Page 1 of Devil's Den

Chapter One

“I’m really sorry. I could just spin the car around and take you home.”

Beth Hunter turned to her brother. “And then do what? Be on the run for the rest of our lives?”

“We could make it.”

“No.Wecouldn’t make it,me, yes, you, absolutely not.” She was trying to contain her anger, but with every passing second of Ben talking, she found that her anger was off the charts. She was so angry at him. She was positively fuming, and if he kept talking about running away from his responsibility, she was going to lose it.

“Come on, Beth, don’t be like that.”

“Don’t be like that? Don’t be like that? Are you serious right now?” She couldn’t help it and reached over, thumping him in the arm. “You’re acting exactly like Mom and Dad. You know the very reason we left them—to start a new life for ourselves—and what do you do? Oh, that’s right, you go and shit on none other than Rome Hayes.” She pressed her lips together, afraid her words might bring out the Devil himself.

She and Ben were no strangers to men like Rome. Her parents had been drug users, robbers, anything they could dothat meant they didn’t have to keep a nine-to-five job, and the money came easy.

Beth had lost count of the number of times she had to call an ambulance as her parents were ODing on whatever drug they’d been able to get their hands on. It got so bad that to make the drugs go further, their parents started to think they were scientists. Ben hadn’t turned to drugs, but he had tried to steal them from Rome. She didn’t know all the finer details, but it had cost her freedom for the next month.

Rome had turned up at their apartment door with a very beat-up Ben hanging off his arm. The moment she looked at her brother, she had known this wasn’t going to end well.

She had a choice—her brother paid the price and now worked for Rome, or she offered herself as Rome’s property. Beth wasn’t stupid. This wasn’t a month where she got the pleasure of cleaning his homes, as that is what she did as a full-time occupation. She cleaned for a living and she was damn good at it as well.

It didn’t make her amazing money, but it helped pay the bills, and it had started to bring her a life she could get used to. No crazy knocks at odd hours through the night. Food that didn’t have to be stolen. There were no worries about who her parents were going to come home with. She had started this life with her brother Ben, so they could finally be free of their parents.

Yet, she’d gotten a job and started to act like the adult she was, whereas her brother, who was older than her, seemed to be going off the rails. She just didn’t get it. When they were with their parents, he seemed put together and in control. Now, he was like a guy she didn’t know.

They had left their parents five years ago. It had been a big change for them both, but one Beth had needed.

Ben had come to her after she’d graduated high school, and he’d been worried. The guys who’d been coming aroundwere staring at her, and he’d not liked it. To protect her, they had packed up what little they owned, got into his beat-up car, and drove. They hadn’t stopped until they had gotten far enough away from their parents, that any risk of them finding Ben and Beth was gone. Once in the big city, it had taken Beth about a month to find work. During that time, they had both saved up enough to rent an apartment.

She had thought Ben had gotten a job, but one day she came home to find him having sex on their secondhand sofa. She didn’t even know who the woman was, and she didn’t have any details. Since then, their relationship had gone downhill, until yesterday, when she had the choice to save her brother or let him suffer the consequences of his actions.

Beth reached over and slapped him. It wasn’t hard. While she was twenty-three years old, he was twenty-five and should have known better. He should be the one with his shit together, not her. Instead, he’d given her no choice but to take care of him, and she was angered by it. Reaching out, she slapped him again, then again.

“Don’t you dare say shit like that. How dare you? Don’t be like that. Why don’t you stop being like Mom and Dad, huh? Why don’t you be the way you promised me all those years ago when we left?” She wanted to kick him, scream at him, lose her shit, but instead, she pulled away, grabbing the handle. “You know what, go home, find a job, and I don’t know, think about the fact that according to you, we were leaving our parents because of the guys who were giving me the odd stares you didn’t like, and think about the fact that for the next month, I’m going to be having sex to keep you alive.” She climbed out of the car. “I swear, Ben, you step out of line, you better run and hide because if not, I will find you and kick your ass, worse than anything you’ve ever felt by Rome fucking Hayes.” With that, she slammed the car door and spun around, to see the man himselfat his front door.

One of his hands was pushed into the pocket of his grey pants. The white shirt looked very crisp and clean, not like it could have been worn for the past day. It was late, it was dark, and the light cast a glow on the porch.

She held onto her bag and stared at the man who’d given her an ultimatum. There had been no time in his threat against her brother to warn him that she was a virgin. Through school, she’d been so focused on studying that boys didn’t even enter the equation. It also didn’t help that her parents had such bad reputations. She tried to avoid the guys who only wanted to use her, which turned out to be a lot of them.

“Hello,” she said.

“You always speak to your brother that way?” Rome asked.

“Not usually, but I think after what he has done, he deserves it.” She stepped up toward him. “Would you rather I not?” She wasn’t going to call Ben and apologize. He was her brother, and he’d all but sold her body to keep his ass out of trouble. There was no getting away from guys like Rome Hayes.

He had eyes and ears everywhere. Cops were probably doing his bidding this very second, and they were certainly paid to look the other way. She’d seen it all before with her parents and some of the men they had worked for.

She was so angry at Ben. His claim for them to start a new life was bullshit. She knew it wasn’t exactly bullshit but she should have seen the path he’d been going down. No job, shady friends, and she hated to admit it, but rent money had also begun to go missing.

When this was over, she was going to move out.

She didn’t have a lot of possessions, but she refused to live her life in fear. This was supposed to be their fresh start away from all the crap, not about finding new stuff to be afraidof. Ben was not going to turn into her parents.

“No, it’s nice to know you’ve got a backbone. For a second last night, I didn’t think you had it in you. You seemed a little too nice.”

Beth took a deep breath.

Nice, sweet, kind, gullible—she had heard it all before, and it did in fact suck. It didn’t, to those who appreciated those qualities. For those who didn’t, she hated as they took advantage of her, like her brother.

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