Page 12 of Twisted Fate

“Alina will be staying with me,” Damian says, his attention on my frowning brother.

“What?” I gasp. “No, I won’t be doing anything of the sort.”

Markus swears under his breath. “That’s not necessary.”

Damian rises, standing close by my side, his fingers still looped around my wrist. “Isn’t it? You think I’m going to let you walk out of here just like that? Give you the chance to renege or disappear? Or try to, anyway. You owe me one million dollars, Markus.”

“I…I can give you something else as collateral.”

“What’s that? Keys to your rented apartment? Your fifteen-year-old pickup truck? A couple dime bags of blow?” Damian turns to me and says, “Here’s the way I usually do business. I extend credit at two points a week—”

“Points?” I ask.

“Percent,” Damian says. I nod, trying to mentally calculate two percent of a million dollars, compounded weekly. “If I get paid, I make money. If I don’t get paid, I seize assets and I make money. House. Car. Boat. Business. Jewelry. Doesn’t matter to me. My goal is met either way. In the end, I make money.” He gestures at my brother. “But Markus here has no assets. So he needs to provide collateral.”

I guess Damian isn’t willing to take the word of an addict after all.

He leans closer, his voice lowering. “I’m giving you a choice, Alina. You can walk out of here right now and I take my collateral from your brother in other ways.” He sends a meaningful glance toward the two thugs by the door. “Or you choose to stay and your brother walks out of here untouched…for the moment. He gets sixty days to pay his debt and earn his way back into my good graces.”

I swallow and whisper, “You want me to be a willing captive.”

His gaze rakes me. “How much does family mean to you?” The last words are barely above a whisper, spoken so close that I feel his breath against my ear.

I close my eyes, sick, desperate. If I walk out of here, Damian will do something terrible to my brother. If I stay, he might do something terrible to me.

I think of all the times Markus has screwed me over.

Then I think of all the times he hasn’t. I remember him buying me ice cream when we were kids and he only had enough money for one of us. I remember how he nursed me through the flu a week after we buried Mom and Dad. I remember Markus buying me pink ear protectors for my twelfth birthday because I was finally old enough to go to the Buffalo Rifle and Revolver Club with him and Dad.

I think about how his face lit up when I arrived on his doorstep here in Vegas. I sigh.

“Alina…” Markus says, and I don’t know if he’s begging me to stay or go. It doesn’t matter.

“I’ll stay,” I whisper, fear coiling through me.

Damian turns to my brother. “You’ve got sixty days, Markus. Now get the fuck out of here before I change my mind.”

He nods at his thugs who roughly escort Markus out of the room before my brother has the chance to say anything else. I watch with growing despair as the door closes between us.

I think I’d gone into shock while they had their brief and useless negotiation. But I finally find my voice.

“Let go of me,” I snarl, yanking on my wrist.

Damian releases me. I realize his grip was never tight. There are no red marks on my skin. There will be no bruises tomorrow. He watches wryly, as if expecting me to make a break for it, but I stand my ground.

“I’ll make this as simple as possible for you, Alina. If you attempt to run from me before your brother’s debt is paid in full, then Markus will pay for your mistake with much more than money,” he tells me, his tone flat and matter of fact. “Do you understand me?”

I’d already guessed that outcome all by myself. “So I’m your prisoner now.”

“You’re my guest. For sixty days.”

“I have a life. Friends.” It’s mostly a lie, but he doesn’t have to know that. “I can’t just leave it all behind with no notice.”

“Yes, you can.” He pauses. “You walked out of the Emerald mid-shift without even letting your boss know. You don’t have a job there to go back to. Your furnished apartment is month to month, and the month renews in three days. Your landlady won’t miss you. As for friends, you occasionally grab a drink with a girl from work. I believe her name is Susan. You haven’t stayed in touch with people from high school and your closest friend from college is in the UK doing a Masters in Architecture.”

I gape at him. How can he know so much about me, a person whose name he didn’t even know an hour ago? I think about all the times in recent weeks that I felt like someone was watching me and I shiver.

“This is insane,” I say. “You’re insane. You can’t just control people like this. Force them to do what you want.”

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