Page 16 of Cruel Debts
There was no use in making others suffer with me. I hated when people pitied me. What was there to pity?
I was rich, I had a good family, I even had damn good grades and a portfolio of volunteer work and leadership skills that would put most college grads to shame.
Every bad thing that had happened so far was of my own making.
Maybe I was the stupid one here, for thinking I could handle finding Keehn on my own. For thinking I was strong enough, smart enough, to tough it out in a city without any form of ID, with no bank account, and without the backing of my family name.
The spiral was knocking on my door, and all I had to do was open it and let the thoughts, the feels, the acceptance, all of it in. I slammed the door on it and winced at the physical pain it caused me to pretend my mind wasn’t frantically looking for an exit, an escape.
“Tee?”
Minnie called to me from the toher room, and I was never more thankful that I’d thought to lock the door, because she tried the knob and a shiver of remembrance ran down my spine.
He used to come in without warning, demanding access to me at all times. I was at his every whim, and there was no privacy or downtime unless he gave it to me.
“You’re not there anymore,” I whispered to myself, reminding the present me that I was safe, I was home. “Get it together, Trinity McCoy.”
“Tee? I have good news.” Minnie stayed on the other side of the door as I rifled through my closet looking for something comfortable to wear. I settled on a pair of sweatpants that were a size too big, a black tank top, and an oversized hoodie with acouple of well-worn holes in it from smoking joints with the girls after the club closed.
“What’s up?” I asked as I slid into the clothes, my voice muffled.
“Your protection is on the way now to meet you.”
I glanced around the room, suddenly self-conscious about the clothes I’d chosen. I didn’t want to be viewed as a slob. “Where are they going to stay?”
“If you open the door, I’ll tell you,” she tried, and reluctantly, I gave in, unlocking it with a sigh.
“Okay, you win.” I gestured for her to take a seat on my bed. “Start talking.”
Minnie suddenly looked everywhere but at me. “Well, here’s the catch—you’re not going to stay here.”
So she was sending me off, keeping her club safer. Made sense. I really couldn’t blame her, either. I wasn’t the only girl she had to think about.
I frowned at my clothes and turned to the closet again, reaching for a suitcase I’d stuffed in the back when I first moved in. “Where the hell are you sending me, then?”
“It’s called the Guild.”
The Guild.
Rumors always spread in a place like this, and being an underground, exclusive sex club, the rumors that flew here were usually more in line with the seedier parts of life in a town like this. SO I’d heard whispers here and there about the Guild.
Some said they were hired killers, their only motivation money. Others claimed they were crazy vagrants the city had decided to shack up in the asylum and ignore. But the truth, I suspected, was a combination of both.
Which made them dangerous.
And, I supposed, that was what made the Guild the perfect candidate for protection. Who in their right mind would messwith an organization out here murdering people for sport, or money, or whatever?
“Do you know these people?” I wasn’t too keen on the idea of trusting someone I’d never met. And if Minnie didn’t know them, then how could she possibly think this was a good idea?
“One of them is a business contact, and she’s sending her best and brightest—they’ll make sure you’re well-protected, and if you need anything, St. Clair has said she’ll make sure you get it. So you just let her know if you needanything at all.Her words, not mine.”
I didn’t like the idea of owing one more person, but what could I do? I didn’t have much money stashed away, and what I did have wouldn’t last me long. “Can I still have my nights back here at the club?”
Minnie blinked in surprise. “You want to work, knowing you’re in danger?”
My shoulders lifted, and when they fell, they felt like they’d gained a hundred pounds of added stress. “A girl’s gotta make a living. I don’t like owing people favors, so I’d rather keep my income. Plus, the routine might help me get things back to normal.”
Normalcy was key in getting over this ordeal and getting back to my life as I knew it. It was, perhaps, a coping mechanism, a masking technique to hide the broken pieces of me that I didn’t even realize were cracked yet. But right now, I’d let her, and myself, believe it was about the money.
