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“He was lucky he was only half-dead. He deserved a lot worse,” I said. I reached into my bag and pulled out a wad of bills, petty cash Elena had given me from the office. “Here. That’s almost a thousand dollars. Consider yourself reimbursed.”
Auntie Theresa scowled, but she pocketed the money right away. “It’s not enough.”
I sighed. “That’s more than paying you back.”
“No way,” she said. “You left me with one hell of a mess to clean up.”
“It was never my mess, Auntie.” My temples throbbed. I wanted to scream at her, to kick and claw and say all the things I never could at sixteen. “I was just a kid.”
“You were never just a kid.” Auntie Theresa eyed me up and down. “How’s that billionaire treating you, huh? Is it serious between you two? How’d you find a guy like that, anyway?”
“That’s none of your business. My life isn’t any of your business,” I said, feeling like I might cry. “Listen, you wanted money. I gave you money.”
“I want more,” she said immediately. “Your billionaire’s daddy called me again, ya know. Said he might want me to talk about you to an investigator or some shit—but I said I wouldn’t. That’s why I’m here. I’m more loyal than you think.”
The only person my auntie Theresa was loyal to was herself. “When was the last time you talked to him?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” When she smiled, I noticed that Auntie Theresa had treated herself to a gold-capped tooth. “Thing is, I wanted to see you first. I want to offer you a chance to make things right before all this gets out of control.”
“How much do you want?” My voice was so flat; the words sounded more like a statement than a question.
“A million dollars.” Auntie Theresa’s full smile was so ugly. “That’s a bargain for keeping my mouth shut. If that billionaire knew what you did, he wouldn’t want anything to do with you. You look different, Jenny. Cleaned up. Like you think you’re better than everybody. But I know the truth.”
“I don’t have a million dollars right now,” I said. My voice sounded dead to my own ears, like it was coming from far away. “That’s the truth. But I could pay you in a month or two.”
“That’s not good enough. I need moneynow. Otherwise, my lips are gonna get real loose.” She kept smiling, and the smile went all the way to her eyes. Auntie Theresa lived for this shit.
“I could give you ten thousand right now.” My stomach churned—ten thousand dollars was a lot of money. I could only pay her because Cole had already paid me for the original assignment. That money and the million dollars I would collect for being his date to James and Audrey’s wedding were supposed to be my nest egg. I needed to make it last for the rest of my life so that I’d never have to go back to hooking or working at Sizzler again.
The idea of giving my aunt money made me sick. I was making a deal with the devil, and I knew it. “That’s all I can do, I swear. But you have to promise to go away and not come around here anymore. This is a real fancy building—they’ll call security.”
“Oh, I know it’s so fancy,” she tsked. “You and your stupid building. You think you’re such hot stuff.”
Theresa was older than me by twenty years, but she’d always been jealous. Time had passed, and she’d grown into middle age, but she hadn’t seemed to mature. I would have liked to point that out to her, as well as the fact that her eyebrows looked too harsh and she had no business wearing a crop top, but I didn’t say a word. I still felt like I was trapped in a nightmare, the kind where you were frozen and you couldn’t move or scream.
“I’ll take all the money you can give me. Venmo me within the next hour, and I’ll leave you alone. For now,” Theresa added. “But don’t forget, you can run, but you can’t hide. You did some bad things, girl. If you don’t pay up, that billionaire of yours will. Or his daddy. Or better yet, both of those rich fucks.This is my lucky break. You were never anything but trouble.” She pulled another puff from her vape pen and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke at me. “Who knew you’d turn out to be my good luck charm?”
Auntie Theresa tapped out something on her phone, her long nails clicking against the case. The noise made me shiver. It sounded like spiders scuttling over broken glass. “There—I just texted you my Venmo. I’m gonna stand outside until the money hits. If it’s not enough, you’re gonna hear it.” She slid the sunglasses back down, perching them on her ugly, squat nose.
I straightened my shoulders. “If you return to the building, I’ll tell Cole what’s happening. I’ll tell him you’re blackmailing me.”
Auntie Theresa smiled again, her gold-capped tooth glinting in the sun. “No, you won’t. You won’t tell him a thing.”
She sashayed away, exhaling another cloud of vape smoke that smelled like toxic cotton candy. “I’ll be waitin’ out here. Hurry up and Venmo,” she called.
I stood there for a moment, reeling. I felt physically ill.
No, you won’t.You won’t tell him a thing.Her words echoed in my head.
She was right about that. Auntie Theresa was wrong about a lot of things, but she was right about that.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
cole
Jenny satat the end of the bed. She held out a large mug of coffee toward me. “It’s late. You need to get up and drink this. Otherwise, you’re going to get a headache.”
“Oh, I already have a headache.” I sat up, wincing. I was hungover. I was sexed over. I was also probably dehydrated. But the prettiest girl in the whole world was sitting at the edge of my bed, offering me a coffee, which made everything okay.
