Page 3 of Vicious

But I do, and all I can see is blood pouring down the side of my father’s face. I shriek, my instincts ever warring between protecting him and myself. I start to take a step toward him, but when one of the thugs just looks at me, it’s enough to make me wither. Tears blur my vision, and I hide my face in my hands.

“Please,” I find myself whimpering. “Leave him alone. I need… I need to call 911.”

Giulio tosses something onto the kitchen table that lands with a wet plop.

An ear.

My father’s ear.

I want to vomit.

“Yeah, he probably does need medical attention, huh.” Giulio leans back in his chair and glances at my father. “Fuck, that’s a nasty wound. But you can tell everybody you’re a tortured artist, now!”

Oh god. Oh god.

“Baba!” I manage to say. “Baba, I’m—” I want to say that I’m calling for help, but I don’t dare try to pull my phone from my purse. They’d probably shoot me on the spot.

“It’s okay, May,” he says, though his voice is ragged. “I’m okay.” Except he touches the side of his head, where his ear should be, and his hand comes back stained with blood.

I gag, the metallic odor of blood so intense upon the air that it’s all I can do not to throw up on the spot. It’s not okay.

Nothing is okay.

A phone suddenly rings. Everybody is stock still for a moment before Giulio curses. He wipes his bloody hand on my father’s shirt before reaching into his pocket and taking his phone out. He swipes on the screen.

“Giulio? Where are you?” a deep voice asks over the speaker.

The fact that he actually put the phone on speaker feels strangely funny, even though there’s nothing to laugh about right now.

“I’m taking care of the Simon thing,” Giulio answers casually. “Man, did you know how easy it is to slice off an ear?”

I put my hand against my mouth, still trying desperately not to vomit. I don’t know how I haven’t yet. I guess it just feels so surreal, like this can’t possibly be happening, like I’m in the middle of some movie.

But it’s real.

“Taking care of… I didn’t mean for you to go in person, Giulio.” The person on the other end of the line sighs. “I thought Craig could handle it.”

Giulio looks over at Craig and waves. “Yep, he’s here too. I thought it’d be a nice outing. Company bonding, et cetera, et cetera.” His eyes flicker to me. “I was thinking, since there’s no way Simon’s paying us back, maybe we can leverage one of his other ‘assets.’ His daughter’s kind of hot. And we don’t have any Asian chicks at the club.”

It takes a full ten seconds for me to actually process his words, then fear like I’ve never felt before spikes within me. Daughter is hot. Asian chicks at the club.

Oh. No, no, and triple no. There’s no way in hell I’m letting myself be dragged off to any club this psychopath runs.

“Wait!” I say quickly. “I have…” An idea springs into my mind, half-formed and more than a little deranged. “I have a friend.” Is that what Chase Vicious is now? Not a persistent stalker, but a friend? God, I can’t even believe this is what it’s coming down to, but he’s the only wildly rich person I know.

I would owe him a debt I wouldn’t ever be able to repay, but surely it would be better than the alternative.

Giulio pauses and looks up at me. “A friend? What, is she hot too? You want to trade her to me instead of being a dancer at my club?”

I recoil at that, my lip curling in utter revulsion. “What? No!” I shake my head. Even if I had time for friends, even if there was someone I knew, I’d never consign anyone to the kind of fate he’s planning for me. “No, a friend who might… He might pay the debt.” I cringe. Maybe he’d let me pay him back a little at a time, and I could… go out on dates with him.

Let him fuck me.

Never let him see just how he affects me, or how the promise of the pain he offers calls to me.

The deep voice on the phone says, “Giulio, you have a meeting in forty minutes. Please just wrap it up.”

Giulio’s eyes are still on me, and I don’t like the calculating note in them. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Just tell them I hit traffic if I’m late.”

---