Taken For A Debt: A Mafia Romance (The Taken Duet 1)

“It’s called standing up for myself. I’m sorry you probably haven’t encountered it a lot before.”

“You’re just causing trouble for yourself, Julia. Sit down.”

My feet were really starting to hurt, so I obeyed with excessive grace, and I even met Devin’s gaze as he sat across the table from me.

“I’d like to have a nice evening, Julia, and then I’m going to allow you to get in contact with your parents so we can set this in motion, so if you can refrain from these juvenile plays for attention it’s actually going to get you what you want faster.”

“I don’t think you know what I want right now,” I snapped, which caused his eyes to widen the way they seemed to just before he asked a question I didn’t like.

The sommelier arrived at that moment, which saved me from finding out what he had in mind.

“I’ve been kidnapped,” I told her, “by this man here, and I need access to a phone.”

She pursed her lips at me, and then looked to Devin. Like he was my fucking father. Was this what women got once they had a husband? It wasn’t selling me on that idea at all.

“Julia,” said Devin, “I know you’re angry with me right now, but I don’t think it’s right to keep dragging the staff here into this little joke of yours.”

The sommelier made a satisfied little noise, aha I can safely ignore this now, and held out the wines list for our perusal.

I’d never felt more awkward about the games I’d played with that poor kid Steven. This was exactly how he must have felt: like it wasn’t entirely his fault, but nobody saw what was right in front of their faces anyway.

After Devin had selected a rather ostentatious-sounding red for us to drink and we were left alone again for a moment, he focused on me again with that look I’d been so uncomfortable about before.

“What happened to that boy, anyway?” I frowned at him. “The one who kidnapped you.”

It seemed like a seriously bad situation when Devin was asking me about the exact person I’d just been thinking about, but Steven seemed like a relatively safe topic of conversation, at least. A chance for me to show my emotional range in having worked out in the years since that what I’d done to that boy was not the smartest or the kindest thing to do to a boy. And it was a matter of public record, so there didn’t seem to be all that much point in keeping it to myself. Come to think of it, possibly Devin already knew all that was out there to know, and was testing me.

“He let me go, so it was entirely up to me how I pursued justice. I told my parents he was just some guy who’d come around and seen me in the yard once, gotten obsessed with me. I said I only wanted a restraining order because it felt like… like he’d made a mistake on impulse, spouted some noble forgiving bullshit everyone seemed to really eat up. The truth was I didn’t want him to go away where I wouldn’t be able to see him again. He wasn’t ready to handle me, but I liked spending time with him. I guess I felt he had an innocence I never really did, although I couldn’t exactly describe to you what that was.”

“Two things surprise me about the situation,” Devin said. “That this boy was able to snatch you from your house at all… but considering all I saw last night, I’m happy to attribute that to your parents’ hubris and incompetence. But the second is that they learned enough about what happened to you, and they didn’t destroy him. If any little boy presumed to do that to my daughter… he would fail first of all, obviously, but I would make sure he had a memento that lasted.” He fingered the slightly protruding sleeve of his fresh white shirt.

I tried not to let the faint scent of clean linen bring me back to a place that made me shiver. “You really have a complex about inflicting dick injuries, don’t you.”

Devin just shot me this cute little smirk like he was pleased I’d worked out exactly what he did to that other guy.

“Honestly,” I said, because I was trying to get my head around that question now too. It wasn’t that I’d ever wanted my parents to interfere in the situation with Steven, obviously not, but I’d also assumed they had nothing useful to contribute in my defence. Now I was being told my mother had gotten kneecaps bashed just for a view. “I feel like they got a kick out of me handling the situation by myself. Like, I think Daddy said at one point something like, ‘sometimes it’s better to keep the situation where you can manage it.’ They had no idea that I kept seeing Steven on and off after the order was in place, but the order itself was something spearheaded by me, on the public record.”

Devin was nodding. “They would have had a lot of pride in you after that.”

“Well I wouldn’t go quite that far. I think it amused them while they were thinking about it, that’s it.”

I shifted my feet under the table to ease the strain on my knees, bunched up in an awkward position thanks to those stupid shoes. I was about to change the subject, because my parents’ utter disinterest in me was not something I ever wanted to discuss with anyone, but Devin was already moving forward with his next question. “You handled the situation well yourself, but it still must have been a frightening experience for you. Were you more wary about leaving the house, after that?”

Oh, I saw exactly what he was trying to do there. “I’m still not talking to you about—”

“O’Hare!”

We both turned as someone stopped by our table, but I noted Devin didn’t seem all that thrown off by the intrusion. The man who was now leaning both his hands on the tabletop wasn’t anywhere near as nice to look at as Devin, and probably about twenty years older, but his tailored suit would have definitely put clothing afficionados in as much of a quiver.

“Royson,” Devin returned. “Wonderful to see you here. Enjoying a night out—with the wife, I hope?”

Royson laughed, in that we’re playing around but also I could kill you right now way that took me right back to my distant memories of other girls at school. “With Angelina, yes. I see you’ve found yourself some lovely little company too…” He squinted at me like he was about to claim we’d met before, which seemed impossible of course.

Devin didn’t even require him to say it. “Andy Royson, meet Julia Mahoney.”

Royson clapped his hands together in a way that made me start like a rabbit. “Yes! The resemblance to Eileen is remarkable, isn’t it? You must get told that all the time.”

“Never, actually,” I muttered, because I was quite sure it wasn’t true. About the only thing my mother and I had in common when you looked at us was resting bitch face.