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It wasn’t until the earth opened up and hell presented itself that I realized my life wasn’t disposable. I wanted to live, wanted to be a better person. I wanted that silver lining, that happily ever after. I wasn’t foolish enough to think I’d ever get any of that, but I still wanted it, and I was willing to do anything to make sure I kept moving forward.
It seemed like forever that we stayed like that: him watching me, his focus calculating, intimidating.
“You think I’d be interested in doing anything for you?”
I couldn’t deny that I was terrified for even asking this dangerous man for help. It was stupid, given the fact I was in this problem for this exact situation. “I hope you can.” I swallowed. “I mean, you’ve been watching me. You had me come here, into your office—”
He made this deep sound in his throat, cutting me off, making me even tenser, more frightened.
“What makes you think I can help you, that Iwouldhelp you?” His face remained a stoic mask, a stone statue. “Maybe I want you here, watch you, called you into my office because I want to defile you.” The way he spoke, his voice, was like ice, so emotionless, so hard and unforgiving. I had no doubt he meant that.
I was on the verge of crying.
He eyed me for a long second. “You screamed of desperation, and honestly I’m a vulture wanting to feed off that.”
My entire body went rigid, frozen to the core.
“Because that would be a lie, a bold-faced fucking lie.”
His voice was so deep, so heavy, that I felt it weighing down on me, sucking me under like a current, making me hold on for dear life. I opened my mouth but closed it promptly. I didn’t know what to say, how to answer. I felt like I’d fallen down a rabbit hole. But this was no dream. This was reality. It was my reality.
“Tell me why I should do anything for you that doesn’t benefit me completely.”
“I don’t know,” I said. It was the only thing I could come up with in that moment. This man didn’t even have to say anything for me to be afraid of him.
His expression was stoic, his face a hard mask of indifference.
This was a mistake, a terrible, horrible mistake.
Although the truth was I’d known that deep down inside. The truth was I already had enough mistakes under my belt. What was one more?
“I can give you whatever you want, whatever you need.”
He made this sound in the back of his throat after I spoke, and I didn’t know what to make of it.
“You can give me whatever I want?” There was this hard edge to his voice as he looked at me. “And what exactly is it you think I want?” He moved his gaze up and down my body. I felt like he was undressing me right then, like he’d reached out and torn the clothes from me as if they were tissue paper. I clenched my hands into tight fists at my sides, but even that couldn’t help the shaking that consumed me.
“I don’t know,” I said again, feeling stupid.Show strength.“I don’t know anyone else that can handle my problem, that can get this asshole off my back.” I took a step closer, but a blast of frigid air that seemed to come from Cameron stopped me. “He’ll do unspeakable things to me.” God, I sounded pathetic. “I can offer you…me.”
Then maybe you should have been smarter. Maybe you shouldn’t have gone to a motherfucker who uses people like toilet paper.
If Cameron cared, I could imagine he’d have said something like that. Hell, I’d said that to myself many times over. I hadn’t told him what my problem was in detail, didn’t know what this payment would entail, even if he did agree to help me. But I’d do anything. “I owe a very bad man money, even though I never spent a dime of it. I know they are following me.” I ran my hands over my thighs, a nervous habit I’d always had. “I know they’ll hurt me before I can do anything about it, make my life right…”Or as right, as normal as it could be for me.I shivered at the thought of what they could do to me.
“And you think I am the type of man that can come to an agreement with you, that I’d give a fuck what happened to you?” His voice was shrewd, his gaze glacial. “I don’t think you realize the type of man you’re standing in front of.” There was almost this touch of amusement in his voice. Almost.
A criminal?
A drug lord?
A killer?
He’s probably that and more. So much more.
“Tell me what type of man you are,” I whispered, not thinking he’d actually be honest. I thought the corner of his lips quirked up, but it was gone before I could really see if it was there.
“What type of man do you think I am? What type of man would you need to help you get out of your situation?”
Could he hear my heart? It was beating painfully hard. “I think you’re worse than them in a metal capacity, in the way you can outsmart anyone and anything.” I took a steadying breath. “I think you’re the type of man, the only type of man, who can help me.” He didn’t speak, but his gaze was unwavering. “And I hope you’ll help me because you want that bleakness I have in me, that emptiness.” That awarded me with a flicker of emotion over his face, but it was gone as soon as I saw it. “You want it because it matches yours.”
