“Your winnings.”
My eyes widen, terror clawing its way into my body, and why is it so hard to breathe?
If Ty brought the money back, that means my debt… I owe Mickey so much money now. So much money now. I don’t…
“Baby, breathe.” Ty sets the money to the side and steps back into my field of narrowing vision. When I don’t meet his eyes, he presses his hands to my cheeks and lifts my gaze. “Roxie, baby, tell me what just happened. You’re safe, I’m here,cariño.”
“I’m never going to be able to pay him off,” I say so quietly, it’s almost just an exhale.
“You don’t owe him anything else.” Ty’s dark eyes are so sincere and determined. I know he believes it, but I don’t think he realizes what it means tooweMickey Frank.
I do.
“Ty.” My hands wrap around his wrists, holding onto him to bring us closer. “You don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to understand. You owed him money. You gave him everything,everything, Roxie. You’ve paid him everything you owe with interest.” He’s so confident that it’sgoing to be okay. The way he’s looking at me, it tells me he thinks this is the end of it.
He doesn’t know what I do. Or…maybe he does, but he just doesn’t know it as intimately and as brutally as I do.
That if you disrespect Mickey Frank, you’re as good as dead. Unless you can give him something; flesh, money, or work.
I pull Ty’s hands from my face gently, never breaking eye contact.
“That’s not how it works with him,” I say quietly. “You should’ve left the money.”
“It’s too late now.” Ty lets me move his hands, but threads our fingers together. I breathe a little easier knowing he’s not leaving or pulling away. “But please, trust me when I say, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
My heart clenches in my chest and I know it’s completely obvious on my face just now how much his words touched me. I believe that he will do everything in his power to keep me safe.
But what he doesn’t quite realize now is that I will do everything I can to keep him safe too.
“I… I have one more thing,” he says softly, his voice rough and low. “It’s not a good thing, but… I think it could possibly be healing.”
I narrow my eyes and tilt my head, my white blonde hair falling over my shoulder.
“What?” Guilt and terror make my blood run cold. What did he find? What was he told?
Ty takes a step back, and reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a lump of fabric.
“What…is that?” Nausea crawls up my throat and I’m suddenly very glad that I wasn’t able to eat earlier.
It looks like underwear.
Old underwear…of mine.
“He said these were special,” Ty says, rage and murder lacing every word he speaks, but I know in my bones that none of it’s pointed at me. His fists grip the fabric so tightly I just know he wants to destroy them himself. “I can only imagine what these were trophies of, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I know he hurt you. I know he deserves to have his hands and feet cut off, to be left bleeding out for what he did to you. So here they are. His trophies. The things he thought he had over you. They’re all in your hands now and yours to decide what to do with.”
My jaw drops slightly as he sets the fabric in my hands. It feels so wrong to hold these, knowing exactly what they’re from. The three times I wasn’t able to persuade Mickey to leave me alone. The three times I fought like hell, but lost. The tears that were building in my eyes threaten to fall, but I try like hell to keep them back as my vision swims.
Memories threaten to take me over, but just as Ty’s tanned, warm hand cups my cheek, they fade away. Replaced with the love this man is showing me.
“Take back your power, baby. You’re a goddess among mortals, and it’s time you remembered it.”
A tear rolls down my face and Ty’s thumb wipes it away gently.
“I love you,” I whisper. The full weight of what he said hits me like a ton of bricks. We’ve danced around the words for a while now, knowing how we feel about each other, but never outright said the words.
He deserves to know. I want him to know. Even if he can’t return the words now, I need him to know where I stand.
