Circled so many times there was a hole in some parts of the pages where the tooth of the paper against the pen couldn’t hold, and there was the name, Giancarlo Sandoval, and a number so large I gasped.
The numbers told me that he needed money. Well, that’s what they told me at first.
But the reality is that I need to prevent what the note written next to Giancarlo Sandoval’s name is forecasting.
‘Collecting or grave.’
Grave could only mean death. I have to do something about that. I can’t let my brother get killed by some scummy whoring casino owner.
I have to stop the collection, which I know isn’t going to be through angry phone calls or letters. It’s going to be mobster shit, frankly, and I have to make some kind of deal.
My brother is my only family. I’ll do anything for him. That’s why I feel so conflicted. I know I’m going to do this. It’s wrong, but because I need to save my brother—I’m the only one who can—I’m going to do something so wrong. For the right reasons.
Intention hardly matters. What matters is what I become. I’m going to offer my body to Giancarlo Sandoval. I’m a virgin, but I know brutish men look at women as a battle they get to conquer. I don’t want to be a prize, a price, a payment.
I can’t acquire money for my brother, but I can stop the collections. At least on this one major debt—a debt that can have such horrific consequences for my brother.
I walk out of my apartment, and when I hear the door close behind me, it isn’t like every other time I’ve left my apartment. It isn’t just the click of my heels on the tile outside of my unit. It’s the metaphor in the sound of a slamming door that resonates with me.
People say that when life closes one door, another one opens. Well, I have no reason to believe that’s true unless I’m the one opening the doors. When my brother couldn’t take care of me, I used that chance to get a job at a diner. I used to think it would just be to afford school supplies, and clothes as I was still growing. But I’ve worked at J City’s Diner for the past five years now, and that’s just how it has to be.
Now I have to save my brother from getting his limbs chopped off by some mobster … and then I’ll figure out what to do next after that.
It’s scary. I want to have a better plan. I do. But I have no idea what that plan is yet.
Those thoughts make me stop walking right here on the stairs, and I can’t breathe for a second.
But I think of my brother, and I know that if he’s ruining his life, unable to stop making these terrible decisions, or get a hold of his addiction, then I’ll get him free of at least his debts with the only currency I have. I work hard to be an independent woman, but in the end, it comes down to the fact that I’m still a woman. I need to use that rather than ignore it, because if Giancarlo accepts my virginity in exchange for my brother’s debts at Giancarlo’s Wicked Paradise Casino, then I can turn this awful reality into something good. It just takes one vile act.
It’s despicable to offer my body up for payment. An exchange of parting my thighs for a pardoning of a debt? I can’t keep gripping my steering wheel this hard because I’ll squeeze it off. I hate to drive angry. Driving is supposed to be the calming activity that I do every day, and now, driving over to Wicked Paradise, I’m ready to explode with all the fury burbling in my belly.
I wonder if my brother fell apart one bad choice at a time.
Even if this leads to my own downward spiral, it’s my choice to take this chance. I have to try and save my brother. He matters more to me than myself. I grip the steering wheel hard, this time because I’m parking and steeling myself for walking into the Wicked Paradise Casino. I breathe deep my last breath as a free woman.
2
Lucy
When I stroll inside the casino, it isn’t hard to find him. Some people like to be the center of attention, and that must be the case with Giancarlo Sandoval. I spot him instantly. Undeniably, that’s him.
That breathtaking jawline, those sharp features … he’s older, but age has done nothing to make him less attractive. I can’t imagine a younger version of him being any more attractive than he is now. He’s got a single gray streak in his dark, tousled hair that accentuates how sexy he is.
I have to take a moment to appreciate his face. Giancarlo is a wicked man, but his face is a thing of beauty. The lines on his face aren’t etchings that mar, they’re character that adds to the carved-from-marble look he has. I bet his body, obviously fit beneath his suit, is just as David’s Michelangelo. Really, his whole body is worth looking at an extra second or two.