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“Do you paint anything other than your nightmares?” Nina asks, carefully choosing her words as she lies against my bare chest.
“Not usually, no.” I tense, not liking wherever this conversation is going. I don’t want her to cry again.
“Don’t get me wrong. I love them. I think they are very therapeutic for you, and it’s good to remember your darkest side, but you would be more balanced and maybe have a more positive outlook on the world if you also painted your dreams, too.”
I suck in a breath, trying to decide if I should show her or not. My heart races, and my body tenses.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, able to pick up on the changes in my body as easily as I’m able to pick up on how she is feeling.
“I want to show you something.”
She smiles and stands. I get up and take her hand, leading her toward my bedroom.
“You shouldn’t be nervous. I doubt there is anything you can show me that is worse than what I already know about you,” she teases.
I continue walking, ignoring her, which only makes her more nervous. I open the door, flip the switch, and lead her to the single painting in my bedroom.
She gasps when she sees it, immediately dropping my hand as she slowly walks over to the large mural.
I stand back, watching her, letting her take it in before I probe her to see what she thinks.
But she takes her damn time before saying anything, and I’m not a patient man.
“What do you think?”
“I think you should have been a painter instead of a debt collector, weapons dealer, and killer.”
I chuckle. “I know art, and it isn’t that good. It’s only good because of who I painted.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Are you serious? It’s amazing. I would do anything to be able to paint as well as you do.”
I shake my head. “What do you think about what I painted though?”
She bites her lip as she looks at me. “I think you are as obsessed about me as I am about you.”
My eyes deepen when she says that about the naked painting that I painted of Nina.
“So, am I your nightmare or dream?” she asks.
“A little of both.”
She grins. “Good.”
She turns back to the painting as I walk behind her and wrap my arms around her body. I can feel it the second that everything changes. And I prepare for her to finally ask what she’s been wanting to ask since she first came here.
“How does the game end?”
I suck in a breath because I still don’t know what to tell her.
She turns her head to look up at me. “I’ve figured out what the game is—or at least, I think I know.”
I nod, encouraging her to continue to tell me what she knows while I figure out how to save her from it.
“There have been women before me. Women who have been tricked into owing a debt to your family. And, once she is here, you and your brother play a game with her life. A game where she has to choose a winner between the two of you.”
I shake my head, realizing how close she is but also how far. I don’t know when I decide to tell her the truth or if I even really decide, but it all starts spilling out, and I can’t stop.
“We don’t trick the women. They owe us a real debt. That’s how we chose the seven women.”
