by Rea Winters
Wincing through the obnoxious EDM track blasting at an ear-grating volume, her confused gaze roamed over the strange set up before her. Studio lights on stands and tripod cameras pointed at a spot on the floor smeared with smushed chocolate cake and busted balloons. Her heart sank when she found Amie sprawled among the mess. Topless in lingerie, covered in icing, and barely moving.
Caspar crossed the maze of tech with no regard, knocking things out of her path, sending a light stand crashing to the floor. She kneeled in the mess, covered Amie with her jacket and gently tapped her face.
“Amie, open your eyes, look at me.”
The girl’s eyes fluttered open, revealing pupils dilated to the size of quarters. Quiet giggles escaped her lips as she languidly pawed at Caspar’s arms.
“Hey, you can’t be in here!” Larry yelled over the music, grabbing Caspar’s shoulder. Caspar whipped around, twisted his arm behind his back in a crushing hold, and pushed him all the way to the stereo in the dark corner.
“Turn it off!”
“Okay-okay!” The creep weasel blindly pushed a bunch of buttons until the music stopped. Caspar shoved him and returned to Amie while Larry hissed in pain, cradling his arm and glaring at Caspar. “Hey, this is a perfectly legal and legitimate business. She came to me, alright? She needed the money. There’s no funny business between us, we’re just working.”
Caspar cradled Amie’s head and wiped the icing off her face. Her skin was burning up, eyes half-open and glazed over.
“What is she on?”
Amie closed her eyes and turned into her touch, beginning to whine and whimper as it all became less funny for some reason.
“Just a few party favors,” Larry answered. “She wanted to loosen up before the show…aah, dammit, I think you broke my arm.”
“If I broke it, you’d know.”
“Look, I don’t need this kind of trouble. If this is how it’s gonna be, just take her. Her cut for time served is on the table by the couch right there. Tell her the rest will go to replacing all the shit you broke.”
Caspar marched to the couch and snatched Amie’s messenger bag off the table, then took her girl into her arms bridal style, cradling her head against her neck.
“Hold on to me.”
Though her voice muddled through Amie’s mental haze, she understood enough to link her arms around the strong woman’s shoulders as Cas jogged up the stairs. Larry scoffed and yelled after them.
“Yeah, don’t forget her other shit upstairs! And don’t come back!”
After a rinse off in Desmond’s shower, Amie was on her knees in front of the toilet, puking her guts up. Caspar kneeled behind her, covering her hair with a big towel to hold it back from her face. Then she wiped Amie’s mouth with a warm wet cloth as the girl leaned back against her, catching her breath. This misadventure at last came to an end when Cas slipped one of her shirts over Amie’s half-mobile form and carried her to bed.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The bruising around Amie’s wrists was a couple days old. Caspar sat on the edge of the bed, her jaw clenched as she tried not to imagine how it got there. Amie’s cellphone buzzed inside her messenger bag, pulling her attention. She was about to leave it unanswered until she read the caller ID.
“I accept.”
“Bear…Hey, you there?”
“Is this Tony Seda?”
“Who the hell is this, where’s my daughter?”
“My name is Caspar Adami.”
“Caspar Ada…uh, Amie’s new boss?”
Amie moaned in discomfort and shifted restlessly, only calming when Caspar gingerly pet her head.
“I’m her friend.”
“Where is she? She okay?”
“She’s here. And no, she’s not okay. She told me she had a problem, something to do with family…”
“Dammit, I told her not to get involved.”
Caspar glanced at the packet of money among Amie’s clothes in the bag.
“Did they hurt her?”
“Who?” Cas demanded, walking away from the bed. “Tell me what this is about right now.”
“No, no. Just stay out of it. I don’t think she wants you involved. We Sedas—”
“I’ve had enough of this Seda pride bullshit. What is going on?”
Tony cursed under his breath. “Alright, fine.”
By the end of the explanation, Cas was sitting back down, switching between squeezing the bridge of her nose and pressing her forehead in her palm.
“Hey, you own like a factory or something, right? You gotta have money. That’s all these guys want. They collect what’s owed and you never see them again unless you go to them. So just pay ‘em. And whatever you do, don’t go to the cops. What they did to me is nothing compared to what they’ll do to all of us if cops start sniffing around. We’ve dealt with these guys before; she’ll tell you herself. Get ‘em the money and they’ll go. And if you can’t, then at least get her the hell out of there.”
Their conversation was cut short by a guard telling him to wrap it up.
“Hey, hey, take care of my baby girl, alright? She’s all I got.”
When the call ended, Amie stirred awake.
“C-Cas…?” She croaked.
“I’m right here.” She helped Amie sit up and fed her water from a glass on the nightstand.
“My head…” Amie moaned, peering around through squinted eyes. “Where are we?”
“Desmond’s house. He’s away with his mom and I needed to stay in town. Close by.”
A thought hit Amie like a lightning bolt, jolting her forward. “The money—”
Caspar kept her in place. “Calm down, it’s over there.”
