Taken For A Debt: A Mafia Romance (The Taken Duet Book 1)

by Tiffany Sala

  It seemed like a seriously bad situation when Devin was asking me about the exact person I’d just been thinking about, but Steven seemed like a relatively safe topic of conversation, at least. A chance for me to show my emotional range in having worked out in the years since that what I’d done to that boy was not the smartest or the kindest thing to do to a boy. And it was a matter of public record, so there didn’t seem to be all that much point in keeping it to myself. Come to think of it, possibly Devin already knew all that was out there to know, and was testing me.

  “He let me go, so it was entirely up to me how I pursued justice. I told my parents he was just some guy who’d come around and seen me in the yard once, gotten obsessed with me. I said I only wanted a restraining order because it felt like… like he’d made a mistake on impulse, spouted some noble forgiving bullshit everyone seemed to really eat up. The truth was I didn’t want him to go away where I wouldn’t be able to see him again. He wasn’t ready to handle me, but I liked spending time with him. I guess I felt he had an innocence I never really did, although I couldn’t exactly describe to you what that was.”

  “Two things surprise me about the situation,” Devin said. “That this boy was able to snatch you from your house at all… but considering all I saw last night, I’m happy to attribute that to your parents’ hubris and incompetence. But the second is that they learned enough about what happened to you, and they didn’t destroy him. If any little boy presumed to do that to my daughter… he would fail first of all, obviously, but I would make sure he had a memento that lasted.” He fingered the slightly protruding sleeve of his fresh white shirt.

  I tried not to let the faint scent of clean linen bring me back to a place that made me shiver. “You really have a complex about inflicting dick injuries, don’t you.”

  Devin just shot me this cute little smirk like he was pleased I’d worked out exactly what he did to that other guy.

  “Honestly,” I said, because I was trying to get my head around that question now too. It wasn’t that I’d ever wanted my parents to interfere in the situation with Steven, obviously not, but I’d also assumed they had nothing useful to contribute in my defence. Now I was being told my mother had gotten kneecaps bashed just for a view. “I feel like they got a kick out of me handling the situation by myself. Like, I think Daddy said at one point something like, ‘sometimes it’s better to keep the situation where you can manage it.’ They had no idea that I kept seeing Steven on and off after the order was in place, but the order itself was something spearheaded by me, on the public record.”

  Devin was nodding. “They would have had a lot of pride in you after that.”

  “Well I wouldn’t go quite that far. I think it amused them while they were thinking about it, that’s it.”

  I shifted my feet under the table to ease the strain on my knees, bunched up in an awkward position thanks to those stupid shoes. I was about to change the subject, because my parents’ utter disinterest in me was not something I ever wanted to discuss with anyone, but Devin was already moving forward with his next question. “You handled the situation well yourself, but it still must have been a frightening experience for you. Were you more wary about leaving the house, after that?”

  Oh, I saw exactly what he was trying to do there. “I’m still not talking to you about—”

  “O’Hare!”

  We both turned as someone stopped by our table, but I noted Devin didn’t seem all that thrown off by the intrusion. The man who was now leaning both his hands on the tabletop wasn’t anywhere near as nice to look at as Devin, and probably about twenty years older, but his tailored suit would have definitely put clothing afficionados in as much of a quiver.

  “Royson,” Devin returned. “Wonderful to see you here. Enjoying a night out—with the wife, I hope?”

  Royson laughed, in that we’re playing around but also I could kill you right now way that took me right back to my distant memories of other girls at school. “With Angelina, yes. I see you’ve found yourself some lovely little company too…” He squinted at me like he was about to claim we’d met before, which seemed impossible of course.

  Devin didn’t even require him to say it. “Andy Royson, meet Julia Mahoney.”

  Royson clapped his hands together in a way that made me start like a rabbit. “Yes! The resemblance to Eileen is remarkable, isn’t it? You must get told that all the time.”

  “Never, actually,” I muttered, because I was quite sure it wasn’t true. About the only thing my mother and I had in common when you looked at us was resting bitch face.

  Except my bitch face wasn’t in any sort of state of rest at the moment. “He’s kidnapped me, you know,” I told Royson. “Yanked me right out of my bed in the middle of the night. That’s the sort of man you’re dealing with here.”

  The instant Royson opened his mouth to laugh, I realised I’d completely missed the nuances of this situation, like whoosh.

  “At least he’s giving you a good dinner, sweetheart,” said Robson, who believed me, but wasn’t impressed because he too occupied a world where it was acceptable to kidnap a young woman to make a point to her parents. “How much are they in with you for?”

  Devin sent me this smile that was dripping with fondness I somehow knew was fake. That might have been what pissed me off the most about this situation. He couldn’t manage to have any sort of affectionate feeling for me unless it was for show? “She should just about cover the interest, I’d say.”

  “Well, there were those of us who told them to watch out for you back in the day.” The fact that the smile Devin directed at Royson after that seemed perfectly genuine didn’t improve my mood. “Well, I’m sure the two of you have many things to discuss, so I’ll leave you to it. Lovely to meet you finally, Julia: I hope you’ll introduce yourself around and consider attending some of the social functions.”

