I was tempted to duck into the garage and stuff a potato into the exhaust pipe before heading inside, but I resisted the temptation of digging one up from my mom’s garden—yet another thing my stepfather didn’t help with. Instead, I headed up the stairs to the side door that led into the kitchen. When I got to the landing and saw them standing on opposite sides of the island, I ducked to the side so I was out of their line of vision. It had looked like they were arguing, so I pressed my ear against the door to make it easier to eavesdrop on their conversation.
“What are we going to do?” my mom wailed.
Her tone of voice reminded me of how she’d sounded when the police knocked on the door to tell us about the car accident that had killed my dad. I wanted to offer her comfort, and my hand inched toward the doorknob. But I stopped when she continued, “How did this happen? Michael left me a quarter of a million dollars from his life insurance policy. We couldn’t possibly have gone through all of that in less than two years.”
I covered my mouth to hold in my gasp of shock.
A quarter of a million dollars?
Holy crap! That was a freaking lot of money. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that my mom and Chad had burned through it all so quickly, especially when they’d barely spent anything on me in more than a year. My dad had thrown a huge, blow-out party for my sixteenth birthday, but that was the last time I’d had a celebration. My mom hadn’t even baked a cake when I turned seventeen, and I wasn’t sure she remembered that my eighteenth birthday was last week since she hadn’t said anything about it. I’d basically lost both of my parents the day a drunk driver killed my dad.
“I’m sick and tired of hearing about how much your precious first husband did for you, Elaine. You’re married to me now.” Chad’s voice was a drunken slur that was all too familiar. He must have gotten an early start on the beer today because he usually didn’t talk like that until the sun went down. “If you didn’t spend so much on shit we don’t need, then we wouldn’t be in this trouble. I borrowed that money for you.”
I gritted my teeth so hard that a muscle jumped in my cheek. My mom hadn’t treated herself to anything fun in more than a year. She used to get a mani-pedi the first Wednesday of every month, but she started to do her own nails a few months after she married Chad. If they had money problems, the fault lay squarely with the guy who never denied himself anything he wanted. Not my mom.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’ll try to do better.”
I squeezed my eyes shut with a sigh, hating how she deferred to him even when he was wrong.
“Tightening the belt isn’t going to fix this situation. The Ukrainians don’t fuck around when you owe them money.” I jumped when Chad pounded his fist against the counter, almost falling backward off the landing. Gripping the railing for balance, I gulped at the menace in his tone when he added, “We’re racking up interest charges by the day, and the amount we owe has reached the point where they’re not going to accept anything less than everything due to them the next time they come knocking on the door.”
“What are we going to do?” My mom circled back to the first thing I heard her say.
“We don’t have a choice, Elaine. Unless you want them to kill us both, we’re going to have to give them the only asset we have...Rylee.”
Whoa. I shook my head, sure I must’ve heard him wrong. He couldn’t possibly be suggesting that they sell me to the Ukrainian mob to pay back whatever debt he owed to them. But as he laid out his plan to my mom—who was actually listening to him—I realized I was in deep trouble and needed help. The kind that came from people who weren’t afraid to go up against people who bought girls and killed people who owed them money. And there was only one person I could think of who might be able to connect me with someone who could save me from the mess my mom and stepfather had created...my childhood friend, Arya. Her older brother was in a motorcycle club, and she’d married one of the guys in it last year. Maybe my luck would finally change, and they’d be willing to protect me because of my friendship with her.
2 Nova
“Prez,” I greeted Jared “Mac” Mackenzie as I entered his office.
He said something quietly to his pretty, redheaded old lady before she blushed and scooted away when he went to grab her. “Hi, Nova,” she said with a little wave.
I lifted my chin but didn’t say anything because I recognized the look on my president’s face. Jealousy was riding him hard, and I didn’t want to be the one to invite the green monster out to play.
I’d seen that look a lot lately, what with so many of my brothers falling head over heels, claiming their old ladies, and popping out babies. They’d turned a badass motorcycle club into a fucking nursery school.
Okay...I didn’t hate having all the little ones around. They were damn cute.
“Bridget,” Mac growled.
She threw him a bright smile and sashayed from the room.
I kept my eyes forward, but I had to mash my lips together to avoid laughing.
“Something funny, Rossi?”
“Not a thing,” I replied, patting myself on the back for keeping the amusement out
