Losing Streak (The Lane)

by Kristine Wyllys

  Even the desperate had to play smart. Hell. The desperate had to play smarter than anyone else.

  A thick wall of silence stretched out between us as Joshua closed the door with a soft click and made his way over to his desk. He settled himself in his chair and fixed his pale gaze on mine.

  “We have a situation,” he said gravely, causing my heart to plummet to my feet only to crawl frantically into my throat.

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to arch an eyebrow.

  “Do we?”

  “Unfortunately.” He crossed his hands on the desk in front of him. They looked softer neater than my own. As if, perhaps, he received regular manicures.

  “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to elaborate.”

  He gave me an approving grin, as if he had a script in his mind and I had followed it. The thought left me with the desire to somehow snatch the words back and cradle them close to my chest.

  “It would seem that your friend, Mr. Williams, has found himself in a bit of a predicament.”

  My mouth went instantly dry.

  “I don’t know—”

  “Come now, Rosemary, surely you won’t play dumb with me. I understand keeping mum around your loved ones. Absolutely. Your mother especially has high hopes for you, am I correct?”

  “Well, yes—”

  “Of course she does.” He cut me off with a firm nod. “Wants better for her children. And who can blame her? She’s had a rough go of things from the way I understand it. Fell too soon, too young, and with the wrong type of man, didn’t she? Love is blind, after all, but debt collectors unfortunately are not. But with me, there’s no need for such games.”

  “How did you even know?” I felt the corners of my eyes crinkle with suspicion. “We don’t advertise it.”

  “You mean you hide it.”

  I lifted a shoulder in a one-armed shrug. “That too.”

  He chucked low in his throat. “I know a lot of things. You could almost say it’s my business to know things that others don’t.”

  I frowned and sat back in my chair, partly to hide the adrenaline-induced trembling that was working its way into my limbs.

  “Kinda vague, maybe a little ominous, but okay. I’m still not sure why you needed to talk to me.”

  He watched me carefully, as if waiting for something. As if there was some kind of sign I was supposed to give him, a cue. Finally he sighed as though he was disappointed.

  “As I was saying, Mr. Williams is in a bit of a fix, financially. And most unfortunate for all involved, he lacks the means necessary to pay it.”

  I shook my head. “Still not following.”

  “Brandon Williams has acquired a rather large debt. Fortunately for him, I have agreed to let him work it off.”

  I sat forward quickly, startled.

  “Wait. You—”

  “Yes, Rosemary. Me. Mr. Williams owes that money to me. Seventy-five thousand dollars to be exact.”

  “But he never—I didn’t...” I stammered before trailing off uselessly, my stomach twisting around the words seventy-five thousand. I jerked my eyes away from Joshua’s and glanced around the nearly bare office, as though there would be something hiding somewhere that would help me make sense of what I was hearing.

  “He didn’t tell you,” he supplied for me after a minute and I nodded, a little jerkily, mind still racing. Suddenly Brandon’s insistence about me not going to work made sense.

  “I’d wondered,” Joshua continued. “Most people who find out I run—extra activities tend to act differently around me. I found it refreshing that you had not. I’d wondered, perhaps, if you were more enlightened than most. Lacked that nagging misguided conscience most others are cursed with that causes them to see the world in such rigid shades of black and white.”

  “I don’t,” I said automatically. “I mean, the world’s a weird place. Life is weird. There’s a lot of gray.”

  He hummed in approval. The sound, inexplicably, set me on edge.

  “I’m glad to hear it. I take it, then, you approve of Mr. Williams’s gambling habits?”

  “I don’t disapprove of them. That’s his thing. Which is why I’m confused as to why you’re telling me all of this. I’m not involved in that part of his life. He won’t let me be.”

  “No? Interesting. I was under the impression that you two are quite close.”

  “We are. But there’s certain things—” I bit my lip to keep from explaining. “I have my life and he has his. That’s part of his.”

  “Perhaps not for long,” he murmured.

  “I’m sorry?”

  He sat back, eyes never wavering from my face and I felt my skin grow tighter, more uncomfortable, under the weight of them. “As I said, Mr. Williams will be working off his debt with me. I do that occasionally. I’m not an unreasonable man. The problem is Mr. Williams has nothing of value to offer as collateral. Reasonable or not, collateral is something I insist on. I’m afraid I’m quite unyielding on that.”

  Things were starting to click into place.

  “I have nothing.”

  Joshua gave me a sardonic smile. “Ah, you and Mr. Williams. You both think so similarly. Collateral doesn’t need to be a material possession. It merely has to be something of value. Something to ensure that Mr. Williams doesn’t run before his debt is paid off.” His grin grew and I was reminded of a wolf sizing up a sacrificial lamb. “It can even be a person.”

  Immediately I was on my feet.

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “You won’t even hear what I’m offering then?”

  I jabbed a finger in his direction.

  “I have no problems helping Brandon pay off what he owes you. I’ll work extra hours here at Duke’s for free if that’s what you want. But I am not a thing. I’m not a possession. I’m not being relegated as one.” I shook my head, my curls bouncing with the force of it, and turned to go.

