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He didn't reply and so I didn't pursue the matter any further. Maybe he wasn't going to try to collect what I owed him. Maybe he had been joking that he expected me to be his fuck toy. I had no idea.
As for Graham, he was recovering—slowly. He still faced a long recovery. He’d had a brief setback when he got an infection and his fever soared, but they gave him IV antibiotics and in a few days, he was better.
I called my mom finally, once Hunter paid off the debt and Graham was out of danger—at least as far as being killed by the mafia. I would have called right away if Hunter hadn't come through. I didn’t want to interrupt their cruise unless I had to.
"Celia! Why didn't you call me right away?" my mother cried when she heard Graham had been mugged. "We would have come right home."
"You don't need to come home, mom. Graham's out of danger now. If anything had changed, I would have called you, but Graham didn't want me to call you in the middle of the night and scare you. He's fine—really."
"When can I talk to him?" she asked, and I could hear the fear in her voice fading. "I want to hear his voice and know for myself that he's okay. What did they do to him? Do the police have the suspect?"
Then Spencer grabbed the phone from her and came on the line. "What the hell happened?"
I had to retell Spencer the whole story. I made it sound as if it happened only a couple of days earlier instead of a week. It was a lie but it was necessary. They didn't need to know how bad Graham had been. Graham was out of danger now. It was now all up to his physiotherapists as to how long it took him to get back to normal life.
"Celia, I don't approve of you waiting before calling us. For God's sake—what if Graham died?"
"He didn’t die, and I didn't want to call you and have mom worry. Graham's fine. He's recovering on the neurology ward so they can watch him and then he'll go to rehab."
"Rehab? Why is he going to rehab?"
"They broke his leg and arm and jaw. His jaw is wired," I said and cringed, thinking about the white lies I was telling, downplaying how bad his head injury really was.
"We're on our way home," Spencer said, his voice firm.
"You only have three days left on the cruise," I said. "Graham doesn’t want you to come home early. I'll go to see him and get him to call you. He'll say what I'm saying. Don't come home now. Stay on the cruise."
Finally, Spencer agreed that they would wait and talk to Graham before deciding. I was glad; I did not want them to come back so soon—not until we had things all figured out. Most of all, I hated the thought of telling them Graham had lost both of our inheritances. That would make Spencer furious and would really upset my mom.
I didn’t want to face that any sooner than I had to. The past few days had been traumatic enough.
For the previous few days, images had haunted me from various mafia movies of some thug in a long black overcoat entering the hospital late at night and sneaking in, covering Graham's face with a pillow and smothering the life out of him.
At least now I no longer had to worry about that.
All I had to worry about now was when Hunter would contact me to tell me what he expected of me in return.
I waited. And waited some more.
Nothing.
Over the next few days, I spent time alternating between the hospital, my classrooms and my dorm, trying to study for exams while I tended to my brother and worried about how I'd pay for my dorm the next month. I signed myself up for twice as many shifts at the pub, but it meant that I'd be swamped with work—school and job plus Graham.
I wanted to speak with Hunter and thank him for paying off Graham's debt, and ask him what he wanted in return, but I was afraid.
I was afraid to contact him first. He'd suggested that my debt to him meant I'd be his fuck toy for three hundred hours.
That both titillated me and scared me.
Titillated me because sex with Hunter, even hate sex, sounded better than what I'd had recently—in other words, nothing.
Scared because he'd become notorious as the head of his family now that Sean was dead and he had taken over.
I always thought that if Hunter gained control of his family's business, he'd take it legitimate, and break all ties with organized crime, but I guess I was wrong. In the end, Spencer may have been right about the Saint family and about Hunter in particular.
Maybe the apple didn't fall far from the tree.
My only solace was in thinking that leaving the mafia's grip was harder than Hunter first imagined.