  Did he mean mafia functions? Were there social events where the men and women of this particular lifestyle got together and discussed the best way they’d broken someone’s bones that week, maybe played party games: musical chairs where the last person standing got to choose one of the losers to shoot… or maybe just steal one of their business interests? Did they just play literal Mafia?

  “Well, Julia,” said Devin, “would you look at that.”

  I followed his gaze over to the table Andy Royson had sat down at. He had his mobile phone in one hand, a wineglass in the other, a stunning plastic blonde at his side. Very mafioso.

  “I could tell you about where the Royson family fits in the ‘family’,” Devin said, “because Royson and his boys are ones to watch for sure, but what’s much more relevant to us at the moment is that everyone in this social circle is a tremendous gossip. If not Royson, someone is going to get in contact with your dear mother and father before the end of our meal here.”

  “This was just a ploy to get me out where I could be seen, wasn’t it?” I demanded. “Make sure everyone knows we’re out together—and that you took me—so everything plays into your little plan.”

  A server showed up then to receive our meal orders and to offer a taste of offensively fresh seafood. I was fuming so much I could hardly focus on the menu; eventually Devin ordered for me, and I couldn’t remember what he’d selected ten seconds after the server was gone.

  Devin watched me nearly boiling over with aggravation with blatant amusement. “You didn’t need me to tell you there was a chance there’d be someone who knew me or your parents here, surely. And you didn’t need to try blurting out all over the place that you’d been kidnapped. You did that all by yourself.”

  And maybe he hadn’t wanted me to at first, but now he was definitely using that to his advantage. But this was the same man who had made a big swerve on his plan to marry me and made almost marrying me just as good an option. He was not someone to tangle with unless you were bringing your A-triple-plus game.

  Devin reached a hand across the table to cover mine. I yanked it away. I r
eally wished I had my phone with me: I could have buried myself in a game or something and made a point of ignoring him.

  And he would have been just as amused by my antics as he was now. “Come on, Julia, relax and enjoy your dinner. I guarantee your dear mother and father are going to be back sooner than you think, and then you’ll have to decide what your next move is.”

  Deciding whether I was going to betray my rotten parents for a nice payout from this man… and possibly some other compensations.

  He was right: I might as well fill up my stomach so I wouldn’t be hungry while I was matching wits with him.

  Chapter Seven

  When we stopped trying to dig into one another’s heads and spent our time commenting on the quality of the food and wine, we got along quite well. That was a trick I’d learned with my parents, actually: you didn’t have to have any fondness for a person so long as you could lean on your shared interest in food. Eating good food produces endorphins, and if incidental conversation makes any polite response impossible, it is completely appropriate to just make noises.

  I also had a little more wine than I intended, which put me in a pretty good mood.

  “I’d like to go back to my house to sleep tonight,” I told Devin as we reached his car. He’d been holding my arm since we got up to leave our seats at the restaurant and when I wobbled so severely I nearly made myself dizzy enough to throw up, I felt his fingers tighten on me. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. “Even if that means you’re going to come in and creepily watch me when I sleep. I just want to be able to sleep in my own bed and use my own things.”

  “And binge through a few of your favourite shows,” Devin suggested.

  “Yes,” I said, “and shut up about those, please.”

  “I’m willing to consider this option,” said Devin. “If you’re not going to fuss about me creepily watching you when you sleep, because we’ve spent enough time together now for me to know you’re a seriously loose cannon when you get something in your head.”

  I rolled my eyes and wobbled into the car when he opened the door for me. “I’m both a shut-in and a loose cannon. You really need to have a chat with yourself and get your story straight, Mr. O’Hare.”

  Devin slammed the door on me. I thought I heard a chuckle as he rounded the rear of the car, but it was probably someone from that even more drunken crowd that had come out from the more provincial ground-floor eatery right after us.

  I was dozing while the car was moving, my head swimming too much whenever my lids fluttered for me to want to try keeping my eyes open, but when Devin pulled us into a parking spot, something about the scene felt so familiar it jolted me into complete consciousness.

  I turned my head to stare at my own house at the end of our long driveway, like it was an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. Everything looked completely normal too, not like the sort of place where strange men could burst in at a moment’s notice and take over my life.

  While I was staring Devin had already stepped out of the car and come around to open my door. When I stood and my knees nearly buckled under me, I realised my second wind was deceptive.

  Devin stepped up close to me, bracing me with his body. I was trying to get my groggy body to launch a protest when he slung his jacket over my shoulders. I hadn’t even realised yet I was shivering.

  “Could have just given me a proper jacket of my own,” I muttered. I was staying up now mostly through the pressure of my shoulder against his, and the warmth spreading through my body at that contact was making me feel even less able to stand up on my own. I strained to keep my head from lolling onto his chest, covered by that obnoxiously fresh-smelling shirt.

  “Come on, Julia, you know by now it doesn’t work like that.” He moved back, and I thought for a second he was going to let me fall in a heap to rub in the error of my ways, but then he had an arm over my shoulders and one of my hands in his, and he walked me to the gate, where he… pulled something out of his pocket that caused the thing to make its unlocking click when he passed it over the sensor box.

