Dollars (Dollar #2)

by Pepper Winters

  It was the thinking that was making me change.

  The free time and questions making me worry.

  This…I knew this.

  Elder bristled, his hands curling into fists. “You think bleeding in my presence is appropriate? I’ve done all I can to stop you bleeding. Is that a slap in my fucking face, saying I’m not doing enough?” He prowled forward, his chest almost touching mine.

  I sighed heavily as I gave into his power.

  Down and down I swirled, blank safety beckoning.

  I hated that I accepted his rage so much more easily than I ever could his kindness. That I went searching for his animosity because I would never trust his calmness.

  Not looking up, I kept my eyes respectfully on his shoes. With my unbroken hand, I pushed off the black shoulder strap, followed by the other, and let the dress slither over my body until I stood naked before him.

  The room howled with masculine rage as Elder whipped upright and took a staggering step back. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  What I’ve been taught.

  My mind had retreated to where it couldn’t be touched. Hidden and protected, finally at peace after chasing its own tail with endless questions.

  My body was in charge now, and my body was a creature of habit.

  Falling to my stiff and gristly knees, I bowed at his feet.

  He’d stolen me.

  He might as well start using me the way he intended. It was better for both of us to know our places so I could return to the shell I’d made my home.

  I thought I was strong enough to return to the real world. I thought I wasn’t broken enough that if I ever found freedom I could walk from the shadows and laugh and speak and love like any normal person.

  But I knew the truth now.

  Elder’s strange care had made me come to terms with something I never believed was possible. I was broken. All my inner speeches of being so strong and merely biding my time.

  They were fiction.

  I’m a liar.

  My head bowed harder, my hair spilling over my shoulder.

  And still, Elder didn’t move.

  The door opened behind me, footsteps shuffling with the aromatic scents of the second course.

  Everything exploded.

  “Get the fuck out!” Elder bellowed.

  A plate smashed to the floor, followed by the thud of a rolling baked potato. Muttered apologies fell then the door clanged shut and silence once again reigned.

  Elder took a step closer to me, his black boot nudging my naked knee.

  I didn’t shrivel or back away. My mind had flown free, leaving whatever remained at his mercy.

  I didn’t care.

  His joints didn’t make a sound as he slid to his haunches and grabbed my chin. “Under no circumstances are you to do that again, do you hear me?”

  I looked blankly past him.

  He shook me. “Pay attention. Don’t disappear on me. Don’t treat me like that bastard. Don’t make me become something I’ve fought so fucking long to avoid. I won’t slip. Not for you. Not for anyone.” His fingers dug into my cheeks. “As much as you expect me to and as gratifying as it would be, I said I wouldn’t hurt you. And I meant it.”

  Words were cheap.

  I knew how lies worked.

  With a heavy growl, Elder stood.

  My stomach muscles clenched, waiting for his kick but nothing came. Instead, he scooped me into his arms and picked me up just like the day he’d carried me bleeding and mostly dead from the white mansion.

  Kicking open the dining room door, he stalked through the boat, taking the stairs rather than waiting for the lift and carrying me gruffly back to my room.

  Every step was a full stop to the confusing conversation we’d shared. Every breath was a bracket around the truths we’d revealed and then smothered just as fast with falsehoods.

  I didn’t know what was real anymore: what threat was truth and what truth was a lie.

  The moment we were behind closed doors, Elder shoved me on the bed and paced away, jerking both hands over his face. “Goddammit, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

  I lay there, naked and waiting, knowing enough not to move.

  He continued pacing, muttering to himself. Finally, he prowled back. His large hands landed on my hips, dragging my body to the edge of the bed where he wedged his jean clad legs between mine. “This is what you want? To be fucked against your will? To be used against your permission?”

  His fingers left bruises. It was nothing new.

  “Tell me why? Why do you want pain when I want to give you safety? When I’m doing my damn fucking hardest to be a better man—to protect you from myself just like I protected you from him.”

