of my dad and an old copy of
Sense and Sensibility
, and called it a day.

Then I went out and had a going-away party with my father.

He gave me a huge hug and said goodbye to me like he expected to see me the next weekend, like always.

But I knew better.

And I knew he knew better.

So it stung a little that he was leaving it at that.

With a pit the size of Russia in my belly, I called my manager and laid it on thick about a family emergency. I told her my dad was really sick and, in my mind, it wasn't a lie. He was sick, just not in the way I was implying. I checked my savings account, deciding against subletting, and paying my landlord for the next three months ahead of time. I couldn't imagine I'd be gone longer than that. It left me woefully low on cash for when I eventually did re-emerge, but I would figure it out.

I always did.

THREE

Prue

Somehow, the house looked even bigger as I pulled up in my crappy little fifteen year-old white sedan and parked it far to the side of the lot, not having been given instructions on what to do about my car. I flipped down my visor and looked into my eyes as I smoothed my hair back into the ponytail where a few wisps had blew about in the breeze of the open windows.

"You can do this," I told myself, pretending not to hear the hint of hysteria in my tone. It had been building all morning. My alarm had buzzed, as per usual, at seven. I climbed up with an immediate plummeting sensation in my stomach as I looked at my bag and box stashed next to my bedroom door. It only got more and more intense as I grabbed clothes: a pair of black slacks, a light blue silk blouse, and sensible barely-there kitten-heeled shoes, and made my way into the bathroom to shower. Then it became positively nauseating as I forced myself to drink coffee and eat a corn muffin from the coffee shop on my way over. I had no idea what my day would entail so I wanted to be caffeinated and have something in my stomach just in case.

I exhaled loudly, pulling out my keys, then climbing out of my car. I went to my trunk, popping it, pulling out my rolling bag and box, then making my way toward the door where the same guard from the day before stood there, watching me struggle and not bothering to offer any kind of help.

Apparently Byron St. James wasn't the only asshole in residence.

But that was fine.

It was okay.

I had spent my entire working life dealing with difficult people.

I could do it with a smile.

I could bite my tongue.

I trained for this.

"Am I supposed to stand here all day?" I asked, keeping my tone mild as he stood there in front of the door, seeming to make no move to let me inside.

"You're early."

"Ah, yes," I said, brows drawing together. It wasn't like I was obnoxiously early. It was ten minutes. I always left myself a ten to fifteen minute buffer in case of traffic. I'd never found someone who thought being a teensy bit early was a bad thing.

"He'll be ready for you at ten."

And that was apparently that because he looked pointedly away from me toward the gates and kept standing in front of the door.

With a nod and, what I was sure was the second of many, sighs of the day, I put down my box and sat on the top step, waiting until Mr. Byron St. James could whittle out a couple of minutes to tell me what my fate was.

Judging my the time on my phone, it was the exact second the big hand hit twelve and the hour changed to ten that the door swung open, making my heart feel like it did a similar motion as I whipped my head around to see St. James standing in the doorway in gray slacks and a tailored white button-up, another expensive watch on his wrist.

"Miss. Marlow," he said, jerking his chin at me then disappearing inside. I took that to mean I was supposed to follow so I scrambled up, grabbing my box and bag and moving inside. "This way," I heard from above me and turned to see him standing halfway up a staircase.

With a shrug, and figuring he was showing me to my room given that I was going to be living there for God-knew what reason, I pushed the handle of my bag in and grabbed it by the strap instead, struggling up the stairs behind him. He, like his man outside, was apparently born and raised with no manners as he didn't so much as ask if I needed any help.

"This is me, Miss. Marlow," he said, throwing his arm out to indicate a room on the left side of the hall. "And this is you," he added, moving toward the door directly across from it. He reached for the big copper handle and I felt my belly fold in on itself, maybe half-expecting to see some kind of shackles or something as I moved to follow him inside.

But there were no shackles.

It was just a bedroom.

Well, no. It wasn't just a bedroom. It was a really, really nice bedroom. It had the same walls as the rest of the house, exposed, warm-toned stucco. There was a brass framed queen-sized bed directly across from the door covered in a burnt yellow plush bedspread that was flanked by two nightstands with brass lamps and burnt orange shades that matched the bedspread. A dresser was to the far left with a giant brass-framed mirror above nestled beside two French doors that, I imagined, led out onto one of the many balconies I had seen from the outside. To the right of the room was what I figured was a closet and an open door which seemed to lead into my own private bath.

Hell, it was actually a nicer room than I had at home.

I almost snorted at that idea.

"You can settle in, put your things in the closet, dresser, and bathroom cabinets. You'll be here a while. All that though," he said, waving a hand at me and I wasn't sure what he was indicating, "can get burned."

"I'm sorry... what can get burned?"

"Those... 'corporate casual' clothes you seem so fond of," he informed me, air-quoting the words corporate casual with distaste.