I shift on my feet, unease climbing fast. Dad swallows. “Please. I just need more time.” His hands shake. “I swear I can make it right.”
“This is not a place where you make things right.” He takes another sip. “This is where you pay.”
“And he will,” I blurt. All gazes shift to me. “I mean… he’s got a job. He’ll get you the money.”
Dad fumbles in his inner pocket and pulls out a folded, stained piece of paper. He holds it out with a shaking hand. “I’ve got a contract. The petrol station on the highway. It’s full-time, steady hours. I can start making payments tonight.”
The man in the suit doesn't take the paper. A guard swipes it, glancing at the cheap print before handing it over. The man on the couch stares at the document for a second, then lets out a dry, sharp exhale that isn't a laugh. A chill skims up my arms.
“A petrol station, Jack? You’re giving me a shift at a pump?” He lets the paper flutter to the floor. “You’d have to work three lifetimes just to cover the interest.” I shiver, the weight of the room suddenly doubling.
“Please,” Dad says, his voice cracking as he steps closer. He bends, scoops the contract off the floor, and shoves it back into his inner pocket. “I’m trying. I brought my boy. You’ve got a family, don’t you? You aren’t the kind of man who’d kill a father right in front of his own son.”
I turn back to the man in the chair, heat crawling up my neck. “Whatever he owes you,” I say, forcing the words out, “we’ll figure it out.”
His mouth curves. “I’m glad you’re so positive, cub.” He lifts his glass. “But you’ll have to work a few good years to pay back a hundred thousand dollars.”
My mouth falls open. “A…”
A hundred thousand?
Oh shit.
The number is a dead weight in my stomach. It turns the last thirty minutes into a trap. I can feel the walls of this room closing in, even though the ceiling is twenty feet high.
“Jonah—” I feel Dad’s gaze on me, waiting for something I don’t have.
“Move. Now. Let’s go.” My heart hammers as I steer him toward the doorway. I know it won’t work. I know that. But fear sends a sharp shot of adrenaline through my veins. I’m getting the hell out of here. I have to.
The man on the couch tips back his head and laughs. “My, Jack Rader, you didn’t tell me your son was this entertaining. But your papa here is in trouble. And in our world, trouble gets settled with blood. Lots of it.”
As if on cue, the shackled man lets out a muffled howl. Blood drips from his calves onto his socks, each drop falling tothe floor. Around us, guards close the space with quiet steps, forming a wall without touching me.
The man on the couch leans forward, his eyes fixed on me now, unblinking. “You know how this works. Payment comes due. And when a man can’t pay, the account is settled.”
Dad jerks beside me. I tighten my grip on his arm, instinct screaming to move. A guard steps into my path.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Thud.
I freeze. A knife buries itself in the doorframe beside my hand, the handle still quivering. I flinch. The room goes quiet.
“Not so fast,” a voice says from the doorway. “Not before I decide your place here.”
CHAPTER
THREE
JONAH
A woman stepsout of the shadows near the doorframe.
“Matushka.”
The man on the couch rises and reaches for her, but she doesn’t take his arm. She moves past him without slowing. She threw that knife. Next to me, Dad lets out a breathless sound.
“Good evening, Ms. Morozova. I was just saying to your son?—”
