Page 58 of We Are Yours
“I can’t.”
“You can,” he persisted. “Especially since you won’t have to work your other shit end jobs. I can’t imagine you like earning pennies when you can be making hundreds, if not thousands of dollars working for me.”
“Yeah, but…”
“It’s no different from what you’re doing for me now. It’s just more hours and more money. How can you pass that up?”
“And what if I get caught?” I argued. “I mean, it’s one thing to do this once in a while, but doing it all the time? I can’t ris?—”
“Being thrown out on your ass? Is that what you can’t risk? Those bills are going to keep adding up. They come every month. You want to end up with the state again?”
“I know, but?—”
“That night at the gas station, what did you tell me? Huh? You told me you’d do anything to stay out of foster care and keep you and your brother together, and what did I do?”
“You gave me a job.”
He smiled. “You see? If you trusted me then, you can trust me now. I have your best interests at heart, kid. You remind me a lot of myself when I was your age. It's men like us against the world. We gotta stick together, you know?”
“What’s the catch?”
“The only catch is that we make a shit ton of money.”
“I don’t?—”
My stomach dropped when he interjected with…
* * *
“What about the girl?”
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Julius
“Relax,” Marco reassured with a slight grin. “She’s not my problem, but she is yours. I’m offering you a solution that benefits us both. Women are expensive. You want to lose yours because you can’t provide for her?”
I shook my head. “She’s not like that.”
“They’re all like that.” He wavered for a moment. “Does she know what you’re doing? All the risks you're taking? How much are you playing fucking hero in her fairy tale?”
“Like I said, she’s not like that.”
“No shit. The girl’s jaded, but what do you expect when you’re raised on the streets? And trust me, it takes one to know one.” He cocked his head to the side. “We all have that in common, and look how well I turned out. You want to live like me? Because I can make that happen for you.”
I thought about what he was saying.
“You love her?” he asked. “It doesn’t matter what they say. They want to be spoiled rotten and feel adored, and that takes a lot of money. If you don’t make it happen, she’ll find another sucker who will. It’s just the circle of life, kid.”
“It’s not like that between us.”
“And what do you think it’s like?”
My head was spinning. He knew how to drive a point home.
Isla isn’t like that, right?
