A thousand dollars is all I need. I tell myself that as I drop to my knees, bracing my hands on either side of me. My nails scrape the marble, slightly bending away from their beds. From the corner of my eye, I spot a swath of dark red. I’m only inches from that puddle of blood.
Disgust can’t even fully set in before I feel him behind me, his massive palm running over the top of my head. “Turn around.”
He’s staring down at me, still holding the chisel, when I finally do. And I know the truth, here and now: No amount of money in the world is worth this.
Black eyes follow the line of my gaze and he smiles. “Not tonight, kotyonok,” he tells me, setting the weapon down again. “No toys. Tonight will be quick.” The smile fades as he cups my jaw and tilts my head back while manipulating the clasp of his jeans. “Open wide. At least pretend that you have what it takes before you run.”
Run. His thumb pries my mouth open before the thought finishes. He sighs at the sight, flexing his hips to help loosen his jeans. He’s wearing black boxers underneath, but even they don’t disguise the shape of him. Big. Too big.
“Don’t,” he warns, the tip of his nail scraping my cheek before I even realize that my mouth is starting to close.
My lips freeze, half open, drool drying on my tongue. With none of the fanfare I’m used to, he peels his boxers down. His cock springs free.
My lips flutter together. Apart. Together. He’s hard already. Thick veins circle the shaft, flexing in time with his pulse. It’s not the length of him that makes me gulp—it’s his sheer size. There is no way in hell I can take him.
“I told you to open.”
I don’t catch the look that crosses his face until it’s too late. His hand leaves my chin and moves to my throat, squeezing. I open my mouth so wide that I hear my jaw pop, but the pressure doesn’t loosen. It gets tighter as he shifts in closer, jerking my head back. My brain goes away to that cold, quiet place where I can just ignore my body. My nails cut into my palms and I feel again. The pain is like a fence.
But it breaks the moment his hand slides around to the back of my neck and takes control over how much I can turn my head. I smell him: musk, raw, animal. His shirt covers most of his abdomen—I can only make out the definition of his hips. They seem carved into his skin. I remember the weapon resting inches away from my head and come up with another word. Chiseled.
“We will make this quick,” he promises, his voice gritty.
I’m not trying to feel, not trying to see—but I can’t miss the moment his hips jerk forward as he pries my jaws apart and then slams in. My teeth keep him out on the first thrust—my mouth just isn’t wide enough. He has to force it open, using his fingers while yanking me forward.
That’s all I know before my throat closes up. It’s ripped open. My gag reflex goes haywire; I’m choking as he thrusts again, rocking on his heels, his mouth clenched in determination. The next second, he’s just a blur. My lungs are exploding.
He’s too big. Too deep. Too rough.
I can’t breathe!
I try to push away, my hands clawing at his hips.
“Let me in,” he commands as his cock slides over my tongue for a jagged second. The moment I try to suck in air, he slams back in, almost as if savoring the exact second I start to panic.
Everything goes black. White. My only coherent thought is to breathe in through my nose. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe! But it’s impossible considering that my stomach is trying to crawl out of my throat. Something blocks its way hard, fast, ramming it back down.
“There.” His fingers move through my hair, manipulating my head back farther. “Take all of it…like this.”
My vision clears; I see his face: cold eyes and a blank expression. Black spots cover him up; they’re everywhere. One. Ten. Fifty.
Then, all at once, he lets me go. I’m on my hands and knees. Air floods in down my ruined throat, and I’m running on pure instinct. Breathe! Even taking in oxygen hurts so damn much. Almost as bad as what comes up.
My wet fingers trace my mouth when I’m done gagging. They come away warm. Slippery. A coppery taste lingers over my tongue. But he didn’t come. I know that, even before he grabs at my hair again, yanking me upright. The world spins and then I’m staring down at dust and wood. The table?
“Here.”
Something is shoved into my hand. Something small, firm and cold. My fingers scramble to identify it as a sharp pain bites into my thumb.
“Look at it,” Maxim commands, though he raises my hand himself when I’m too slow. “Feel it.”
My eyes blink, fighting to adjust—but once they do, I only want to squeeze them shut. I’m holding a knife, one of those spring-loaded ones made of silver with a black leather handle. He makes sure I see the blade. That I notice my blood already painting the edge of it.
Then he forces me to guide it down to my inner thigh. I’m too damn stunned to pull away, and with a tiny bit of pressure, the blade slices through my skin: a burning, fiery line that extends down, down, down.
“A taste,” he says while pulling the knife out of my grip. “Should you stay after this.”
The wound burns, spanning the length of my thigh, all the way down to my knee. It was a warning—one I don’t even get the chance to heed before his weight settles over me. One of his hands palms the back of my neck while the other slides around my hip and undoes the fastenings of my jeans. He pulls them down halfway and doesn’t even bother with my panties. He just yanks the panel over with the pad of his thumb.
