Page 24 of House Rules
Anyway. This is the number I’m supposed to call, whenever I’m ready to take the deal, or if I have questions.
It’s well past five o’clock, and I’m sure she won’t answer, but I can at least leave a message and then find somewhere to sleep for the night.
To my surprise, she answers on the first ring.
“Mr. Masterson’s office. How may I help you?”
“Oh. Hi…I wasn’t expecting…I mean, this is?—”
“Phoenix Jones. How may I help you?” Her demeanor is cold but professional, and I can appreciate wanting to get to the point. I take a deep breath.
“I’ve decided to take Mr. Masterson up on his offer. When will I be able to come in and sign the contract?”
“He’ll be in his office until seven o’clock tonight. I’ve been directed to let you in at any time.”
“So I can come now?” This was surprisingly easy. Too easy. My gaze flits back and forth, watching the growing shadows that breathe between the buildings. I’m waiting for one to jump out at me. Tosnatch this opportunity away before I can even begin.
“Shall I tell Mr. Masterson to expect you within the hour?”
“Yes. Thank you?—”
The line goes dead, and my stomach twists. I don’t know if it’s hunger or fear… maybe both?
I don’t want to be the Titan’s babysitter—not for a year, not even for a week—but what are my alternatives? If I can do this…if I can get enough dirt on the Titans and deliver it to the mob, then they’ll have to leave me alone.
I’ll be off the hook for my father’s debt.
Part of me cringes at what the mob might do to the Titans, but I shake my discomfort off. They’re more than capable of taking care of the mob—paying them off or whatever it is Mr. Masterson does to keep his son out of jail. It’s not like a bunch of low rent thugs can actually get close to them…right?
And even if they do, the Titans are far more capable of handling themselves than I am.
Once all of that is handled, my only remaining obligation will be to finish serving out my contract. One year, and I’ll get one point two million dollars. I’ll start over. Phoenix Jones will die here in Savannah, and I will be reborn as someone else, somewhere else.
I do know that the longer I wait, the less likely my nerves will be to hold up. The walk to the casino isn’t too long, only a mile, but at night when I’ve already been roughed up, with my body aching and sharp arrows of pain jolting through my arm, it seems to take forever. I jump at every sound the city makes around me. Even a cat startling from a stoop almost has me crawling out of my skin.
Not nearly soon enough, but eventually, the buildings thin into a more open expanse adjacent to the river. The lights of the casino boat shine on the water as it heads out on a brief nighttime voyage, and I take a deep breath in. The resort is just beyond, on the other side of the dock.
The tall tower of the main building rises from the riverbanks, bright, shiny, and luxurious with lights shining in scattered windows. A beacon of modern elegance that somehow fits with Savannah’s slow southern crawl.
It’s also oddly foreboding, the parking lot surrounding the building quiet and devoid of people.
Every fiber of my being tells me to turn around, tells me to run and not to stop running until I’ve hit that Georgia state line.
If only that were an option.
Straightening my spine, I walk forward, trying to draw upon a core strength that I simply don’t have.Fake it til you make it. I force my legs to keep moving closer and closer to what is definitely going to be the most dangerous, impossibly difficult, and painful year of my entire life.
What if it doesn’t work? What if I lose everything—and I still don’t make it out alive?
Peril lurks around every single corner. The mob that demands I pay my father’s debt…if they decide that the information I give isn’t worth my father’s debt, they’ll beat me until I’m broken and then whore me out until I’m dead.
And If the Titans find out that I’m leaking information to someone else, someone meaning to do themharm, they will kill me. Even if Con did love me once. Maybe even because he loved me.
And who knows what they’re planning to do to me for the span of the year?
Every time I blink, I see Conrad Masterson’s dark blue eyes staring down at me, his shapely lips twisted in that cruel smile as he touches me, knowing that he can control my entire body with just a word and the tips of his fingers.
Worse, he had touched me in places that were so intimate he had no doubt regarding my body’s response to his every command. Unbidden and unwilling, perhaps, but my body responded. I couldn’t deny that I liked him hovering over me, pushing me against the wall and trailing his fingers over my skin. Touching me in places no one other than he had ever touched me before.
