He didn’t budge. Just wrapped his fingers tighter around mine.
“Then I’m afraid his debt is now yours. Whatever happened to in sickness and in health? For richer or poorer? How does the oath go?” Byrne snapped his fingers at Kaminski behind him.
Kaminski snorted, flashing a row of rotten teeth.
“Beats me, Boss. Never got hitched. Ain’t planning to, either.”
“Smart man.”
Byrne brought my hand to his mouth, pressing a cold kiss to the back of it, darting his tongue between my index and middle fingers, showing me what he wanted to do to the rest of my body. I swallowed a ball of puke and breathed through my nose. He was doing a great job of scaring the bejesus out of me, and he knew it. Byrne was a loan shark who was notorious for collecting his checks rain or shine, and my husband owed him over a hundred thousand dollars.
He rested my damp palm on his cheek, nuzzling against it.
“Sorry, Persephone. It’s nothing personal. I have a debt to collect, and if I don’t collect it soon, people are going to assume it’s okay to take money from me without paying me back. If you’re interested in reimbursing me through a different currency, I can stitch together a plan. I’m not an unreasonable man. But no matter how you look at it—you will pay your husband’s debt, and you better hurry, because the interest is stacking up nicely as the weeks tick by.”
“What are you insinuating?” My heart jackhammered its way through my rib cage, about to abandon ship and run out of the building without me.
This idea had never come up before in the months Byrne and Kaminski had been paying me weekly visits. I was a preschool teacher, for crying out loud. Where would I be able to find one hundred thousand dollars? Even my kidneys weren’t worth that much.
And yes, I was desperate enough to Google it.
“I’m saying if you can’t pay the outstanding balance, you’ll have to work for it.”
“Just spit it out, Byrne,” I hissed, every nerve in my body ready to reach for my purse, grab the pepper spray, and empty that bitch into both their eyes. As sleazy as he was, I doubted he would give up a hundred grand just to roll me between his sheets.
“Serving men who are less than hygienic and not much to look at.” Colin smiled apologetically. “You’re a good-looking gal, Veitch, even in those rags.” He tugged at the muddy, cheap dress I wore. “Six months working in my strip club doing double shifts every day, and we can call it even.”
“I’ll die before I dance on a pole,” I seethed, pushing my fingers into his eye sockets with the hand he held. He dodged the attack by rearing his head back, but I managed to put a few scratches on his cheek.
Kaminski stepped forward, about to interfere, but Byrne waved him off, laughing.
“You won’t be dancing,” he said, his eyes glinting with amusement. “You’ll be on your back in the VIP room. Although I can’t promise you won’t be on your hands and knees, too, if they’re willing to pay extra.”
The ball of puke in my throat tripled its size, blocking my windpipe. A cold film of sweat covered every inch of my body.
Byrne wanted to pimp me out if I didn’t come up with the money Paxton owed him. In the eight months Paxton had been gone, I’d stupidly hoped he would do the right thing and show up at the eleventh hour to deal with the shitstorm he’d created, leaving me in the eye of it.
That he’d grant me the divorce I’d begged him for in the days before his disappearance.
I’d held onto my anger, refusing to let it turn into resignation because that meant accepting this was my problem.
Now, I was finally coming to terms with the hard facts Byrne had already known:
Paxton was never coming back.
His problems were mine to deal with.
And I had to come up with a solution, fast.
“What if I don’t pay?” My jaw clenched. I wasn’t going to cry in front of them, no matter what. I may not have been as feisty and fierce as my older sister, but I was still a Southie original.
A sweet romantic—but a savage, nonetheless.
Byrne’s heavy boots clicked softly as he ambled toward the building’s entrance. “Then I’ll have to make an example out of you. Which, I assure you, Mrs. Veitch, would hurt me more than it would you. It is always a sad state of affairs when the wife has to take on the burden of her husband’s mistakes.” He stopped by the door and shook his head, wearing a faraway look on his face. “But if I let this slide, I’ll lose my street cred. You will pay. Either in money, with the thing between your legs, or with your blood. Catch you later, Persy.”