Make no noise—that’s my one rule. No fake moaning. No whimpers. People always interpret them the wrong way. Usually, it’s not hard to stay quiet, considering that most of my clients are fat fucks who get winded from fishing my money out of their goddamn wallets. At worst, I’d have to bite my tongue to hold a hiss of disgust back.
A finger. That’s all he uses the first time, but it feels like so much more. Chisel, hammer. He tests me with one touch and then drives it home the next. Deep. Too deep.
My knees knock together, my body jerking against the surface of the table, held in place by him. A finger. I tell myself that over and over. It’s just his finger that’s sliding in, stretching me apart, tearing me open. Another.
“Relax,” he warns as his palm flexes, pinning my skull flat against the table.
His hand withdraws as he muscles in closer, his hips against my bare ass. A crinkling sound cuts the air. Foil. It must take him only a second to get the condom out because, the next, he’s in my stomach. He feels that deep, and my world narrows down to one purpose: keep breathing.
But it’s impossible when my throat is on fire. Burning. Searing. Maybe it’s out of sympathy for my pussy. How is it possible to feel this damn full? This sore.
This goddamn open.
When he moves, I see stars. I cry out, but the sound seems to egg him on. He grinds himself into me so hard the table rocks with every thrust, squealing at the joints.
I know pain: all of those “accidental” cuts. I know what it’s like when a john gets too rough or tries to gain backdoor access. This is something else. It takes me far past silence. I’m just a body, a hole, used up.
I’m not sure at which point I realize he isn’t even all the way inside me. He doesn’t fit. Not even by half. Not right away. The resistance doesn’t seem to surprise him. He just keeps ramming until my body has no choice but to relent and let him in, inch…by inch…
As he promised, he makes it quick.
One last battering thrust and he groans, his shudders racking through his body and into mine. I feel each jolt even with the condom, and then he slides out. In the hazy moments after, he says something else. Something raspy and gruff smothered into my hair that I barely comprehend.
“Good enough.”
I can’t respond. I just breathe. Loudly. Erratic. My body is one aching, used strip of flesh, but I just stay here, leaning against the table. Still shaking.
I try counting to ten, but it doesn’t work. So I settle for counting to a thousand and picturing green.
I don’t wake up. I just come to, but I can’t stand. I know that much. My stomach is cramping. My legs feel like mush, but I suffer through it all and blink up at the ceiling.
It’s semi-dark, but there’s just enough gray daylight to let me know that it’s after dawn. The little shits have school. Mikie might try to skip without me there, if Daisy didn’t burn the damn house down trying to make breakfast.
Rent’s still due.
We need groceries. Laundry has to be done. If we don’t get some goddamn bug spray, I might have more mouths to feed once the roaches demand a seat at the table.
I have too much damn shit to worry about to lie here on the floor. Get up. I flex my toes and flinch. They hurt too. So does my fucking head.
But I’ve been through worse. That’s what I tell myself as I crawl onto my stomach and try to breathe. In and out. Out and in. Out. Out. Out.
I make one stupid noise when I try to stand up. Then I cut the pain off. He left my pants on. I slowly drag them back up and redo the clasp. My sweater feels too loose around the collar. I reach up and feel why: It’s ripped.
So much for my job at Penney’s.
The first few steps are the hardest. It takes me ten before I can cling to the wall beside the door and follow it out into the main room. The lights are off. The place seems empty. Maxim isn’t waiting there when I fumble with the front door and pull it open.
Keep moving. I brace one hand against the wall of the hallway as I head for the elevator, riding it down to the lobby. When the doors open, someone is already standing there.
“Ms. Marconi.” Lucius takes one look at me and steps aside, shrugging his suit jacket—a gray one this time—from his shoulders. He drapes it over me the moment I haul myself out of the elevator. I don’t even have the strength to argue. He smells like coffee and rich cologne. Somehow on him, the scent isn’t as offensive as it was on the Fuckfaces I screwed.
The next ten minutes pass in a blur as he steers me into that infamous black car, and it feels like I simply blink and find myself seated across from him in another café.
“Your payment,” he says, reaching into a briefcase on the table in front of him. He fishes out a stack of bills while the waitress lurking around the edges of the room pretends not to stare. Once again, we’re the only people inside, and I can make out the shadow of a man near the door, silently keeping watch. “One thousand, in full. If you would like to discuss continuing the contract, then we can—”
“No.” I have to press my hands flat against the table to keep them from fucking shaking. “I’ve got to go home. I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Of course.” He nods and sets the money on the table between us. “As with any finalization of a contract, you have twenty-four hours to reconsider.”
“So I can go?” I’m already reaching for the money. Grabbing it. Squeezing it. Whatever happened, it was worth it.
It was.
“Yes.” Lucius nods again, and I jump to my feet.