  “And if I told you that you’d want for nothing during the course of his contract?”

  I paused. Damn it, I paused halfway to the door and shot him a glare over my shoulder. But that glare hid something, something I was almost ashamed of. Would have been ashamed of it were it any stronger. Temptation.

  I shoved all traces of it away forcefully. “No. I’m not that cheap.”

  I started toward the door again and just as I reached for the knob, his voice stopped me once more.

  “And your mother? Her cancer is fairly advanced, isn’t it? I don’t pretend to be an expert, but the way I understand it, it really has no other option but advancing further.” He made a vaguely sympathetic noise in the back of his throat. “And you can barely afford the care she is receiving now, as lacking as it is.”

  My arm dropped to hang limply at my side and I let a curse slip out under my breath. My head bowed as I turned slowly.

  “I’m listening.”

  He smiled. A shudder slithered up my spine and wrapped its cold fingers around my neck. Even my beast paused and cringed a little, knowing, instinctively, I’d just revealed something and Joshua saw it. It was a weakness. A chink. He’d found the magic words and he was pleased by it.

  “It’s simple, really. I’m in need of an assistant. Your Mr. Williams is in need of collateral. Your mother needs suitable care. Come stay with me, in my penthouse, and work for me, and in return I’ll see to it that your mother is taken care of properly.” He fixed me with a piercing look. “If you won’t do it for Mr. Williams, surely you would do it for her sake. Wouldn’t you?”

  Judging by the knowing looking on his face, Joshua was more than aware that there was very little I wouldn’t do for Mama. But not that. I’d never shack up with some sugar daddy to pay her bills. The thought alone made my skin crawl.

  “I won’t sleep with you.�
��

  “Of course not,” he replied, as if it went without saying. “That’d hardly be necessary.”

  “Yeah?” I arched an eyebrow. “What’s the catch then?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The catch. There’s always a catch. If it’s not sex, then what is it?”

  He shook his head. “No catch. There will be rules, of course. As reasonable as I may be, I’m also not a fool. I wouldn’t allow someone to offer me a car as collateral and still drive it. Surely you can understand that.”

  “I’m not a car.”

  “No, of course not. But the same theory applies.”

  “Right.” I nodded, turning once more. “We’re through here.”

  “Are we? And we haven’t even gotten to the part about your brother yet.”

  My entire body stiffened.

  “What about him?” I tossed back, attempting to keep my voice as casual as my muscles weren’t.

  “He’s lifted a lot of money from me in the time since Brianna Martin has been employed.”

  “Jackson hasn’t stolen a dime for you,” I snapped, instantly on the defensive in a way nothing else could make me. I turned to glare at Joshua, planting my hands on my hips.

  He smiled, a chilling twist of his pale lips that made the man I thought I knew transform into someone I’d never met. Rather than unnerve me, I felt that beast perk up. Joshua’s smile grew as if he sensed it.

  “No, not a dime,” he agreed. “But a pint here. A fifth there. It adds up, you know. Very quickly.”

  “I’ll pay it back.”

  “You could, yes. But that would take some time. What with that hospital bill you’ll have to pay now and all those other ones that will pile up. He’d almost have to come work for me to pay it off in a timely manner.” He spread his hands wide as if to say, what can you do. “I have more than enough work to go around. Always could use another set of muscles for the more—unpleasant jobs that occasionally come up. Of course, there’s a somewhat problematic turnover rate, but it’s still kinder than what I’d give to most who steal from me.”

  “That’s it, then? Either I work for you or you make Jackson? We’re going with extortion?”

  “A black-and-white term for something not nearly so simple. I’m offering you an opportunity, and like all opportunities, it comes with its benefits.”

  “And consequences,” I pointed out.

  “Only if you refuse to answer the door for it. Just like any other opportunity.”

  He had me and we both knew it. I’d been flying above a web and realized it was there. But the winds had shifted and I’d gotten too close. It was just my luck that the spider was giving me the chance to wrap myself up further.

  “Fine. Say I said yes.” I held up a hand when he started to speak. “I’m not saying yes, but let’s say that I did. Why would I come live with you?”

  “Why not? The penthouse is large. Unlike your apartment, correct? It makes sense.”

  “Won’t people wonder why I’m staying with you?”

  “We’ll simply tell everyone you’re my girlfriend.”

  I shot him a look. “Your girlfriend.”

  He raised both hands in defense. “It’ll be in name only. As I already stated, there’d be no sexual encounters of any kind expected. I’m not that kind of man.”

  I cringed before I could stop myself, remembering those words coming out of Brandon’s mouth once upon a time. How did we end up here?

  And no sex? Really? I might have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night. “I don’t really see any reason for me to believe that.”

  “When you are a man of my stature, with so many options available to you, you don’t need to force yourself on a woman who isn’t willing.”

  I managed a deadpan expression. “I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I said that sounds like a load of political, nonanswer bullshit to me.”

