Devil's Bargain

by Natasha Knight

  “My driver’s license.”

  “You’ll get it back. Drink.”

  Trembling hands come to the table, one moving to take the tumbler.

  She looks at it.

  I look at her. At thick lashes concealing those pretty eyes from me. A lock of wavy, dark hair falls out of its messy bun on the top of her head. She tucks it behind her ear as she brings the glass to her nose and sniffs.

  “It’s not poison.”

  She takes a cautious sip.

  “And?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “Do you like it?”

  “No.”

  I grin. “Drink it anyway. It’ll calm your nerves.”

  She looks at me, then at the room full of men. The only women are those serving them and the one she just saw on the auction block.

  “Why am I here?”

  “Because your sister is out of commission and she owes me a good deal of money.”

  “My sister?”

  “She’s never been very reliable.”

  “I don’t have a sister.”

  “Come, now. Liza Boyd.”

  Her face loses a little of its color. “Liza?”

  “Nice girl. Until you get to know her.”

  She gives a shake of her head, straightens her spine. “I haven’t spoken with Liza in years. We don’t keep in touch. And she’s not my sister.” She pauses and a crease forms between her eyebrows. “Is she…is she in town?”

  The question surprises me, but I know people. They lie. Anything to get away with shit they have no business getting away with.

  I notice the sheen of sweat collected on her forehead. Another sign that she’s lying.

  I nod to answer her question.

  The furrow between her eyebrows deepens. “What do you mean ‘out of commission’?” she asks as if she just heard that part.

  “Seems she was beaten.”

  “Beaten?” She looks truly caught off guard. “Is she okay?”

  “She’ll be fine. In time. Recovering at the hospital. Take off your jacket, Melissa.”

  Melissa. There it is again. The sound of that name, it’s almost erotic.

  “I’m fine. I’m not staying. Which hospital?” she asks, pushing her chair back and just starting to rise.

  At my nod, that same man from earlier closes his hand over her shoulder, stopping her before she’s even straightened fully.

  “Sit.”

  She swallows and is once again seated.

  “I’ll tell you when you can leave. Now take off your jacket.”

  She gives me a long look, glances at the man in her periphery, then shifts in her seat. She pulls her arms out and leaves the jacket at her back.

  Underneath she’s wearing a cheap pale blue sweater that’s frayed, but it does hug her generous breasts so I can’t complain.

  “I won’t be bullied,” she says, and I see the effort it’s taking her to keep her voice level, to keep her eyes on mine. To pretend like she’s not scared shitless.

  “Then don’t make me bully you,” I say with a smile.

  “Can I have some water?” she asks.

  “What’s the magic word?”

  Her left eye twitches and I’m not sure she’s aware of her hands fisting.

  I raise my eyebrows, waiting.

  “Please.”

  I nod, call a girl over and tell her to bring ice-water which is delivered momentarily.

  Melissa picks up the tall glass with both hands and drinks it all down.

  “Which hospital is Liza at?”

  “It’s ‘may I’ by the way. Not ‘can I’.”

  I know from the look on her face she’s telling me to go to hell. Not many people would dare. At least, they’d be better at hiding it.

  This night is turning out better than I expected. I knew she was good-looking when I had Axel pick her up, but good looks alone aren’t enough to keep me engaged.

  “Centennial Hills,” I say. She looks confused. “Hospital. She’s at Centennial Hills Hospital.”

  “Did you beat her up?”

  “I won’t dignify that question with a response.” I don’t beat women. Period.

  “Who did then?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Better?” I ask, gesturing to the water.

  She doesn’t reply.

  I sip my drink and study her.

  “You don’t look much like each other.” Melissa’s olive skin and dark hair are opposite Liza’s ruddy complexion and reddish hair. It makes me think Italian. Maybe middle-eastern?

  “What?”

  “You look very different than your sister.”

  “I told you, we’re not sisters,” she says with a touch more irritation in her voice than I like. “I was fostered in the Boyd home. We’re not related.”

  “Blood or fostered or adopted, I don’t care.”

  “Never adopted,” she clarifies, clearing her throat and not quite looking at me.

  I just hope she doesn’t think the fact that they’re not related by blood means she’s off the hook.

  “What am I doing here?” she asks, ignoring my question, sounding more steely than I like.

  “Like I said, Liza owes me some money.” I make a point of saying her name rather than calling her her sister.

  “I don’t have anything to do with that.”

  “But you do. Given Liza’s current state, well, she’s no good to me.” I set one elbow on the table, rest my chin on my fingers as she processes this information. “And the only name she could offer up was yours.”

  “Mine?”

  I nod. It’s quiet and I wonder when she’s going to get around to asking the two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar question.

  “How much does she owe you?”

  There it is. “A quarter of a million dollars.”

  Her mouth falls open.

  “Liza has a gambling addiction,” I say. “And, as it turns out, a drug addiction.”

  “But that much money. Are you sure? I mean…that’s a lot of money.”

  “Agree. She spent it quite nicely in my casino, though.”

