The Debt

4) Boss

  We pulled up to a mansion.

  I wouldn't expect anything less of this 'boss' that they speak of.

 
  . . . It doesn't make the place any less awesome looking though.

  Who knew you could make so much money off drugs, guns, and sex?

  As we walked up the gray marble stairs, Leo's arm resting just about as comfortingly around my shoulders as Elijah's was before we got in the car, I couldn't shove down the dread I felt gazing up at the ginormous doors.

  I don't know if I should want the man they're taking me to to like me or not.

  I mean, what would that mean for me?

  . . . Bleh.

  I don't even wanna think about it.

  All I know, is that I'm starting to wish I had taken Asher Keller's advice and just gotten my first time over with with him, when I had the chance.

  Now I'm in this crappy situation with no way out.

 

  But if the boss doesn't like me. . .

  Dad and I are dead.

  Well, shit.

  I don't think I've ever been in a worse situation.

  And I have a dead brother, mom who left, and a dying dad.

  I didn't think things could get worse.

  Yet here the fuck we are.

  With a brother that's still dead, mom that's still MIA, and a dad that's still dying.

  And now I've sold my soul to the damn mafia or some crap!

  "Scared?" Leo asked in my ear.

  I didn't think before I nodded.

  "I would be too," he agreed.

  I looked up at him in dismay. "Thanks for the pep talk, man"

  He chuckled, "No problem, babe."

 
  When Elijah pushed open the double doors, my heart managed to drop even lower at the sight of more big, angry men with guns, but this time, clad in dress suits. While Leo, Elijah, and the big unfriendly giant are in jeans and hoodies.

  But the angriest of them all stood smack in the middle of their little pissed off posey.

  With a nasty scar jutting across his right eye, and a pale white iris that was probably left as a result of whatever knife left the scar through his face, the man made a chill run to my bone. The way his eyes analyzed you with that terrifying contrast to the deep black of his left eye and the stark white of his right, he was fucking petrifying.

  And even with the hard look that promised a painful death to his enemies — and maybe even his friends that text him too early in the morning one too many times — the man still managed to be rather aesthetically pleasing.

  In a fucked up and murderous sorta way.

  But aesthetically pleasing nonetheless.

  All of that combined with his tree trunk arms, skyscraper height, and center placement in their lineup, leads me to only one conclusion.

  He's the boss.

  And I'm shitting myself standing in front of him.