  I barely heard the question in my protective bubble.

  I didn’t blink or swallow, merely stared back unaffected.

  “You know what I think, Pimlico?” He used my name as if it was a witch’s curse. “I think you’re lost. For the first time, you have permission to rest and relax with no threat of agony on the horizon. You finally remember how life should be, and it fucking terrifies you how much you want it.”

  He squeezed me harder. “And when your mind started to accept that—that, yes you deserve this and, yes, this is how it could be from now on—you became fucking petrified.” He bowed over me, wedging his hot, hard muscle on top of my breakable body.

  He didn’t hide the erection in his jeans, pressing it against me unashamedly. “You’re weak. For all the strength I saw in you, all the power and unbreakable courage, you let questions strip that away. You let the unknown steal who you truly are, and you’ve slipped back into the only role you know. I fucking pity you.”

  His lips trailed over my cheekbone, his tongue tracing the shell of my ear. “I could fuck you right now. I could kiss you, hit you, string you up, and do all manner of disgusting things to you, and you wouldn’t fight me. Hell, you expect me to do it, and that’s what’s so bloody sick about this. I gave you my word that I wouldn’t touch you, and you didn’t listen.”

  His hips rocked, pressing against me.

  It didn’t feel good or bad. It was just pressure. Pressure I’d long since grown used to while I curled into a nonreachable ball inside myself.

  “Not only did you not listen but you didn’t believe, and I have a good mind to do exactly what you expect. I want to fuck you.” His hips thrust again. “I want to hurt you.” His teeth nipped at my ear. “Because then you might stop looking for the worst.”

  His heat made my skin prickle with sweat.

  I couldn’t breathe with his weight, but I wouldn’t shift or beg. If he wanted to smother me, then that was one of the easier ways to welcome death. A kind way to go compared to so many others.

  But then he was gone, folding off me, rearranging the steelness in his trousers.

  “But that would be too easy. You think you can control me? Get me to do something I would never do? Become someone I’ve fought all my life never to be again? Well, fuck you. Fuck you and whatever conditioning that’s ruined you.”

  Striding to the door, he jerked a hand down his t-shirt as if preparing himself to enter a room full of well-dressed diplomats. “Until you have the balls to accept that I won’t lay a finger on you; until you’ve addressed what that cunt did to you, you won’t see me again. I don’t have time for broken things; especially slaves who I believed were so much stronger than what they turned out to be.”

  He turned and strode out the door without another look.

  Silence fell like a guillotine as he slammed the wood into place.

  For a second, I didn’t breathe. I remained locked inside and safe, able to ignore the smarting agony of what had just happened. Of the degradation of what I’d become, the shame of what I was, and the guilt that I wasn’t as good as I thought.

  And then rage came again, hurling me from my bubble, dragging me back into liveliness.

  For so long, I’d tempered my anger so it curled arou
nd me but never exploded. There was nowhere for it to explode, no sobs I could shed, no screams I could utter.

  But here, as I lay naked and vulnerable with far too many wounds and far too little strength to rebuild myself, I let loose.

  I lost it.

  It wasn’t sweet, obedient Tasmin who shot to her feet and snarled at the finery. It wasn’t timid, broken Pimlico whose claws latched onto the decorative cream silk from the ceiling and yanked.

  It wasn’t me (whoever that was) as I hurled off the bed and threw cushions and pushed over chairs and smashed sea life figurines.

  I let two years’ worth of tears spew forth.

  I hiccupped and howled and gagged as my tongue pounded in agony.

  I lost myself.

  And I no longer cared if I ever found my way back.

  WHAT THE FUCK am I doing?

  The question had run a track inside my mind for the past two days.

  I should just pull up to shore, drop her off with a lump of cash, some clothes (which she would probably refuse to wear), and say good fucking riddance.

  I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t have the luxury of going down a path that had taken me so long to run away from.

