The Debt 3 (11 page)

“Why would we?” he asked.

“I don’t know.
 
You kept telling me how you couldn’t
give me anything other than the business arrangement we had before.”

Jake sighed.
 
“All I can say is I don’t regret this
even a little bit right now.”

“Oh, that’s really comforting,” she
laughed.

“Maybe it’s not comforting,” he said,
“but then again, neither is the fact that you lied to me about where you were
earlier.”

She turned her head to see his
expression.
 
“Are you angry?”

“I just want to know, Raven.
 
I want to be able to trust you.”

She thought about it, but her insides
seemed to tighten and twist when she opened her mouth.
 
“I’m not sure I can tell,” she said.

“Why, because you’re afraid I’ll be mad?”

“I’m not sure.
 
Maybe.”

He took a deep breath and squeezed her
closer to him, his hands rubbing her arm and leg, giving her tingles all up and
down her body.

“How about I tell you a little story
first?” Jake said.
 
“Maybe it will
put you in the mood to talk.”

“Okay, but I won’t promise anything.”

“That’s fine, then.
 
But I want to tell you a little
something about my life.
 
You know,
after my fiancé passed, I decided it was time to throw caution to the wind and try
and pursue my dream of being a singer/songwriter.”

Raven nodded, glancing over her shoulder
at him again.
 
“That seems to have
worked out pretty well for you.”

He nodded.
 
“But the thing most people don’t realize
is that I started out as more of an indie rock kind of guy.
 
I was writing and performing songs like
the bands and people I listened to.
 
People like Bob Dylan, Beck, bands like Radiohead and Coldplay. Maybe I
didn’t write songs or sing exactly like any of them, but those were my
inspirations.
 
And my first demo had
all of that stuff in it.”
 
His hand
caressed her back as he continued speaking.
 
“Then I got my record deal, the label
only really loved two of my songs.
 
Those were the two most commercial, pop sounding songs, and also
probably my two least favorite songs I’d written up to that point.”

“Did they try and make you write more
songs like those?” she asked him.

“You’re very bright, maybe you should be
a record producer,” he said, his voice light, seemingly enjoying being there
with her and telling her the story.
 

“I’m sure I’d be great at it,” Raven
said, snuggling closer to him.
 
She
loved how this felt.
 
Jake was
opening up, and it felt real.
 

It felt right.

“Anyway, they sat me down and basically
gave me an ultimatum,” Jake told her.
 
“Write more songs like the two they already had picked out, or they’d
find songwriters to write stuff for me and I’d record those other songs for my
album.”

“They wouldn’t even use any of the other
songs you’d written?”

“No,” he said.
 
“They wanted all new ones that were more
in line with the pop sound they wanted from me.”
 
His voice had changed now, gotten
angrier, almost bitter.

“What did you do?”

“I think you’re smart enough to know,
miss record producer.”

“You wrote more pop songs,” she said.

“Yeah, I caved and did it.
 
I’d come within inches of telling them
to screw, going it alone and waiting for another break.
 
But I wasn’t sure another break would
come, and the label wanted to put major muscle behind me.
 
I knew they were serious about breaking
me as a big star, and I guess I wanted that more than I wanted my own artistic
integrity.”

Raven turned to face him, her hands
pressing on his rock hard, smooth chest.
 
“Anybody would’ve made that choice,” she said.
 
“You know that, right?”

He made a face, almost a grimace.
 
“I told myself I’d do it their way for
one album, just one—enough to make a name for myself.
 
And then I would strike out on my own
and do it my own way, write songs I actually cared about.”

“But that didn’t happen either,” she
said.
 
She felt bad for him, even
though he’d obviously had a wonderful career.
 
He didn’t want this kind of career, it
seemed, and yet he continued to do it for some reason.

“After my album broke, it went huge,
bigger than anyone thought.
 
Nobody,
not even my biggest supporters in the label, thought it would sell millions
like that.
 
And then the movie
offers poured in, and one of them was clearly going to be a hit. I’d never
acted before, and here I was suddenly working with great actors and an
incredible director.”

“Was that the movie Dark Rising?” she
asked him.

He nodded, closing his eyes.
 
“Yeah, it was a dumb action movie and I
knew it, but I was just happy to be in it at the time.”
 
He opened his eyes.
 
“After that movie went to number one on
its opening weekend, everything changed.
 
It was like I was on this track, and somehow there was never a good time
to step off and do anything else.”

“Like what?
 
What else did you want?”

He shrugged.
 
“After doing a couple dumb action
flicks, I wanted to do something indie, something dark and gritty.
 
But each time I even thought about it,
my agent would come to me with some amazing offer for tons of money.
 
And every time I thought about cutting
an album with the kind of music I love, the label would start talking about the
next big tour and offer me even more money for my pop stuff.”

Raven gave him a smile.
 
“You can still do those other things,
Jake.
 
You’re young, you’re popular…you
can do anything you want.”

“Unless maybe I
am
the phony you said I was,” he sighed.
 
“I think we both know that if I really
wanted to, I’d have done it by now.”

