Page 10 of Devil Mine

My eyes bulge at the sum. What has my father gotten himself into to owe these people, whoever they are, that kind of money?

My mouth parts on a silent scream when the brass–knuckled hand comes down once more on my father’s face. Blood spurts from his mouth and lands on the white minimalist painting hanging on the wall. I’m shaking, my knees weak, fear threatening to make my bladder give in.

Meanwhile, the two men are talking with ease, like this is a routine Wednesday afternoon. That only serves to push the terror deeper into my marrow, like wind slithering through my winter jacket and chilling me to your bones on a glacially cold day.

“I-I swear! I don’t have it, but I can get it. I promise,” my father pleads. “I just need time!”

I’ve never heard my dad stutter, let alone beg, and he’s done just that twice in the last minute.

Blood thumps so loudly in my ears, I miss what Younger Guy says in response. I only hear the crack of the brass knuckles against bone and then my father is on the floor.

I don’t know what to do. What if they kill him?

Patting my skirt and blazer with trembling hands, I search for my phone. My heart drops into my stomach when I realize I left it on my desk. I didn’t even bring it down to Wiz’s with me.

“Stop.”

I freeze.

Dread unlike anything I’ve ever known slides down my body, starting from the top of my head and moving down, spreading an arctic chill through me.

I think I’m about to die, that I’ve been discovered.

Tears sting my eyes at the thought. I can’t die before I’ve gotten to do anything.

I can’t die before I’ve evenlived.

But I realize two things simultaneously. First, the order wasn’t directed at me, but at the two men. Both of them step back in deference when the single syllable is uttered.

And second, there’s a third stranger in the office, one I hadn’t noticed because he was sitting in a chair in the corner of the office along the wall of windows.

It’s only because I hear him stand, followed by the sound of his footsteps getting closer to my father that I know he’s there.

I jerk away from the door and flip onto my back, my chest heaving as I try to fight the hysteria crawling through me. I attempt to calm my racing heartbeat because my breaths are getting louder, more distressed, and those I’m sure they could actually overhear.

“Alex,” I hear the man say, his voice nothing more than a whispered threat. It sends a shiver through me. No one calls my father “Alex”. He hates it. He finds it disrespectful. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to take money from people who’ll kill you for not repaying it?”

There’s a dark edge to his tone that quietly emphasizes just how serious he is. This man, whoever he is, will kill my father if he doesn’t pay him back.

With my heart in my throat, I turn back around and look through the doorway once more, hoping to get a glance at the stranger. Paunchy Guy is standing closer to the door and in front of him, almost completely obscuring my vision of him. All I can see is a black suit and his left hand holding a lowball glass at chest level. He helped himself to my father’s private whiskey collection.

There’s a tattoo running down his hand. It starts from the top of his index finger and goes to his thumb. There’s a chain linking from the midway point of the tattoo down to his wrist. I realize with a scared shudder that it’s an open metal collar.

If he were to wrap those long fingers around someone’s throat, the tattoo would close around their neck, making it look like he collared them.

My lower belly flips, the feeling unexpected. It’s almost like… anticipation. Not fear.

“I didn’t steal! I was…amgoing to pay it back. I’m short on cash right now, a couple of bad investments, you understand.” Even to my own ears, he sounds pathetic. He’s no longer the looming tower of terror.

Part of me enjoys seeing him abased in this way.

But it’s the first I’m hearing of him having money troubles. I’m in charge of the company’s books and we’re obviously doing well, but I have no visibility into his personal finances.

“You gambled and you lost Alex,” the man says, his voice fearsome even though he never raises it above a conversational volume. “And now you need to pay.”

My father flinches and looks away.

I blink and the man is gone. His speed is unnerving, the way he was able to move across the room in a split-second downright frightening. The other two move deferentially around him, making it obvious that he’s the boss of whatever enterprise they’re a part of. I wonder if my father realized what he was getting himself into when he took their money.

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