  I had my own issues to deal with let alone shoulder hers.

  Did you expect her to snap out of it the moment she was yours?

  If I was honest, yes that was exactly what I bloody expected. I envisioned myself as the saviour and her smiling in gratitude and finally opening that bruised little mouth to say ‘Thank you, Elder, for saving my life. What would you like to know about me? I’m an open book for you, read my pages, pry away.’

  I dragged my hands through my hair, digging my elbows into the desk.

  Nothing was going according to plan. And seeing her struggle only made me realise how much I fucking struggled. How much I shut down and pretended I had everything I wanted—that my business kept me whole, that I wanted for nothing more than wealth, my boat, and the sea.

  It was all a bloody lie.

  I smothered myself with rules and trickery to prevent the addiction inside me from taking claim. She’d made me snap and admit some of my darkest truths at dinner.

  That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

  I was supposed to crack her, not the other way around.

  Fucking woman.

  Even in her despair, she had the bravery to show me just how much I confused her.

  Lying in bed after throwing her back in her room that night, sleep had refused to come. I recalled every word she’d written to No One, doing my best to put myself in her shoes and figure out how I would’ve coped.

  The thought of someone physically and mentally abusing me was too abhorrent; I couldn’t fully comprehend what it would be like to live with such a monster. I’d done my fair share of hardship, but it had been my own doing, not from some corrupt bastard who thought he could own another.

  Old memories sprung up, threatening to drag me under.

  Digging my fingers into my skull, I held on.

  Don’t fucking—

  Too late.

  I couldn’t stop the memory from stealing me, hurtling me back to a time I couldn’t run from—eighteen years ago where it all ended and begun.

  My mother cried.

  She’d been crying every night for four months. And because her tears were my fault, my heart drowned with every salty droplet. The shame wasn’t new. Guilt wasn’t, either. But I hadn’t meant to do what I did. If I could rewind time and fix the catastrophe I caused, I would.

  But I accepted my punishment: her disappointment in me, our removal from our home…I bowed beneath the penance because she needed me to suffer. She needed to know I felt the weight of my actions and accepted that I’d been the reason for everything.

  And I did.

  Crap, how I did.

  “Okaasan…please.” Glancing around the dirty alley we’d stumbled upon three nights ago, I ensured we were alone before dropping to my haunches beside her. “I’ll make it right. I promise.”

  She tore her body away as I placed my palm on her shoulder. Her rebuttal of my affection cut me but not as much as it had at the beginning.

  Our first night on the streets had been the worst in my entire thirteen years. I missed my room, my cello, my comfortable, if not rich life. But it was all gone now. My brother was gone. My father. Our house.

  The only thing I’d been able to save besides myself was my mother, who cursed the very ground I walked upon.

  “How can you make it right? We have nothing! No one will take us in. We’re alone.” Her sobs crushed me deeper into the dirty concrete where I’d laid a few cabbage-stained cardboard boxes from the dumpster behind us.

  “I’ll get a job. Someone will hire me. We’ll have a home again.” I swiped at a piece of torn newspaper as it blew down the wind tunnel that was our accommodation for the night.

  New York was not a kind innkeeper to those who found sanctuary on her streets—especially in fall. The leaves had switched from green to rust, and it was only a matter of time before the frigid mornings became frost and snow.

  I have to fix this before then.

  My mother cried harder into the crook of her elbow. Her black hair glistened in the faint lights of the cheery apartments above us. Craning my neck, I looked up the sides of the buildings we sat between, watching shadows of people cooking dinner and laughing with loved ones.

  My stomach growled, tearing through the silence with empty ferocity. We hadn’t found decent food since yesterday morning.

  What I’d done…it was unforgivable.

  Overwhelming hatred for myself swirled with humiliation, thicker and thicker as my mother sobbed beside me. Her pretty blouse and jeans were now grubby and tattered. Her closet full of patterned kimonos and my father’s freshly ironed suits turned to ash and rubble.

