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Chapter One
Gia
He could ruin me.
The folder in front of me held at least a hundred pages. Pages filled with pictures and details of my new assignment—my only assignment because once a girl hits the spotlight she isn’t used again. A face could only be fresh once.
Arm Candy was particular about their employees, but not so much when it came to their clients. The more troubled, the better. The farther they fell, the higher they could rise.
Abel Kincaid had hit several layers beneath the surface. He was almost in the pits of hell, hanging on to the bedrock with raw, bloodied fingers.
Bullet points detailed his lesser transgressions.
Public Drunkenness
Public Nudity
Shoplifting
Destruction of property
And that’s where I come in. Basically I’d be a highly paid babysitter. Babysitting was a job I excelled in. I’d been watching over my father for years.
Dad limped into the living room. “Morning, Gia.” His face had lost some of the purple bruising he’d received from last week’s beat down.
“Coffee?” I asked.
He groaned as he sat. “Thank you, honey.”
My chair screeched across the linoleum floor of my tiny kitchen. My apartment wasn’t much, but it was paid for and no one was coming knocking because I owed them money. My job as receptionist at Arm Candy barely paid all my bills, but they were paid.
“I don’t want you doing this. You’re not selling yourself to a man to pay my debts. He’s worse than me.” Dad shuffled through the papers and shoved them aside.
I handed him a cup of coffee. He took his bitter and dark. He said he liked it in its purest form. I thought he liked the way it blended with his personality. Dad had never been the same since mom left him five years ago. That’s when all the trouble started.
I plopped into the chair beside him and straightened the pages. My eyes continued to focus on one photo. It was a candid shot of Abel smiling. He was caught in an unfiltered moment. That was my goal. To get him to smile like that again.
“I’m not selling myself. I’m simply running adult day care.” I looked at the man who was supposed to be looking after me. At twenty-eight, I hadn’t outgrown the need for a father figure, but it had been a long time since I had one. “As for being as bad as you? Something tells me he doesn’t owe a loan shark ten grand with interest compounding daily.” I held up the latest photo of my new project. Abel was a handsome man with a beard to die for. “He seems to have missed the meaty fists of Igor.”
Dad touched his Rocky Balboa eyes and winced.
“If he does anything to you, I’ll—”
“Beat him with your cast?”
Dad’s shoulders sank.
“Consider us lucky that none of the usual recruits wanted the job.” The assignment came up so fast that no one was available to take it, which is why it was offered to me.
Dad shifted in his seat to get more comfortable. Along with his broken arm and beaten face, he had two broken ribs, and contusions all over his body. I was pretty sure there wasn’t a place on his body that didn’t hurt. Most people would think Dad would learn his lesson and not borrow money from bad men only to give it to worse men at illegal poker games, but this was the second time in two years he’d fallen short of being able to pay his debt. Two times the interest he owed was taken out in flesh.
“How long will you be gone?”