Without a jacket, I don’t have any way of hiding the money. I fold it up as much as I can and try to shove it into my pocket. The added fullness just makes the front of my pants feel tighter, which draws a groan from my lips before I can bite it back.
“I can see you to your home,” Lucius suggests.
I should just leave and take my chances. But getting stabbed would be a rather ironic way to end the past twenty-four hours after having my brains fucked out.
“Okay.”
I make him drop me off a block down from my place, and I don’t miss the way he eyes the piece-of-shit houses. It’s nothing like the posh high-rise he’s used to.
“Have a nice day, Ms. Marconi,” he says as I scramble out onto the curb.
I don’t say anything back. Maybe I’m just too damn tired. My knees knock together with every step I take. A million deep, heavy breaths don’t seem to fill my lungs up enough. I’m panting when I stagger up the front stoop and shove the door open.
It’s still too early for the kids to be home from school. That means the person rummaging through my kitchen is either a burglar or a shitty-ass mother.
Frankly, I’d take the burglar.
“Frankie-girl!” Melanie stands in front of the sink, holding a frying pan in one hand and a dishcloth in the other. Someone must have let her in, considering that I changed the locks after the last time she’d blown through. Maybe they did it last night while I was lying unconscious on some stranger’s creepy workshop floor. That’s how Melanie rolls. She sneaks back into our lives when least expected, the biggest goddamn roach in this place.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Honestly, Francesca.” She sighs and starts to dry the pan with the rag. “Should you be talking to me like that?”
Her hair’s red today. Her clothes look stolen: a pink, frilly shirt and jeans. Though, hell, it’s not like I can judge. When your mommy runs off with your rent money, a twenty-dollar sweater from Penney’s is the last fucking thing on the list of priorities.
“You’re right,” I tell her. “I shouldn’t be talking to you at all. But you know who I should call right now? Your parole officer.” I head for the end table, where Daisy keeps the TracFones that still have minutes left on them. I wrench open a drawer and grab the first one I see.
“Sweetie.” Melanie sets the pan down and holds her hands out. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanted to talk. I’ve missed ya.”
She’s wearing makeup: blue eye shadow and fancy liner. I can’t even afford ChapStick. Whatever mascara still clings to my lashes, I stole from a drug store two months ago.
She missed me.
I never wanted to see her.
“Just tell me what the hell you want.”
“Baby…” She shakes her head and runs a hand full of fake nails through her equally fake hair. “Look. I just wanted to see you. All y’all. I’ve missed you guys. And…I’m getting married!” Her voice rises like she’s fucking excited. Like she thinks I’ll be too.
“How did you even get in here?” The kids are gone, but the house looks cleaner than usual. Too clean. Melanie was always a polite thief.
Fuck.
I head for the fridge and throw it open. The beer is missing from the veggies bag. So is all of the saved rent money. My stomach gets that awful sinking feeling, but I swallow it down. That’s the funny thing about Melanie. I can’t accuse her outright. Maybe Daisy did the smart thing and hid the stash somewhere else?
“I came around last night,” Melanie says in one of her smug fucking tones. “You weren’t home. Seems like you had a fun night.”
I glance over and find her looking down her nose at me. I’m leaning against the fridge more than I should be, biting my lip so hard that I taste blood. My hair is a mess clinging to my scalp. My throat still hurts. I sound like Meryl after she comes back from a smoke break. My sweater is torn to shit.
But, even like this, I feel more responsible than she ever fucking did.
“Yeah, I did.” I slam the fridge door shut. “That’s what supporting six kids by yourself is, Melanie. Good fucking fun. Not that you would know anything about that.”
“Is this what you’re going to do whenever you see me from now on?” She crosses her arms over her chest and sighs. “Try to throw me on a guilt trip?”
Ah, but that’s the butt of the joke. No one could ever make Melanie Ryder give a damn about someone other than herself.
“Just get the fuck out.” I head for the table, swiping at the stacks of old junk mail piled on top of it.
“Ainsley had a bad dream last night,” Melanie tells me while I stoop to snatch up the old flyers. “It’s lucky that someone was here to comfort her—”
“Don’t you fucking do that.” The pile of newspapers slips through my grip and lands on the floor.
That’s another thing about Melanie. She is a whore. A bitch. A skank. Just like me.
The only difference? I scraped up every ounce of what I had and used it to pack money into a bag of frozen peas every month just to get by. Not Melanie. She was perfectly fine with being a worthless, stupid slut.
“Don’t you act like you coming around here for five minutes makes you some kind of fucking mother.” I point to the door. Then I jerk my chin at the knife drawer—I know she knows what’s in it. The moment the kids left, the bitch probably tore the entire place apart looking for more money. “Now get the fuck out.”
“I just wanted to tell you the good news in person,” she says, wringing her hands together.
