Page 99 of Cruel Debts
"Fine. You want a complacent, quiet bitch, you got it. You want me gone, you got it. You just get on out there and get to work, and I'll be packed and ready to go when you finish the job and come back to kick me out. I'll even get on the train willingly. I'm so sorry to have disturbed your fragile ecosystem here, Liam. Pardon me for thinking I could stay here and feel normal for once. That my brother's best friends would welcome my presence and help me find him. I'm so sorry that my kidnapping and escape caused you undue stress. Just tell Minnie that your contract with her is complete and that'll be fine."
"Trinity—" he called out to my quickly disappearing back, but I didn't stop. I took the bottle of water and chucked it at him, capoff, before disappearing around the corner and slipping into my room, where I locked the door behind myself.
Here it was, the opportunity I had been waiting for. The opening to run, to leave this behind and return to my old life. To leave these assholes behind and find my brother. But now that I stood in the middle of my room in a pair of joggers and a crop top, with my go bag beside the window and Liam's backup gun from under the counter slipped in my jacket pocket, where I expected to feel a sense of freedom, I only felt sadness. Here I was, about to do what I swore to do all this time—leave this cage and find Keehn. Or, find out what happened to him. But I was reluctant to go. Not only was I hesitating, I felt . . . sad?
I didn't want to leave these men. As much as Liam infuriated me, I didn't want to go for good. This was the only place I'd ever felt even slightly accepted for my true self, and not the big money princess I pretended to be for my family's purposes.
I set the go bag down and reached for my work bag. I wouldn't go for good, but while the others were out, and Liam was here, I could give him a reason to worry. I'd open the window, slip out, and leave my go bag in the middle of the floor. Let him think I ran. Let him think I wouldn't come back. Give him time to worry about me.
I knew he would.
A petty part of me rose to the surface, and she was out for blood. She wanted to hurt Liam like he'd hurt me. She wanted him to know how much she hated him in this moment.
I couldn't hate him forever. But I could hate him for right now.
I pulled out my phone and texted the wordsfuck you, asshole,to Liam's contact in my phone, then hit send, because why stop at petty when you could actively be an asshole right back?
I'd only be gone for a few hours. The door was unlocked, and eventually he'd come looking for me. When he found the room empty, he'd worry. And when I came back, I could ask him how it felt to be weak for a change.
Like he made me feel.
With a last look at the room, I grabbed my cellphone off the bed and climbed out the window, determined to blow off some steam in the only way I knew how. The only power left to me.
The club.
This wassingle-handedly the biggest mistake of my life.
Minnie was conveniently absent from the club tonight, so getting in took a lot of work, especially since security had switched around in my absence. That meant finding a girl who could vouch for me, get me in the door, and then get me acquainted with the new staff.
There were a lot.
What happened in the last few days to this place? Seriously? I'd been gone a week, and it felt like a whole new club.
The clients felt skeevier than usual, too. And the girls wore strange, matching lingerie. Nobody was bare-faced, and even I was issued a mask when I moved along to the dressing room.
After about an hour on the floor, I still hadn't been able to track down someone to let me into the private performance rooms, and the bouncer on that end of the hall refused to let me walk down without a pass. Which I didn't have.
Something felt off. So I tried calling Minnie.
Voicemail.
I tried her second phone number, the one she said to only use in case of emergency.
A man I'd never heard before answered that one.
The only choice left was to go up to my old apartment and wait it out, because no way was I going back to the Guild this soon. Hell, Liam probably didn't even notice I was gone yet.
The apartment was safe. I would be fine there. And security downstairs took care of the access point to my apartment, too, so there would be double safety nets. The guys couldn't get mad at me when I was taking all these damn precautions.
Even the stairs up to the second floor felt eerily off, though. Still, I chalked it up to the whole vibe of the night being off and kept climbing. I was just keyed up, that was all. Liam had me off-kilter. Him and his bullshit asshole mouth?—
The second I typed in the code to the apartment, the air got still around me. Opening the door felt like an out-of-body experience. And when I spotted the men inside the room that I'd once called my living room, I knew I'd made a grave mistake.
Their eyes fell on me in quick succession, and one of them at the end looked a bit familiar—like I'd seen him before.
It snapped into place too late.
He was the asshole who kept me hostage at that dickface Tennicent's mansion as a pet.