  She’s quiet for a long moment and her eyes narrow before she speaks. “So, let me understand this. You lent her a quarter-of-a-million-dollars to gamble in your casino, then you stole it back from her in that same casino and now you want her to pay it to you all over again?”

  “I stole nothing. Take care with your words, Melissa.”

  “But that’s the gist of it, right? And did you know about her drug addiction when you lent her this money?”

  I lean forward and she draws back. Good because I’m suddenly not as entertained.

  “When someone comes to me for money, I don’t ask why he or she needs it or where he or she is going to spend it or how. I don’t give a damn. All I expect is that it’s paid back by the agreed upon date.”

  “Let me guess, with a ridiculous interest rate.”

  “That not asking questions comes at a price, Melissa.”

  “Stop saying my name.”

  “But I like saying it. Melissa. It just…rolls right off my tongue.” I lean back in my seat, swirl the ice in my drink.

  She flushes, at a loss for a moment. “You’re a loan shark,” she finally says.

  I shrug a shoulder. “I’m many things, first and foremost, the owner and CEO of Hawk Enterprises, an employer of several thousand people, a lawful, tax-paying business-man with many friends.”

  From the look on her face, she understands what I’m saying.

  “If you think that I can pay you that kind of money, you’re mistaken,” she says. “I don’t have anything close to that.”

  “Most people don’t. Obviously, I didn’t expect Liza to pay me back in cash. We had a different sort of arrangement that suited both of our needs.”

  Her forehead creases, and a moment later, a look of understanding passes over her face.

  I grin. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I don’t fuck women like Liza Boyd. I never have. I nev
er would. It’s not that sort of arrangement.”

  “I don’t understand what you want from me then.”

  The gong sounds as if on cue and Melissa turns to look over the quieting crowd of men.

  I follow her gaze to where the curtains part to reveal the next beauty, this one a full-figured red-head.

  I turn back to my guest, watch her in profile. I study her pretty little upturned nose, the high forehead, full lips that part slightly as she takes in the attraction on the stage.

  “What is this?” she asks.

  “An auction.”

  She looks at me with an expression of shock and utter disbelief on her face.

  “So these men, they’re bidding on…her?”

  I nod.

  She turns back to watch the girl who is ceremoniously disrobed, and I’m surprised to see she’s a natural red-head. So rare these days.

  The auctioneer calls out the opening number.

  When Melissa looks at me again, she’s flushed and picks up her empty glass of water. Realizing it’s empty, she puts it back down. I raise my hand for another but when it comes, she doesn’t touch it.

  “Why am I here?” she finally asks me, voice higher again.

  Her big eyes are filling up with tears and those tears seem to make them go a soft caramel and all I can think is I bet she’s pretty when she cries.

  “Have you figured out what our arrangement was? What Liza agreed to sell to repay me?”

  Her throat works as she swallows, and I think I hear it even over the crowd.

  “I don’t…this is…” her voice breaks. “You shouldn’t have lent her that kind of money,” she says weakly.

  “Liza’s poor choices are not my responsibility.”

  “They’re not mine either.”

  “Well, then we’re finished here. There is another way, after all. One I was trying to avoid, considering her situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, she’s in such bad shape already. Beaten badly when they found her.”

  The color drains from Melissa’s face.

  “What do you expect from me?” she asks. “I don’t have that kind of money. I don’t even know how to get it.”

  “I’m well aware of that. Watch,” I say, turning to the stage just as the girl extends her arms to the two women on either side of her. She’s turned and bent and displayed and when the man with the strap walks toward her, the room goes completely still in anticipation.

  That sound, Christ, that sound of leather on supple flesh and the red-head’s sudden gasp as the delicate skin is tested, fuck, it never fails.

  The red-head’s skin turns crimson, the thick stripe glorious against such pale skin. It sends a deep, satisfied murmur through the crowd.

  When I look back at Melissa, she’s staring at me wide-eyed. I wonder if she realizes she’s hugging her arms to herself.

  We remain like this, me watching her, her watching me, as numbers are called out, and the auctioneer asks for more, more, more and soon, the red-head is going once, going twice, sold to the dirty old fuck in the corner.

  “Lucky man,” I say, swallowing my whiskey.

  “I’m going to be sick,” she says.

  I push my chair back and stand.

  She watches me walk around the table toward her, craning her neck, shrinking away.

  I hold out my hand.

  She looks at it like it’s a hot poker I’m telling her to grab.

  “I can’t do that,” she says, shaking her head, a tear slipping down her cheek.

  “Bathroom, Melissa. So you can get over whatever you need to get over and do what you need to do to pay me back.”

  “And if I won’t? If I can’t?”

  “Won’t and can’t are two very different things.”

  “What will happen to her? To Liza?”

  “Let’s not go there. Then you really will be sick.”

  2

  Melissa

  His hand is huge.

  Hell. He’s huge.

  I reach out, place mine inside it and it feels warm and rough and when he closes his fingers over mine, his grip is firm, this gesture, it’s as though I’ve already agreed.

  Because I know what I must do. I know why he brought me here. I have no doubt.

  You owe her nothing.