At first, I assume she means her fourth straight marriage. But no. Her eyes are far too fucking shifty for that. I glance at the fridge again. If this stupid bitch so much as touched a dime of my money…
“My new guy, Burt. He’s got his own business, baby. Well, he’s starting one, anyway.”
Oh, fuck. My lungs start to tighten up. I get that sick feeling again. My taste buds are too raw to taste much of anything, but I can still sense the puke rising at the back of my throat. Money. Money. Money. A parade of bills marches through my head. I dig the nail of my thumb into the finger beside it. Harder. Harder.
“All he needs is just a few bucks. Maybe a couple hundred, and by the end of the week, baby, we’ll have it turned into a thousand.”
“You took the money.” I don’t even have to see her face. I just know. The same way I know that Daisy was the one to give it to her. “You took our money.”
“For us, baby,” she insists. “Why don’t you believe that?”
For us. That was the last thing about Melanie Ryder: She could sell the moon to an astronaut, as one of her last patsies used to say. She could make any idea seem like a good one. She dished out hope like heroin and got her suckers hooked. Daisy was always the weak link, but so was I until I turned sixteen and saw the true face of my so-called-mother.
“Get the fuck out.” I’m too damn tired to scream. Or shout. I need to sleep. I need to shower. I need to investigate why the inside of my legs feel sticky. Warm.
“Baby, I know you don’t believe me now, but in a few days, I’ll be back and you can bet that—”
“Get out!” The kitchen blurs into one colorless blob, but I still manage to feel my way to the knife drawer and pull it open. I grab one at random and point it in her general direction. “Get out. And if you come near me or one of the kids again, I swear to god I will fucking kill you.”
“You’re tired, Frankie,” Melanie says. “I know you don’t mean that.”
Either way, the bitch starts walking toward the front door. She already has it open when I get the urge to torture myself just a little further. For old time’s sake and all.
“How much?”
“Hmm, baby?” Melanie pauses, her head tilted back to reveal the bone structure everyone swears up and down we share. I used to be proud of that, when people called us twins. In some ways, she still is my other half, I guess: everything I never want to be.
“How much money did you con out of Daisy?”
“Baby, I wasn’t lying. I—”
“Enough!” I wave the knife to shut her up. “How. Much?”
She sighs. “Two fifty.”
I can tell from the way she says it that she wanted more. That she thought I might have it. That she was desperate enough to stick around and beg me for it.
“Frankie, this really is the chance of a lifetime,” she says, giving it one last shot.
My vision clears enough for me to make out the streaks of black stuff around her eyes. The smudges to her lipstick. The slightly uncombed quality of her hair. She worked hard to put on a good show, but some shit you just can’t hide.
I don’t even waste my breath on giving her another fuck off. I just turn around and flip the faucet of the sink on, drowning out the rest of whatever she says. My knife is still in my hand and my thumb keeps catching the edge of it. Over and over.
I don’t know how long I have to ignore her before the door finally slams shut. I sink to my knees, using the counter for balance. My forehead is against the counter, the knife still slicing at my fingers until the pain swallows everything else. Then I reach into my pocket with my good hand and draw the money out.
The lower half of my jaw starts to throb as I fan the bills out beside me. There’s so much of it. So little of it. Even with the rent covered, I’ll still be in the hole. There are more bills to pay. Winter coats. Food. All of that stuff I never gave a damn about consuming when I was a snot-nosed kid clinging to Melanie’s skirts—but even back then, she had never been just a mom. A cheese sandwich made with stale bread or an expired Pop-Tart was never what she was supposed to provide as my mother. Those were always extra payments from a loan I’ll never fucking pay off. One I never asked to take out in the first place.
It feels like I sit here for days, bleeding over a thousand dollars. When I finally glance over at the spare cell phone lying beside me, I see that it’s only been a minute. It doesn’t take much of my pride to dial the number, in the end. It’s answered on the second ring.
“Name,” a gruff voice demands.
A part of me wants to hang up, but my thumb won’t strike the right button. “It’s Frankie—Francesca Marconi,” I rasp once I remember how to speak.
“Oh.” A heavy sigh blows from the speaker. “Ms. Marconi. How can I help you?”
“I changed my mind.” While I talk, I pick up a loose fifty and hold it up to the light. The dead man printed on it sneers back at me, the prick. “I want to talk about extending the contract, or whatever.”
“Excellent,” Lucius says. He doesn’t bother to ask any questions, and a part of me wonders why. Though, apparently, he made a habit out of fishing for women so hungry for a few bucks that they’d do anything to see the green. “You can meet me at this address in an hour.” He rattles off a street I don’t recognize. I have to use up what little bit of battery life the cell phone has left to connect to an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot and search for it on the internet.
For some reason, I don’t take the money when I finally stagger out of the house. I leave it there, a thousand dollars covered in blood. If Melanie comes back while I’m gone, she can fucking have it all.