  “Your parents need to keep better track of what exploits are available for the security hardware they install,” he said when he took in my slack jaw. He rubbed my arm hard, sending a shiver through me that wasn’t related to the cold and was an unwelcome distraction from my sudden horror. “Now, I’m going to get you inside and then bring the car up. If we leave it out on the street there’s no saying what hoodlums will come around and mess with it.”

  I didn’t want to walk up that driveway with him, but when he pushed the gate aside I had to move. What use was it indulging in fear of my own house?

  I was expecting Devin to just break in once we arrived at the front door, since he’d clearly been able to deactivate the alarms, but he stepped back and said, “The code?”

  “I thought you did something to the alarm,” I protested.

  “I had someone come up and repair everything those buffoons did to it.” Devin shook his head. “I’m sorry, it was an offence to let anyone with such low standards onto your property. A genuine mistake on my part, and one I won’t repeat.”

  He wasn’t apologising for kidnapping me, just the quality of the kidnapping job. I half-wondered if he’d pull out a feedback form at the end of this, asking me to Strongly Agree or Strongly Disagree on various elements of the experience.

  I didn’t think he was spying on me when I punched my code in, but he probably didn’t need to. If he couldn’t hire another team to sidestep the protections, he was probably holding onto some other Bond-style device that was feeding the numbers directly into it as I entered them.

  He left me in the foyer with his jacket while he excused himself to park the car properly inside our grounds—and I knew it was all about him wanting to piss on our territory, never mind that cute excuse about hoodlums, in this neighbourhood.

  While he was gone, I could run, kick off those stupid shoes and go hide somewhere out of the house so he couldn’t find me. I could call the police, assuming he hadn’t found some way to deactivate our phone service.

  But what would the point be? If he wanted to find me, he would find me eventually, and he didn’t seem inclined to hurt me unless I started something serious.

  It pissed me off, but the way to solve this problem was to either go along with his plan, or tell him I wouldn’t. I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t respect my choice… I just had to make one.

  I heard a light tread on the steps outside and realised I’d just been standing there for ages, sagging like I was twice as drunk as was actually the case.

  I needed to get it together before he saw me like this. I put in a tremendous effort and got myself a more appropriate level of upright, but I could tell when I turned to face him coming in that he had a pretty clear idea of my mental state. It figured he would have some experience with fractured women.

  He steered me into the kitchen and sat me down on one of the stools at the island bench, and prepared another tea for me, selecting something herbal from my mother’s wooden teabag box. It was unsettling watching him move with such ease around our kitchen at first, like he’d been there enough times to know where everything was, but after I’d seen enough I was certain that wasn’t the case. Devin was just very good at feeling his way around a situation, working out where everything was quickly enough that it just seemed natural.

  I shouldn’t… but there I was again wondering how he would be working his hands around a woman. If it would feel different to the kids I’d had encounters with before.

  That was definitely my state of inebriation talking. I was starting to slide off the edge of the stool just thinking about it.

  Devin slid the steaming cup across the bench and sat down, leaving one stool between us. “It may not mean anything from me, but I am sorry you’ve been caught up in this.”

  I directed my resentment at the drink. “Not enough to not kidnap me though.”

  “I’m sorry you were unprepared, not for m
y part in it. Your parents should have paid their debts, and they should have been honest with you about their lives. You could have come into contact with it in a far more confronting way and you wouldn’t have had any way of defending yourself.”

  I swigged the tea like it was alcoholic, and it was bitter enough that it almost worked. “Do I want to know?”

  “There are plenty of ways to use a young attractive daughter to recoup a debt.” Devin’s voice was so hard it made my head hurt both hearing and processing the words. I pushed my cup away and put my head down on the bench, on his jacket I’d taken off and laid alongside me.

  I stiffened at Devin’s hand on my back through my thin blouse, but probably not as much as I would have completely sober. “Your parents seem to have carelessness with precious things under their care as a primary character trait.”

  “You would care more, then.” I realised my words were muffled in his jacket and I was liable to drool on it besides, so I sat up and repeated myself. “If you had a daughter like me.”

  Devin’s eyes on me were a touch investigative, like usual, but in a less piercing manner than back when we’d first faced off. With him hovering over my shoulder, I felt like I was being enclosed in a soothing blanket. “I don’t want to think of you in terms of a daughter, Julia, but if I were to make you a part of my family, I would make sure you had everything you needed to feel safe.”

  Boys had promised a lot of things to me back in the days when I was going around and selecting boys I knew would promise a lot of things to me. None of them had ever offered anything of this value. None of them were able to see that I needed anything, with my glamorous home life I pumped up by hardly letting them see any of it.

  Finally, I stared up at Devin and realised that someone, even if it was a kneecap-smashing mafia loan shark who possibly had some personal issues of his own… someone saw past the things most people thought were all there was to see.

  “He won,” I said.

  Devin didn’t ask who, because of course he already knew. He waited.