Page 6 of Possession

“Because it’s time for you to pay me back, you ungrateful little shit.”

I stare at him, dumbfounded. “Imop floors. I don’t have any fucking money!”

Frank looks me up and down sneeringly. “Obviously. But you have your pretty face, which is worth something, just like your mother’s was.”

I recoil. I don’t know exactly what he’s getting at, but it feels off. Bad. I have to get out of here. Away from him.

“Mr. Prescott,” a man says from behind me. “You need to come with us.”

I spin, catching sight of two men, both dressed in black, both bearing guns. I definitely want nothing to do with this. I bolt.

Frank lunges for me but misses.

“Grab him!” he shrieks.

I only make it a few strides before a hand catches my sweatshirt. I try to twist free but freeze when a gun nudges my back.

“Don’t make this ugly,” the guard warns.

“Whatever this is has nothing to do with me!”

The only answer I get is the gun bumping my spine and the order, “Walk.”

I don’t have any choice but to let the guard push me through the crowd to a set of stairs. My heart is pounding so hard I’m dizzy, but somehow I make it to the top.

There, I try to stop because I don’t like what I see, but the guard shoves me forward.

I stumble across a balcony set up like a lounge. I glimpsed the balcony when Frank and I first walked into the converted warehouse. I assumed it was some kind of VIP seating but didn’t think much of it.

But this is more than VIP.

The well-dressed men seated on the leather couches with drinks and cigars aren’t businessmen like Frank. They’re not weaselly, low-level schemers.

They’re organized crime.

Frank gets dragged past me and forced to his knees in front of a man with salt and pepper hair wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. He’s the most dressed down of the men, and clearly in charge.

“Well, Mr. Prescott,” he says with a slightly lilting accent. “You owe me quite a bit of money now, don’t you?”

“It was a mistake—”

“That it certainly was.” The man’s fingers drum on the leather arms of his chair. “The word is, you have other debts. How do you plan to pay this one?”

Frank gulps visibly. “I-I do have a plan. The boy. Seventeen. A virgin. With that face—”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. My brain skips straight past Frank’s lies. The fact that I’m twenty-four and not a virgin doesn’t really matter right now—becausewhat the fuck?

I stumble back. The gun bumps my spine. I jump forward. Then I jump away. I don’t think. I just run.

I only make it a few steps before a huge body tackles me to the ground. I flail and shout as I’m hauled to my feet, grabbed in a hold from behind. My arms are pinned to my sides, but I kick my legs desperately. Something solid thumps me in the head. White light bursts. My thoughts scatter.

I’m not out completely, but I’m loose and sloshy inside myself as I’m hauled back to the gathering.

“I’m willing to sell him,” Frank is arguing frantically. “Brothel work or private use. You don’t find a face like that just anywhere.”

The man in charge, who’s been sitting back and watching all this like he’s mildly entertained, leans forward in his chair, getting businesslike. He nods to one of the guards, who grabs Frank. Frank scrambles a little at first but quickly stills when a gun prods his skull.

The man in charge now wears a cold, unamused expression. He says, “You tried to have my Beast drugged, Mr. Prescott. You tried to cheat me.”

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