Page 20 of Room Seven

“It’s going down.”

Cassius cuts me off, but he’s not speaking to me.

“What?” I hiss. What the hell is going on here? Did they know about this?

But I don’t get answers. A man speaks from the living room and I hold my phone out so the men of Genesis can hear.

“I don’t enjoy repeating myself. Your wife must like it rough to not give me what I want.”

I hear gagged groans and my heart falls to the floor.

“All you had to do was come to me. You don’t need to involve her. She’s weak, but fiercely protective of the slut she birthed.”

My father.

“Either way, I’m here and I need the debt you owe me paid.”

“And you want Constantine blood as payment.”

My father is stating a fact, not asking.

“Money or blood.”

What the hell is my father into?

There’s a gurgle followed by a heavy cough.

Mom.

My hand moves to my blade. It’s nothing against the guns I know these bastards have, but I can’t just hide.

“Don’t even think about it. Hold tight, Aster. Are you in a safe place?”

Harlon must sense my urge to go to my mother. She is a lot of things but still my mom.

“It doesn’t matter. They are hurting her.” I answer in a harsh whisper through the speaker. I mean, there’s a wall at my back.

Santi releases a string of Spanish profanity. A few I know by heart and the new ones I file away.

“Stay where you are at. We’re on our way.”

My father’s rough baritone fills the silence. “She could be damaged goods. I had some friends. I think they fucked her to fuck with me.”

He pauses. Probably visualizing murdering my godfathers.

“You can have her. But I want all my debts dissolved. Every single one of them, Romanov.”

Cold steel drives into my heart. My father? I knew he hated my connection with my godfathers, but I had no idea he harbored so much hate.

A lumbering shadow passes in front of the archway. I plaster myself tighter against the wall. Romanov? As in from Genesis?Nah. My head scrambles to piece all this together.

Then again, how many mobsters named Romanov’s are there in Chicago?

“I don’t want a whore. But my boy needs a broodmare, and the hips he’s seen on her will do well in carrying Romanov blood.”

My eyes widen, and it takes a moment for my brain to register the words. Bile rises in the back of my throat for several reasons I don’t have time to list out.

The silence becomes a coffin around me as my mind races to for a plan to save my mother without getting us both killed. Screw my father. I know my brothers look down on me as the cute little pixie they have to protect–their words, not mine. But I really could use six guys on my side.

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