“Jake Tully.” My voice has taken on the lazy quality that will be his only warning, assuming he’s smart enough to hear it. “Your dad is trying to open that new medical practice downtown, right? I heard the remodel has been seriously delayed, though. Getting those permits straightened out can be a real bitch.”
My father owns the only construction company in town worth working with, and it’s pretty much impossible to get any permitted work done in this town without going through Cortland Construction.
We snipe all the best labor and ruthlessly suppress the competition. I should feel bad about that, but I don’t. If the building contract isn’t with us, then the work doesn’t get done.
I see the wheels turning in the idiot’s head while he tries to decide if I’m bluffing.
Spoiler alert: I’m not.
One phone call, and his daddy’s precious medical practice will never get off the ground, at least not in Deception. The family will probably have to go right back to whatever basic bitch place they came from.
It’s tempting to do it anyway, whether he happens to be smart enough to leave or not.
But I play fair, even when it seems like I don’t. It’s not my fault that I’m the only one who knows the rules of this particular game.
“What’s it going to be?” I ask, voice a low murmur. “Daddy’s dreams go up in smoke in five…four…three…two….”
“I’ll be right outside waiting for you.” Jake says it to Zaya, but he doesn’t look at her as he slips through the door after Amelia and lets it slam shut behind him.
I turn the lock with a decisive click before crossing my arms over my chest and turning to face the girl that I’m strongly considering throwing through a plate glass window. The fact that I’m even here, about to beg her to help me keep what already belongs to me, is frankly infuriating.
My imagination is already running wild thinking of all the different ways I could make her suffer.
Zaya isn’t cowed when I turn my glare back on her. The annoyed look on her face says more than words. Happy now?
This is a first, even for us. Me showing up in the Gulch and in broad daylight. I wouldn’t normally leave my kitchen garbage in this part of town, much less my Maserati. But desperate times call for desperate measures and all that.
This close to her, her work apron looks even more ridiculous. The thing is at least four sizes two big and makes her look like she’s wrapped in a bright orange tarp. On anybody else the get-up would look like a bright orange sack, but her slim form gives it an almost endearing quality, like a kid playing dress-up in their mother’s closet.
It’s too bad that her mother skipped town years ago and that slim form is a result of skipping every other meal. Nothing against ten-year-old boys, but she shouldn’t have a body like one.
I don’t realize how long I’ve been staring until Zaya drums her fingers on the dirty countertop and makes a hurrying motion with her hand.
It takes all my self-control not to take that hand and shove it down the waistband of my jeans.
“I have a business proposition for you,” I tell her, meeting her watchful gaze with a penetrating one of my own. It only makes sense to offer the carrot before I use the stick. “I’m willing to call a moratorium on the forced mutism and all the other shit. Do one thing for me, and you’ll never have a problem with me, or anyone else, ever again.”
Her interest is obviously piqued even as she tries to hide the subtle reaction of her body, catching herself when she shifts forward slightly across the counter. Stepping back, Zaya leans against the shelf of charger cords and vape pens behind her as she continues to stare at me.
The girl isn’t going to give an inch.
And if her recalcitrance were standing in anyone else’s way, I might feel a little proud of her, but this is my life about to be screwed six ways to Sunday.
“You aren’t going to ask me what the favor is?”
She taps her mouth with the tip of one finger and raises an eyebrow. Stubborn brat is going to act like answering me is a violation, when she usually has no problem telling me what’s on her mind if we’re alone, even when she knows it’s not anything I want to hear.
“Speak, damnit.”
Her stony-faced expression gives nothing away as she glares at me from behind the counter. But she twists her fingers at the corner of her lips and then flicks her hand as if locking them and throwing away the key.
Little bitch.
“I’m also offering you fifty thousand dollars, free and clear, when the thing is done.”
Her gaze bores into mine, but the wariness hasn’t left her eyes. If anything, Zaya seems even more alert to danger than she was when I walked in. Her need for money won’t ever trump her ability to recognize a devil’s bargain when she hears one.
Unlike everyone else in this town, Zaya isn’t for sale.
She takes the barest second to consider it. Then she just shakes her head and gestures toward the door, obviously a request for me to leave.
But I’m not going anywhere until I have what I need.
“Let’s make it one hundred thousand then,” I tell her, voice casual as if I’m throwing out numbers that are barely more than pocket change. They will be, as long as I get to keep my inheritance. “And I’ll make sure your grandfather and that delinquent brother of yours are taken care of for as long as they live in Deception. That old rickety house won’t ever fall down around their ears if you agree to help me.”
It’s mentioning her family that makes Zaya hesitate. Her loyalty to them has always been absolute, even when they didn’t deserve it. But I can’t think about that right now, because then