“No,” she whined, falling back against the headboard. “It’s not enough. And you, you were supposed to leave me alone.”
“Too bad. Your dad called, he told me about the guys threatening you.”
Amie huffed, tears coming to her eyes. “They didn’t threaten me. They threatened you.”
“Amie—”
“You can’t be around me right now. It’s not safe. I have to meet them tonight and I don’t have all their money.”
“Amie—”
“And even if I work out some kind of deal, go back with them and work it off in the clubs, they’re gonna hurt you first and probably still have my dad killed.”
“Amie—”
“You have your own life, people depending on you, a cool uncle who lets you use his house apparently and Roadie, too, and I don’t want to ruin that.” She scoffed. “I thought I could be a part of it—"
Caspar cupped her face with both hands. “Amie.”
“What?”
Cas thumbed away her tears. “You are a part of it. You’re the part that matters most. That’s why you’re not going anywhere. Right now, I need you to get some rest. We’ll talk more later.”
“But—”
“Everything will be okay. You have my word.”
“For better or worse?” She managed a fragile smile.
“That’s right.”
Once resettled under the covers, Amie fell back to sleep in under a minute. Cas clasped Amie’s hand and kissed her knuckles to soothe the ball of panic stabbing at her own chest. Situations like hers Caspar had only seen in movies and those rarely ended well. Rationale told her she should go to the police and report these men, but Tony Seda’s warning superseded. Cas was sure she could protect herself and she would put her life on the line to protect Amie, but what if she failed? And what would become of Amie’s father? Despite Caspar’s low opinion of the man, if he died because these goons thought Amie needed a lesson in obedience, Cas would never forgive herself. Neither would Amie, she imagined.
So, Caspar made up her mind to take care of the problem herself. As much as she didn’t want to, that meant she had to leave Amie’s side, but she had trouble getting her feet to move. Sensing the confliction, Roadie jumped in the bed and laid his head on the girl’s stomach.
; “Okay. You keep watch then. I’ll be back soon.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Jo Becker sat in her car behind a warehouse.
“What time are they supposed to be here again?” Hayden Ferreiro asked from the passenger seat, nervously chewing on a thick wad of gum as she scanned the gravelly lot from every angle.
“Any minute now,” Jo answered. She propped her arm up on the windowsill, tapping her fist against her chin. The crisp autumn air did nothing to cool the flames inside her heart. “…your slap on the wrist…’” The memory of being manhandled by Adami in that alley lashed deeper at her ego every time it crossed her mind, cracking open the door to darker memories of her late father. He, too, had pinned her to walls when she failed to live up to the Becker family standard, when she was an embarrassment, when she let herself be beaten by those beneath their station. Jo could feel his spirit glaring down at her, roaring at her back, telling her to rise, to dominate or else.
“I’ll show you,” she vowed under her breath, her knee bouncing and teeth grinding. She would show Caspar Adami a slap on the wrist.
The two goons rolled up next to Becker’s car and lowered their window.
“Meet up is tonight,” McCreery informed. “Now, we know Seda. She’ll show up even if she has to crawl on two broken legs. Your Adami, we can’t be so sure. What happens if the ladda ain’t with her?”
“She will be. Can’t help herself.”
“What’s your problem with this ladda anyway? She the one who did that to your face?”
Jo tightened her jaw, looked away.
“Ey right, huh?” McCreery laughed. “Look, I don’t wanna tell you how to spend your money or nothing, but we’d be happy to just bang her up with a couple of bats for twenty minutes and call it a day—”
“No. We stick to the plan. Adami doesn’t need her ass kicked, okay, what she needs is a lesson in respect.”
McCreery and Mikey exchange amused glances, then shrug and salute their employer before driving off.
“Uh, what exactly is the plan?” Hayden asked. “You’re not seriously gonna like…kill Adami, are you?”
Jo started the car. “Of course not. Death is easy, Hayden. Humiliation, ruin, that’s how you really punish someone.”
Chapter Forty
Caspar marched out of the bank, jumped into her truck and threw a pouch into the glove box. Her phone chirped and the caller ID read Jacobsen. Vera did her best to hold back tears as she informed Cas of the results. Something in the ladda sank and rose simultaneously. It was good news at the worst possible time.
“Okay. So what’s next?”
She would need to fly to the city Selas. Vera was already there at the hospital with Aaron. She offered to buy her ticket and make other arrangements, but Cas stopped her.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll make my own arrangements.”
“O-okay. The earliest flights leave out late tonight.”
Cas suppressed a flustered sigh. “Okay.”
“Would you like to speak to Aaron? We haven’t told him anything about you, except that you’re trying to help him. You could introduce yourself…”
The offer gave her pause. She hadn’t considered that before, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it now.
“No.”
“Oh, okay. That’s fine.”
“I have to go.”
“See you soon.”
