Debt

The men at the door did small chin-jerks at their boss, moving to open the door and mutter, "Mr. St. James," under their breaths at him.

"Hey Tyler," I said to one of the guards I actually recognized from all my many visits to pick up my father. He was tall and wide as a linebacker with short-cropped wheat-blond hair and warm brown eyes.

"Hey, Pretty Prue. How have you been?" he asked, giving me a smile, but his brows were drawn together at seeing me with his boss.

"She's fine," Byron snapped, pushing me through the doors, his entire body way too close to mine, his hand landing on the side of my hip, pulling me slightly against his side. "You were right," he told me close to my ear, his warm breath making me shiver slightly.

"About?"

"I was going to say something," he told me and there was a weird, un-called for squeezing sensation in my chest.

Byron led me into the lobby then toward the left where I figured all the offices and storage and security was situated. "What are we doing here?" I asked, stopping with him beside an elevator, waiting for it to come down or up from wherever it was.

"I have some business," he offered unhelpfully as we stepped into the elevator that somehow managed to seem upscale as well. I mean it was a freaking elevator, but it also screamed 'money'.

"Okay," I said, shaking my head as he hit the button for the second floor. "Let me rephrase that. Why am I here?"

"Does it matter?"

"Are you capable of giving a straight answer?" I shot back, watching our blurry reflections in the elevator door. Even his stupid refection was good looking.

"Are you incapable of just letting shit happen?" he asked, turning to me, putting all his focus on me like he was expecting a genuine answer.

"Yes," I decided because, well, it was true. I never did anything without thinking it through, without thinking of the possible outcomes, and the outcomes to those outcomes and on and on and on until I drove myself half-crazy. I was not a laid back person. No one would ever accuse me of 'going with the flow'.

His head tilted, looking surprised at my honesty, but he said nothing as the doors dinged then slid open slowly. Apparently Byron spared no expense even in the guts of his business. The floor we walked into had deep, flawless wood floors, matching desks, an insane amount of computers and TV screens, and a glass overlook to the floor below. Two way glass, I imagined. Even though it was late, the entire room was full of personnel, watching screens, typing into computers.

It was the security room.

I'd always figured casinos must have pretty state-of-the-art security in place, but everything about the room from the dozens of monitors showing what seemed like every square inch of the floor below from multiple angles, to the almost two dozen men and women around watching said screens, to the actual catwalk that you could access from a door to the far end to walk across the room and see things with your own eyes, was impressive. It made me feel incredibly insecure about all the times I had stormed into the room, looking around for my father, talking to my father, trying to coax him away with me. How many eyes must have been on me over the years.

"Prue," a voice called, so unexpected in a room full of strangers, making me jump slightly and take a step back, causing me to bump slightly into Byron's shoulder. My head swiveled to place the voice and landed on Aaron's kind face, giving me a sweet smile. His brows were drawn slightly together. "What are you doing here?" He asked me, but suddenly his focus was on Byron, making it almost sound like an accusation. Like I wasn't welcome. Which was ridiculous seeing as Byron owned the place.

"I, ah," I started when the tension between the two men started to feel palpable, making my skin feel scratchy.

"Back off, Aaron," Byron commanded, using his clipped voice I had heard so often. "Come on," he said, voice a sight softer, his hand going to my lower back again.

Without much choice, I let Byron steer me away, looking over my shoulder at Aaron. "Nice to see you again," I said as I was pushed toward the door out to the catwalk. He opened it for me and pushed me out, closing it behind him. "What are we doing?" I asked as soon as we were outside, putting my hand out onto the railing to help my suddenly wobbly equilibrium. It wasn't that I was afraid of heights. Just the mangled bloody death from falling from them.

He had turned to stride forward across the narrow walk that met the other wall a dizzying long distance from where we were standing with nothing to prevent said mangled bloody death save for two railings, one just above waist-level, and one near the knee. He turned back when he noticed I hadn't moved to follow, taking an unnecessarily slow inspection of me for a minute, his brows drawing together. "You're afraid of heights?"