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Romy
I fight sleep, but it soon pulls me under its spell.
The next morning, I wake up tangled in the silk sheets, nothing but the imprint of Donnacha’s head on his pillow.
Disappointment flickers in my stomach, but it’s only ember that can’t catch alight. Instead, I give in to the ache between my thighs, the soreness around my neck and breasts, and nestle into Donnacha’s pillow.
I’m in his bedroom.In a home full of locked doors, it feels like a sin to be in here. It sits on a whole different floor I didn’t know existed, and like his office, it betrays the monochrome color scheme of the rest of the penthouse in favor of decadent oaks and dark carpet. When I swing over the side of the bed and plunge my feet into it, my toes disappear entirely.
Knowing Aisling won’t be around today because of her exam, I slip on the shirt Donnacha left on the floor last night and pad into the kitchen, not caring about what state my hair is in or what bruises and marks peek out from under the fabric.
The main living space is empty. Even Paddy, the big oaf that seems to be lurking in a corner every time I turn around, is nowhere to be seen. So I head into the kitchen, wondering what Bessie Banks is cooking up today when I notice something on the island.
A set of knives.
Real ones. Made from stainless steel and finished with smooth wooden handles. I slide my fingers over them, feeling a cheesy grin stretch across my face. Tucked underneath one of the blades is a small handwritten note.
How about cooking for me instead of trying to kill me? Let’s see what you’ve got tonight.
P.S. Please use the cookbooks.
I laugh. Please is underlined twice and circled, and I can feel Donnacha’s dry humor seeping through the paper. Plucking out the largest knife from the holder, I hold it up to the light, watching it glint.
Something about last night must have shown him that I can be trusted.
How ironic because now I know I have to kill him more than ever.
As the venomous thought drips into my brain, the giddiness in my chest fades to black. I drop the knife, like I’m worried about what I’ll do with it, and sink to my knees.
Belsky.
When the pustosh’ suddenly closed, and we were hastily ushered out of the only home we’d ever known, he was waiting for me. Lurking by the gates in full-predator mode. Through the sea of crying children carrying all their belongings in trash bags, he made a beeline for me and dragged me into the shadows.
“Come with me, and you’ll be a fighter,” he’d said. Then he nodded to the chain-smoking men in suits across the street. The ones I’d seen slinking into the girls’ dorms more times than I could count. They were surrounded by girls I grew up with, chucking them under their chins, stroking their hair. “Go with them, and you’ll never be anything but a whore.”
I hadn’t spent years learning to fight to just lie on my back and open my legs.
I’d scanned the crowds for Mak, eventually spotting him down the road, talking to a heavily tattooed man I’d never seen before.
Belsky’s wiry fingers brushed my hair over my shoulder as he followed my gaze. “I won’t tell him if you don’t, hmm? It can be our little secret.”
Mak had no idea that Belsky co-signed and paid the rent on our crumbling apartment for the first year. Like me, he had no knowledge of the world outside the pustosh’ gates; no way of knowing that landlords don’t rent to an eighteen and a fourteen-year-old with no legal means of paying the bills.
He ripped that crumbly apartment to shreds when he heard I’d taken a pimp. He’d screamed at me, told me that I was no better than the other girls in the home, and that I’d done nothing to escape my fate.
If he knew the truth, his reaction would have been worse.
It didn’t take me long to realize that Belsky was no different from the pimps I’d fought to avoid. He’d fuck me like he’d paid for me. And I had clients, too; the only difference being that I killed them once I delivered my services. Businessmen, politicians, senators. Anyone that Belsky needed dead, anyone who was standing in the way of him climbing up the ladder to power, he’d have me take off my panties, then end their life.
They go quietly; that’s the way I always do it. Arsenic in their whiskey or pills in their morning coffee. Less mess and easier to slip away unnoticed.
Ten years. That’s how long I’ve been trying to claw myself out of his clutches. But he’s mastered the art of keeping me attached to him: all of my secrets he holds in the palm of his hand. The paltry money he drip-feeds me—it’s just enough to pay my bills but not enough to help me escape and start a new life somewhere he’ll never find me.
I survive because of him, but I’ll never live until I’m free of him.
Grasping for semblance, I clamber to my feet and pick up one of the knives again.
He promised this would be my last assignment. He’s reached the final rung of his ladder, and the only thing standing between him and New York City is the Quinns.
