Chapter FourBrandonThe anger was still ripe in me as I took the stairs down two at a time. The slickness of my operation was in chaos, and Miss Emmerson would pay dearly, but still my growing pool of poor business decisions darkened around me.
This wasn’t me.
I was business. Good business decisions made up the very fabric of me. Of my life. Of my filthy fucking soul.
Why the fuck I was deviating from the well-trodden path I’d ingrained so thoroughly over the years was evading me, but my dick was still hard in my pants as I stepped onto the front porch and awaited the headlights of Lance’s truck.
I wasn’t waiting long.
The rumble came first, loud and low up the driveway. The lights swung broad against the parked cars as he pulled to a stop down the steps from me. I didn’t head down to join him, holding my position strong and tall as he cast a look in my direction and wrenched his acquisition from the back of his truck.
The acquisition was everything I expected her to be. Hunched and fearful, shrinking from the firmness of his grip on his arm. Her voice was cutting and shrill, eyes flashing up at the building as she struggled to take in her surroundings.
“Let go of me!” she shrieked. “Where’s my fucking sister? Where is she?! Take me to her!”
It wasn’t a request I’d be answering anytime soon.
Lance didn’t waste any time in jolting the needling girl back into line and shunting her up the steps toward me. She’d clearly recently taken a battering at the hands of some cunts out there in drugville, but the scuffing and bruising didn’t take away from the familiarity.
I recognised the family pitch of her cheekbones and the pretty pout of her lips. Her eyes were sunken and wild, not in any way as beautiful as the younger Emmerson sister I’d taken such pleasure in. Her hair was a thick tumble and not nearly so elfin, and she looked as though she’d need an ocean of sleep just to keep from trembling.
An ocean of sleep and sixty days of cold fucking turkey, of course.
Luckily for her there was a strange alien generosity thrumming in the very pit of me. I was poking it for curiosity and nothing more.
“Your sister is safe,” I told her, surprised at the easiness in my tone. “Please mind your manners and keep your voice down. I don’t want the whole building racing to a feral girl’s cries.”
If she disagreed with my assessment of her, she didn’t show it. She stared up through those same wild eyes, but this time they landed on mine and held.
“Drop her,” I said to Lance, and he loosed her with a grunt.
“She was a fucking nightmare,” he hissed, and headed up and on by. “Next time send one of the knuckleheads to do your muscle work.”
I waited until the front door closed behind him before I pulled a cigarette from my pocket.
Phoebe Emmerson’s eyes were still on mine as I offered her one.
“Purely tobacco, I’m afraid,” I said as she reached out her grubby fingers. “I know you usually scrape the barrel to its bitter fucking dregs with your addiction requirements.”
If she took offence, she didn’t show it. Fingers rattling around the cigarette, she stepped close enough that I could light it for her. I lit mine up and took a drag right after.
It was her that spoke next, only this time her words had a world more calm about them.
“Where is my sister? He said she was here. He promised she was here.”
“Your sister is safe and well,” I informed her. “As will you be if you act decently enough.”
“You’re the one who’s paying her, aren’t you? The guy she met on the beach? The guy who… did things to her…” Her voice was very accusing considering she was happily enjoying one of my cigarettes.
Again, against my usual preferences, I let it slide.
“I have a mutually beneficial agreement in place with your sister. The details are not your concern.”
“She’s my sister,” she hissed. “Of course she’s my concern!” And then came the victim tears, welling up in those sunken eyes as her lower lip blubbed.
I’d never had any time for the siren cries from needy little girls, happy to stare on from the side-lines as the wallowing bitches drowned alone in their misery.
I couldn’t hold back a hiss of my own in return. “Such a shame she wasn’t your concern when she was walking headlong into a total fucking shit show to save your ass earlier. Such a shame she wasn’t your concern when you were stuffing your greedy little snatch with random dicks to pay for your drug habit, not giving a shit for the sister you’d be dragging in after you.”
Her eyebrows jumped high. “I didn’t want her to go to them!”