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“Fuck you. You know what I meant. She’s going to die if you don’t stop giving it to her,” I said through gritted teeth, and was horrified when I realized my eyes were burning and Beck was blurry. I clenched my teeth tighter and blinked the tears back.
But he’d already seen.
“Jess,” he said softly, his expression equal parts frustration and shock. Looking around us at people randomly walking about, he pulled me toward the building and dropped his head closer to mine. “Jess, you know I don’t have a choice—”
“My life and my choices were taken away because you won’t stop feeding her addiction, Beck.”
Anger and disgust flashed through his eyes. “Jesus fuck, Jess. Don’t ever put that shit on me. You had a choice. You made it,” he reminded me. “This could’ve been different.”
“I told you my condition,” I hissed.
His eyes only hardened.
Time passed as we glared at each other. Eventually, he broke. “I didn’t have a choice,” he admitted. “If she doesn’t come to me, she’ll find someone else . . . and it’s best that she comes to me. You don’t know what would happen if she used one of the other dealers in town. You don’t know what they would do to her.”
“Don’t I?” I asked with a soft, demented laugh. “And don’t say that as though I should be comforted by the thought of what one of you would do to her if I didn’t pay her debt.”
Beck was in his late twenties—a few years older than me—and had been my mom’s dealer for the last ten or so years. He’d taken the protector role with me and tried to slip into something more than that for the latter half of that time, but it didn’t change who he was. What I was. And why we ended up in each other’s company every day.
He didn’t try to take advantage of me like other dealers. He didn’t try to touch me the way the older men had when I was only a child. But I would be an idiot to forget that he was incredibly dangerous.
It had taken many months slipping into that massive house and meetings unnoticed before I found out who Beck worked for—what ruthless family he was involved with.
The O’Sullivans.
When you find out the Irish-American mob is a very real thing that still runs as strongly as it does silently, and they control a good portion of the cocaine that moves through the south—and most importantly, that passes through your mother’s veins—you do whatever it takes to keep her from their wrath.
Even if it means destroying yourself.
Beck sighed through his nose and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “It’s business, Jess.”
At least he had the decency to sound apologetic. Slightly.
Asshole.
I wanted to yell that his business was killing my mom—the only person I had in the world. Instead, I forced my expression to calm and my eyes to become hooded. My mouth fell into a pout as I leaned closer to him.
“Business? Beck . . .” My lips slowly stretched into a grin. “If you wanted to talk business, you only had to say so. You’ve already kept me held up here for five minutes now. In my business, time is money, even if you aren’t able to perform. Clock’s tickin’, baby. How much longer do you want to keep me in your presence? Because I have roughly half an hour left until that three hundred ninety dollars is mine again. Less if you decide to take me against this wall and make me—”
I cut off with loud peals of lau
ghter when Beck shoved me away from him, causing me to stumble a little before I regained my balance.
“Aw, did I hit a nerve?” I cocked my head to the side and giggled wildly. “Nope, didn’t feel anything.”
“Fuck you, Jessica.”
Yeah, well, at least I wasn’t crying anymore.
I grinned mockingly at Beck as I sauntered toward him again, but faltered at his next words.
“You think I’d touch a whore as fucked up in the head as you?” he asked with a sneer.
My smile froze on my face, but I somehow managed to continue moving toward him. Somehow managed to press myself against him as I dug into my purse for what I had made that night. Somehow managed to look at him from under my eyelashes and speak in that low, throaty tone I knew he loved rather than screaming at him.
I pressed some of the cash into his hand. “I seem to remember a time where that statement wasn’t true.”
His eyes creased in the corners, like he wanted to apologize for what he’d said, but his voice was hard when he spoke. “That was before you started selling yourself.”