  My fingers flew over the newspaper I’d snatched from the wind. Folding it into a square, I tore off the ragged ends and set about transforming the crumpled inked page into something better.

  As my mother cried herself into a catatonic coma like she did every night, I sat silently, turning rubbish into origami. My fingers shook as I smoothed the petals of a blooming rose before slipping it gently into my mother’s balled hands.

  Wrapping her in a hug, I vowed, “I will fix this. I don’t care that I’m too young to get a job. I’ll find money and a way to fix what I’ve done.”

  My mother sucked in a shaky breath, not believing me but accepting my origami rose as a peace token. Her head rested on my shoulder as her tears slowly dried.

  She didn’t speak, but she didn’t need to. Her doubt, disappointment, and despondency spoke loudly.

  She didn’t believe me.

  I didn’t believe me.

  What could I do? A stupid boy trained in cello and origami?

  As the moon crept over the sky and the temperature plummeted until our breaths became ghosts in the night and cardboard boxes became useless blankets, I stared at the talented hands that’d given me nothing but grief.

  I’d been proud of my hands—of the skill they wielded. Now, I wanted nothing more than to cut them off.

  But…

  Wait.

  Holding two palms and ten digits in the New York City gloom, a plan began to form.

  I could strum a cord before I could run. I could curl the finest crease of paper before I could write. If I had such agility in my fingers…perhaps they could learn another trade?

  A better trade?

  One that would ensure our survival and drag us back to where we belonged.

  I’d brought badness into our life. It was time to become bad to free ourselves from it. I wouldn’t be a useless brat who only thought of himself.

  No.

  I’d be a pickpocket.

  A thief.

  And I’d steal every damn thing from every damn person to ensure my family forgave me.

  I shuddered as the memory finally let me go. Cold sweat drenched my spine.
r />   When my life had changed, giving me food instead of starvation and tailored clothes instead of tatty dumpster rags, I’d thought I’d be forgiven. That I’d erase the shame I’d brought on our name and be welcomed back.

  I wasn’t.

  I wasn’t just shunned—I was given the worst kind of punishment. I was called a ghost. Doomed to be familyless and disowned for the rest of my days.

  I’d become lost, just like Pimlico.

  And I turned to the only thing that had saved me—accepted me.

  Crime.

  Petty theft turned to illegal enterprises, and no matter how I tried to untangle myself, I only sank deeper into the sticky webs, crawling further into the underworld.

  Each dark step I took ensured I was one step closer to my ultimate goal.

  And where I was going, there was no room for a mute prisoner—no matter how much she toyed with my emotions.

  Stop thinking about her.

  The command echoed in my skull, heard but utterly ignored.

  Closing my laptop, I stood and massaged my nape. I needed a good session with Selix in the ship’s ring or a long swim in the ocean. Then, whatever thoughts about Pimlico would vanish, and I could refocus on who I was and what the fuck I was trying to do with my life.

  Striding from my office, I undid my shirt as I went. It wasn’t far to the bridge and at this time of the evening, Jolfer, the captain, would’ve signed off, and Martin would be in charge.

  He was a safe navigator and obedient.

  I wasn’t in the mood for a martial art fight with Selix, but fuck me, I needed a swim.

  Heading over the expanse of deck, I peered at the stars above in velvet black. Only the flaming galaxy lit up this place. No city lights, no houses, no cars.

  Just the Phantom and her pretty windows dancing on the calm tide.

  Yanking open the door, I strolled in and immediately spotted the man I needed. “Martin, stop all engines. Hold position.”

  Martin was older than Jolfer and his snow-white hair was almost as bright as the stars. Even at sixty, his face was barely lined; somehow avoiding the crags and furrows that a life spent in salt and sun tended to cause.

  “How long for this time, sir?” Martin asked, already pressing buttons and radioing down to the engine room to reverse direction and hold.