“I don’t know that at all,” Raven said,
rubbing his chest and then kissing it.
 
She kissed his chest and then started licking his nipples, tasting the
saltiness of him.
 
What she really
wanted, was to slide down, kissing his stomach, and then go lower…

“Hey,” he said, putting a finger under
her chin.

“Yeah?” she asked, eyes wide, guilty as
though he’d caught her thinking dirty thoughts.

“Now it’s your turn to share.
 
I told you some shit that nobody knows
about me.”

She bit her lower lip.
 
Suddenly her heart was racing.
 
“Jake, I don’t think I can—“

His eyes darkened.
 
“I need to know where you were,
Raven.
 
I’m done messing
around.
 
I’ve put myself out there
for you.”

She thought about it, and realized it was
true and it was time to come clean.
 
She was in danger and the club was threatening her life and freedom by
continuing to see Jake.
 
He needed
to know the truth.

“I had to go to the Club Alpha office
here in New York,” she said suddenly.

His eyes narrowed.
 
“Why the hell would you go there?”

“They called me in and told me in no
uncertain terms that I had to.”

Jake slid up in the bed so that he was
sitting straight up now.
 
The covers
slid down around his waist, showing his gorgeous, chiseled body.
 
“Who told you that?” he demanded.

“Max Mendez called me,” she said.
 
“And so I went, and they basically
threatened me,” she said.
 
“They
told me I had to stop seeing you immediately.”

Jake’s eyes went cold and flat.
 
“Hold on a minute, Raven.
 
Back up and tell me everything.
 
I mean, everything, every little detail.”

She was scared of him now.
 
He looked angry, as if she’d made him
mad by telling him the truth about everything.
 
This was her biggest fear, and from the
look on Jake’s face, her fear was coming true.

Still, she had no choice but to keep
going.
 
So
Raven
slowly and calmly described everything to him, in as much detail as
possible.
 
She told him about the
threats from Max and Scott, the horrible things Scott had said he would do to
her if she disobeyed, she told Jake how they’d tried to get her to leave in
that sedan and never speak to him again.

She even told him how she’d gotten such a
bad feeling before getting in the car that she’d cut and run, fleeing the
scene.

When Raven was done talking, she waited
for Jake’s reaction.

He was just sitting there, his face a dark
mask, with no clear evidence on his face as to how he felt about what he’d just
heard.

Here
it comes
, Raven thought.
 
The
big kiss off
.
 

There was no way Jake wanted to deal with
Club Alpha and certainly not just to defend her.
 
She wasn’t important enough to him and
never would be.

He stood up, still just wearing his boxer
shorts, and walked to where his pants were, picking them up and putting them
on.

“Are you leaving?” she asked him.

He looked at her and didn’t say a word,
just pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed it.

Raven had no idea what was going on.

“Hey,” Jake said into the cell
phone.
 
“It’s Jake.
 
Get Scott on the phone right away.”
 
There was a short pause and then Jake’s
teeth bared.
 
“Max, you stupid ugly
pile of dog shit, did you hear me?
 
I told you to get your master, get him on the phone now.
 
I’m not wasting my time with you.”

Raven could hardly move or even think.

Was that Max, as in Max Mendez, that Jake
had just spoken to like that?
 
She
couldn’t imagine it—it must have been a coincidence.
 
And then Jake simply waited, his face
unchanging, his eyes far away and cold.

A minute later, he spoke again.
 
“Scott, it’s Jake Novak.
 
Remember me?”
 
He sounded friendly but his expression
was anything but.
 
“Haha, yeah.
 
Yeah.
 
That’s fine, my man.
 
Anyway, listen, I just wanted to give
you a little heads up, Scott.
 
Raven
Hartley is with
me
now,
understand
?”
 
His
jaw set and the muscle flickered beneath the skin.
 
“No, you little slimy fuck, you listen
to me.
 
I will bury you if you try
to threaten or harm her in any way.”
 
His voice was raising a little as he spoke.
 
“Raven is with me and that means you and
your trash organization have nothing—I mean nothing to do with her or with
me.
 
And if something happens to
her—I don’t care if she gets a goddamn paper cut.
 
I am coming for you, you got that
Scott?”

“Please,” Raven said, terrified now, even
though her heart was soaring that Jake was actually standing up for her.
 
She felt love for him that almost burst
her heart, but she was also afraid for him, too.

Club Alpha wasn’t some tiny little
company that would run away from a fight.
 
She knew that.
 
She knew it
deep inside.
 
They would never just
walk away from this situation if they thought it might hurt their organization.

But Jake wasn’t responding to her, or
even seeming to see her.

Jake listened to the phone for a brief
second before speaking again into it, and his every word seemed to be a promise
and direct threat to Club Alpha.
 
“I’m
coming for you and everyone you know, motherfucker,” Jake growled.
 
“So get ready, because you have no idea
what I’m capable of.”

 
THE
END OF THE DEBT 3 (Club Alpha)

*The
Debt 4 will be coming very soon.
 
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