When she says it, her lips form the word carefully. I notice she goes back to biting her full lower lip nervously. I have to force myself tostopnoticing.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
Nineteen. Christ.
I should walk away. This is insane. What the fuck am I gonna do with a nineteen-year-old girl I know nothing about? This girl has to be a whole metric shit ton of psychological diagnoses. I definitely don’t need that complication.
But I can see her future if I leave. Six months, maybe less. She won’t last. The bruises will get worse. Murphy will drink away whatever money he can scrounge, and when that runs out...
“Fine.” The word comes out before I fully process it. “The girl in exchange for clearing the debt. She comes with me. Now.”
Murphy’s face floods with relief. “Oh, thank you, Mr. O’Rourke, thank you?—”
“Pack your things.” I ignore him, speaking to Nora. “You have five minutes.”
She doesn’t move. She just stares at me with those wide hazel eyes.
“Go,” Murphy barks at her harshly. “Don’t keep Mr. O’Rourke waiting.”
She disappears down the hallway. I hear a door close.
Murphy is still babbling his gratitude. I tune him out. Finn gives me a look I ignore. He thinks I’m making a mistake. He’s probably right.
Four minutes later, Nora reappears carrying a garbage bag. Everything she owns fits in one goddamn garbage bag.
I’m going to remember this—her standing there with all her worldly possessions in a trash bag, looking at me like I might be a better kind of monster than her father, but a monster all the same.
“We’re done here,” I tell Murphy. I don’t shake his hand. Don’t acknowledge his thanks. I turn and head for the door.
Nora follows. Silently. Obediently.
Fuck.
She sits in the back of the SUV, clutching that pathetic garbage bag like a lifeline. She hasn’t said a word since I agreed to her father’s deal.
Finn starts the engine. I watch her reflection in the window as we pull away from the curb. She’s pale. Silent. Tears stream down her face, but she’s not making a sound.
No sobbing. No hysterics. Just silent teardrops rolling down her bruised cheek anddripping off the edge of her jaw.
She’s learned to cry quietly. So no one hears. So no one gets angry.
I turn away.
I have no idea what I’m going to do with her. My mother is going to lose her mind. My brothers are going to think I’ve lost mine. The optics of this are going to be a nightmare.
Chapter 2
Nora
I clutch my garbage bag to my chest. My ribs ache from the beating last night, but I hold tight. Everything I own is in this bag.
I know who Cillian O’Rourke is. Everyone in my neighborhood knows. “Cold as a gravestone in winter,” Mrs. Shalhoub from the convenience store told me once. “Killed his first man before he grew hair on his chin.” Mr. Kline at the laundromat said he runs half of Chicago. That the cops don’t touch him. People who cross him disappear.
I just got sold to a killer.
The city passes outside the window. We leave my neighborhood—boarded-up shops, liquor stores with bars on windows, people sleeping on sidewalks. The buildings get taller. Cleaner. Nicer.
