Page 21 of House Rules
Pulling my wallet from my pocket, I pull a few hundred dollars out and fling them at her.
“Sorry, Sam. I don’t have time to teach you how to suck a cock. Take some lessons or something, then come find me again,” I say, turning my back on her and walking away.
Was it a dick move? Yes.
Did I feel bad about treating her like shit? No.
Since I was sixteen, I found out the hard way that the only way to keep the thirsty girls who worked at the resort in line was to be a dick. They all thought that they could suck their way to my heart, or my wallet, or whatever. Unless I am a dick and piss them off. If I piss them off, they leave me the fuck alone.
Maybe that’s what I wanted, once. Not the sucking—the staying. The loyalty. But somewhere along the way, I figured out it wasn’t going to happen. So I shut it down. Push them away before they get too close. Before they start thinking they matter.
The problem is, it works too well. Now there’s no one left I’d want to let in.
And that’s the way I like it, because I certainly don’t need or want another stalker situation.
The only one I want is my little firebird, and I can be patient. She’ll be mine soon enough.
7
Phoenix
I smellthem before I see them. Cigarettes. Gasoline. Cheap cologne. By the time I realize they’re parked a few doors down, it’s already too late.
I’m too wrapped up in mulling over Mr. Masterson’s offer as I approach my door. The mob has me bent over a barrel—right where they think I’m most useful. And least dangerous. How would they react to the discovery that I was out of their reach, however temporarily?
Not well, I imagine.
I need to find a way to make the proposal appealing to them. Maybe even think it’s theirown idea.
I’m so lost in thought thinking about it that my eyes scan and dismiss the black sedan sitting a few trailers down.
Mistake.
Walking into my trailer, I take the sandwiches I stole from the resort restaurant out of my pocket. They owe me at least a couple of sandwiches. As I put them into the refrigerator, my front door crashes inward and bounces off the wall.
Pedo-stash is on me in a second, grabbing me by the throat and pushing me up against the fridge. His gaze crawls over me, slimy with intent.
“Do you have our money, bitch?”
“It’s only been a day,” I try to say around the pressure of his hand. I shouldn’t argue—but fear makes you stupid. He’s squeezing my throat hard enough that my vision tunnels, and my lips tingle. “You gave me a week.”
“About that,” Baldy says from just over his shoulder. “We talked to our boss, and he’s not inclined to extend that sort of generous deadline to a maid. So he wants the money today.”
“What? He can’t…I don’t…I don’t have it,” I cry out just before Pedo-stash backhands me again.
“You’re going to come up with it, bitch.” He pulls me away from the refrigerator and slams me down on the kitchen table, his hand still at my throat.
He looms over me, forcing one knee between my legs. “We gave your father that money no more than three weeks ago. Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” I gasp.
“When did he die?”
“April eight,” I answer. The date does something, flips a switch. Pedo-stash tilts his head to the side, considering, before he levers himself off of me. I half sit, one hand going to my throat, and watch in horror as Pedo-stash begins pulling the kitchen drawers out one by one. “What are you looking for?”
He doesn’t answer. At the third drawer he stops and reaches in, wrapping his hand around the rubber mallet that was used to tenderize meat back when I could afford such luxuries.
He turns and eyes me, his silence somehow all the more chilling for its deliberation. Baldy movescloser, leaning against a counter. He shakes his head. “You’re telling me he offed himself the day after he got a hundred thousand from my boss?” he says, clicking his tongue. “Ain’t no way. Where the fuck would he have put the money?”