  I haven’t seen or had any contact with Liza in years. I didn’t know she was in town.

  And she can’t know that I am.

  I manage to get to my feet, and he’s got to be a good foot taller than me. Even with my pumps, the top of my head barely reaches his chin.

  Heads turn as Hawk, his presence at my back enough to guide me, leads me toward a door at the back of the room where a man stands sentry. He opens it at our approach.

  I hesitate.

  “Go on,” Hawk says from behind me. He’s standing closer than I realize and a shudder runs through me at the feel of his breath on the back of my neck.

  I hear the faint hint of his accent. I heard it throughout our conversation, stronger sometimes than others. It’s in the way he says his r’s.

  I walk inside and the lights go on. I realize I’m in his office.

  I don’t want to be impressed or amazed, but this is spectacular. The walls aren’t walls at all but windows overlooking the Las Vegas strip. Tonight is clear, and the lights blink in a rainbow of colors. This view, it’s something out of a magazine.

  His desk is huge and modern, set at the far corner facing the entrance. There’s a sitting area in another corner with sleek leather couches. Everything is top quality. I can tell.

  “This way,” he says, beckoning for me to come.

  I follow.

  He opens a door and I don’t know what I expect, a bedroom maybe, but it’s a bathroom. A large and luxurious bathroom and the walls here, too, are glass.

  I glance back at him.

  “No one can see inside,” he says and when he goes to close the door, I stop him.

  “Wait.”

  He looks down at me and I think how strange his eyes are. Different colors. One is a mossy-green, the other half green and half crystal-blue. The green is warm, the blue ice-cold.

  But I know any warmth I think I see is in my head. This man, he’s all sharp edges. It’s like someone took a beast out of the wild and put him in a thousand-dollar suit thinking it would somehow tame the animal inside. Somehow contain it.

  “Melissa?” he says my name and I realize I’m staring.

  “She was going to do that? To pay you back?”

  He nods.

  “You want me to do that? Like those women? Because she can’t?”

  “I’m merely giving you an option. It’s your choice entirely.”

  “You want to strip me, put me on that stage and sell me to pay a debt that’s not my own?”

  He cocks his head to the side like he’s a little annoyed. “Like I said, I’m giving you an option. I thought you’d want to help Liza, considering you grew up together. She was certain if I could find you, that you’d want to help.”

  “How did you find me?”

  He studies me and I see his eyes narrowing. He’s remembering the driver’s license, putting two and two together.

  “Should it have been hard for me to find you? I mean, the house is under M. Doe. Although I am curious about the driver’s license.”

  I need to relax. Think. “I just…what you arranged with Liza, you obviously took advantage of her—”

  “Don’t push me, Melissa. My kindness only goes so far.”

  “Kindness?”

  “Yes, kindness. Besides,” he pauses as his gaze drops to my mouth, my chest. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you drew more than what’s owed.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? To make this sound somehow more appealing? Not like what it is?” My voice is quaking, it’s as unsteady as I feel.

  He shrugs a shoulder like he couldn’t care less and checks his watch. “Let me know in the next five minutes.”r />
  With that, he takes his phone out of his pocket and turns his back to me to walk toward his desk.

  I close and lock the bathroom door and lean my back against it.

  Five minutes.

  I have five minutes to decide this.

  Liza’s here and she knows I’m here. But why hasn’t she approached me?

  I hold my hand out and realize it’s trembling.

  I walk to the sink, turn on the cold water and splash handfuls of it onto my face, then dry it. The towel smells like him. I wonder when I noted what he smelled like.

  I hang the towel back on its rack and looking at my reflection, tuck the hair that’s fallen out of the clip behind my ear.

  Those women that I saw up on that stage, they’re in a league all their own. Me, the makeup I had on earlier today has disappeared, the only evidence of there having been any at all is the smudge of mascara on my temple. I wipe it away.

  I look down at my sweater, at my plain skirt and boots, everything second-hand but my bra and underwear. I look around the bathroom and I’ve never been in a world like this before. A world of money where a quarter of a million dollars is something you loan out. Where men like Hawk rule and women are put on auction blocks to be sold to the highest bidder.

  Hawk. Is that his first name or his last name? I don’t even know. But I do know that I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in his world.

  And I am going to be sick. Because I know myself. Because Liza was a kid when she told that lie and she was scared. As scared as me.

  But it’s hard to remember that sometimes.

  Hell, I wish I could forget all of it, whole years of my life.

  We were supposed to leave together but after her betrayal, I ran. I didn’t care that I left her behind. Not then.

  “Melissa,” comes Hawk’s voice from the other side of the door and it’s a godsend, saving me from going back to that terrible time. That terrible place. “Time,” he says.

  I grip the lip of the sink, steel my spine, look at myself in the mirror. I just have to block it out when I’m up there. Just block it out when whoever buys me uses me. Just disappear like it’s not me. Not my body.

  That’s nothing new. I can do that. Hell, it’s second-nature.

  I have no choice. I can’t let him hurt her. Or worse.

  I won’t.

  “Melissa,” his voice is firmer.