Page 13 of Devil's Debt

“Like I told ya before, these uptown girls don’t have what you have. They don’t have your grit. Your mettle.” I lean forward across the island, and she sets her glass down, most of it gone. I fill it up again, and I can see it on her face.

The realization.

The water is endless up here. Possibilities the same. She’s not greedy, she’s never dreamt of more, and that much was clear when I told her the truth about her family’s plans to ditch her. But up here, she might actually have a chance to just do that: to dream.

“What have you always wanted?”

“To be happy,” she answers instantly, a child’s response from a woman’s mouth. But I don’t laugh at her. Not now, not when she’s so close to giving me what I want. I’ll have it in a few days, I’m certain.

But first, I’ll have her.

“Don’t we all,” I reply, and then take the two steps to bring me around the island. “Come with me.”

She follows, grubby and awkward and out of place in this minimalistic shrine to hedonism.

My room is up a set of stairs, bordered by an enormous one-way glass window that allows me to see everything in the club below from the sanctity of my own little private space. But she’ll have to have her own living quarters… at least for now.

“This is your room,” I say, opening a side door. The space is small and plain by my standards, but from the way her eyes pop, she holds a vastly differing opinion. “Closet’s through there, then the bathroom’s there next to it,” I tell her as I motion with my hand casually, like none of what’s happening is any kind of big deal.

“Why don’t you take some time to wash up,” I offer her, my words oozing with kindness, crackling with warmth like a cozy log fire. “You’ll find some clothing in the closets. Put on whatever you’re feeling.” Her size, colors and materials that flatter her, everything she needs to feel beautiful, confident, comfortable… like all good things will flow to her from me. If only she’d be receptive to them. To me.

It’s the mindset I need her nestled snugly into if my plan is going to unravel properly and in a timely fashion. The emotional manipulation may be crude, but it’s a shortcut to trust, and it’s one I need to take.

This is a game I’ve played, a trap I’ve set, a web I’ve woven a thousand times before. And at the end of the day, this spicy little thing’s no different from any of the other marks I’ve ever had my eyes on. She’ll fall just as hard and fast as them, and give me everything I desire at only my ask. It just… takes… time.

And right now, I don’t have that kind of time. This con is not a long one. It can’t be. Not when there are so many others closing in on my prize…

“I… don’t know what to say.”

I chuckle smoothly. Time to seal the deal. “I need a right hand. You need a hand up. Sometimes the world just works itself out right, right?” I smile, and when I do, it practically wills her to agree. A faint frown line tightens between her eyes, but she eventually cracks and nods, glancing away from me.

“Yeah,” she says, softly. Almost vulnerably. Almost, but not quite. “Thank you.”

I close the door on her and wait. Listening for the right sounds. For a few moments, stretching out like a pulled wire, the silence teases me with the thought that maybe, maybe this one is different, and she won’t just eat it all up.

Then quiet footsteps across the dark scraped wood floors, toward the bathroom and closet. Tell me that no — as expected, she’s just like all the rest.

They all fall.

Alone in the hall, I do nothing to suppress the grin of triumph that spreads eagerly and wickedly across my face.

The clock is always ticking — but this time, it’s counting down in my favor.

I have Katy now. She has no idea.

No fucking clue.

And when the time is right, when I have all the pieces in place, I won’t just take what’s mine...

6

Katy

I wake up slowly, like a flower unfolding in the spring sun. The bed is soft and warm, and the sheets were silky are smooth against my skin. I am so used to waking up in a scratchy, lumpy bed, the mattress worn and thin from decades of use. But now, I’m enveloped in luxury and comfort, and it feels like I am cradled on a cloud.

I sat up with a jerk, my breath catching in my throat. Where am I? The room is dark, the barest hints of light flickering to my left. The air is cool and has none of the latent heat or dust that my bedroom in the trailer does. I curl up like a knot, tugging the sheets against my body, which is when I realize I’m completely naked, my skin bare against the bedding.

My mouth is dry, a taste in the back of my throat begging for water, and my eyes slowly adjust to the room now that I’ve been knocked out of my dreams. But by what? What woke me up? Normally it would be my alarm, or Emi yelling at Dad or him hollering back, but now..

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