  For one second, one brief, blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment, his eyes flashed dangerously and his mouth tightened into a thin line. Then it shifted back to the pleasant, polite expression I was more familiar with.

  “If you agree to this, Rosemary, and I think we can both agree you have every reason to, you need to understand I demand a certain level of respect from my employees.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “More so than I demand here,” he clarified. “I am fairly lax on this side of things. I can afford to be. Not so on the other side. There I have to run a tight ship.”

  “So, since I’m still technically on this side I can afford to point out how cliché ‘I run a tight ship’ is?”

  “Yes. For the moment, you’re permitted. Get it in while you can.”

  “Great.” I forced a smile I couldn’t feel on my face and tried to ignore the hot knot pressing urgently against my lungs. “You were saying you had options?”

  He stared at me for a moment too long before replying.

  “Yes. Options. Or prostitutes, as less enlightened people might call them.”

  “You’re telling me that you have girls you pay to have sex with so I don’t have to worry about you mauling me, the girl you are proposing live with you as your fake girlfriend while you supply her with benefits.” I didn’t need to exaggerate my disbelief.

  “You’ll work for every one of those benefits. This is a business offer. So, no. I, as your employer, won’t force myself on you. I’ll have my needs taken care of by one of my girls as I always have.”

  “And my needs?”

  “I only ask that you be discreet. Of course, Mr. Williams will be off-limits as we already discussed.” Something in my gut twisted painfully at this. “But aside from that? It’s none of my concern unless you make it my concern.”

  I wouldn’t be doing that, in any sense of the word.

  “Fine. What about Brandon?”

  “Three years,” Joshua replied. “He’ll work for me for three years and then his debt will be clear. I’m letting him off fairly easy, of course. But he came to me, saving me the trouble of finding him. I respect that and I like to reward that which I respect.”

  I nodded absently.

  “So then I work for you for three years as well? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “If you’d like. Or you might find that after three years you like working for me. As you already know from working here, I can be a very fair boss. I’d like to believe that I’m even fairer in that side of my life. After all, you can’t reward good help enough especially when they’re entrusted with so much.”

  “Okay. But when he’s done, I can be too, right?” I pressed.

  “If that’s what you want, then yes. You can both walk. All debts will be forgiven, including your brother’s. I’ll even allow you to keep anything acquired during that time. It’s a good deal, isn’t it?”

  If we overlooked the fact that I really didn’t have much of a choice, sure it was.

  “What would I be doing? As your assistant?”

  “Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that. Errands mostly. Some of my employees like to view this as a game, but in truth, I run a kingdom. A demanding one. It’s a lot for one man to manage on his own, though I think I do more than an adequate job of it. Still, I’m not so prideful that I can’t admit things would be much smoother if I had someone to help me balance it all. That’ll be you. You’ll merely be helping me keep it all straight. My right hand. Every king needs one.”

  “Nothing illegal?”

  He laughed, a full bark of amusement that made me feel a little as though I’d bitten down on a piece of tinfoil.

  “Black and white. I thought we went over this. I was under the impression you didn’t think in those terms.”

  “We did. I also have to make sure I’ll be around for my mama.”

  “You will be
around. I can promise you. She’ll be taken care of. You uphold your end of the contract, and I will always, always uphold mine.”

  I eyed him for a minute longer, prolonging the moment for reasons I wasn’t entirely sure of. We both knew what my answer was going to be. There was too much at stake here. I had remaining balances and weekly clinic appointments to consider. Prescriptions to buy and refrigerators to stock and office visits to pay for. I had a brother whose petty fucking theft could be called in, leaving him to work as muscle he didn’t even have doing God only knows what. I had Brandon. And I’d already planned on helping him if he needed it and clearly he needed it. How could I say no?

  I nodded, once, firmly.

  “I’ll do it.”

  Chapter Nine

  Our contract would officially go into effect the following morning.

  “This is the last few hours of your old life, Rosemary,” Joshua said just before I left that bare, unassuming office where in the course of an hour, everything had changed. “Use them wisely. I expect you to meet me back here in the morning.”

  I nodded once, a little mechanically, and walked stiffly out the back door and into a night that was too unfamiliar to ever be mine.

  I waved off a concerned Jackson and an impatient Bri, who’d been waiting in the parking lot, and drove back to my apartment on autopilot. I didn’t go in, though. I didn’t even turn off my too-high-idling car. I just sat there, staring at that sad, decaying tower stacked high with people just like me. This me. Not the one who waited on the other side of the sunrise. I looked until I couldn’t any longer, then I drove away. Possibly for the last time ever. I didn’t know how I felt about that.

  I wasn’t fully aware I was going to Brandon’s until I got there. His truck was nowhere in sight so I walked the now-familiar path to his apartment, waving vaguely to the wild-eyed guy from 1C, and let myself in. I didn’t bother turning on the lights. I just sat in the dark and waited. It felt like hours. Maybe it was. In the darkness, time didn’t exist. I wasn’t even sure that I did.