✽ ✽ ✽
All cleaned up, but far from refreshed, Amie paced the bedroom with a white-knuckle hold on her phone. Tangled thoughts clashed through her mind, the air thinning, her heat racing. The master at landing on her feet just couldn’t get a grip. She jumped at the jiggle of the doorknob, then sighed in relief once Caspar walked through the door.
She threw her arms around her and Caspar’s arms fell around her like a shield.
“Your note said you’d be back an hour ago.”
“Sorry. I had to pack.”
“Pack?” Amie backed up a few steps, panic spiking within her as Cas slid a duffle bag off her shoulder and set it next to hers. “Cas, you know I can’t run, right? My dad—”
“You’re not running. I got the call from Vera this morning. I’m a match for Aaron. She wants me to leave for Selas tonight, but I’m not going anywhere without you. So, we take care of your problem first.” She pulled a pouch of money from her inside jacket pocket. “Fifty-five grand. All there.”
“But…”
“What?”
“This is your money…”
“And now it’s yours.”
Amie clutched the pouch and lowered her head.
“What’s wrong?”
Her heart ached, pulled apart as love and gratitude warred with her biggest fear.
“I don’t want this. I mean, I didn’t plan for it. I wasn’t…” She trailed off with a huff and sat on the foot of the bed, staring at the pouch in her lap. “I’ve seen what it’s done to the women in my dad’s life when they realized they were just a means to an end. He liked them and they liked him. A few times, they could even call it love and I got to call someone Mommy, but his problems would always take over whatever they tried to have together and then they’d just become solutions.” She bit her lip to quell its tremble as thicker tears rained from her eyes and pelted her hands.
“Sure, little favors here and there were fine, but then the bigger ones always came right after. The sicker of it they got, the less their love for this man and his little girl mattered. They’d leave all drained and angry and saying they didn’t matter as much to him as they hoped. That he only cared about what they could do for him. That’s why I promised myself I would never…”
Her grip tightened on the pouch. She cleared her throat and held her head up, her misty eyes meeting Caspar’s.
“I don’t use the people I love. I just…I need you to know that.”
“I do.”
Amie nodded, set the pouch aside and hid her face in her hands. Then she cleared her throat again, wiped her face and shook her head, trying to regain her senses.
“Good. So, um, you’ll take this pouch back to the bank or you know what, better yet, take it with you to the airport since the bank’s probably closed by now and you’ll need to, uh, get yourself situated in Selas on short notice. And I will stay here and talk things out with Mikey and McCreery.” She maneuvered around Caspar, brought her bag to the bed, and rummaged for the rolls of money wrapped in rubber bands that she’d earned from Larry’s Playhouse. “I know they sound bad, but they’re actually pretty easy to deal with when it comes to business. Easier than most. If they were the really scary types you see in the movies, then I wouldn’t be here right now. So, I will handle them and you will go save Aaron Jacobsen’s life.”
Caspar watched her, her own heart constricting as her mind chased down the right words. Amie was worth more than she herself realized. And she was worth more to Cas than the money in that bag and every possession under the Adami name. How to explain the obvious to someone who couldn’t see it as clearly as she did? Cas started with standing by Amie’s side and rubbing her back, watching her fingers slightly tremble as she concentrated on counting money.
“Amie.”
“I know what you’re gonna say and the answer is no.”
“Will you slow down? Just for a second?”
Amie huffed, but let herself be guided back onto the bed. Caspar bent down on one knee before her, swiped her hair behind her ears and cupped her face. Amie tightly held onto her wrists and after a few long shaky breaths, she was steady and able to look into Caspar’s eyes.
“Better?”
She nodded. “You have to understand, Cas. I love my dad, but if something worse were to happen to him, at least I could say I did my best. I think I could accept it on some level. But if something happened to you because of me, I’d never forgive myself. Never. And not just because of what you mean to other people. I…you mean a lot to me. So, please. Just let me do what I do.” Contrary to the fierce determination in her
tone, Amie’s body was running on the fumes of fear and exhaustion.
“I’m going to tell you something and you have to promise to believe me,” Cas said.
“What?”
“I love you, too. And I don’t abandon the ones I love. You don’t have to like it, but it’s something you’ll just have to accept about me.”
A fragile acceptance fought for dominance over the uncertainty glimmering in Amie’s tearful gaze. For some reason, that made her laugh, her voice cracking as she softly chuckled. A rope of trust weaved through the old knots of caution around her heart and untied them one by one.
“You better not take it back.”
“Never.”
Amie laid her forehead against Caspar’s and years of buried anxiousness came flooding from her bones, making her feel a thousand times lighter. Cas stroked her tears away, then captured her lips in a slow sweet kiss.
Chapter Forty-One
An hour after midnight, Caspar’s truck came to a stop by the park several feet behind the dark red car they were told would be waiting there. Though McCreery and Mikey’s shadows could be seen through the misty windows, neither stepped out of the running car.
Caspar put one hand on the pouch and another on the door handle when Amie’s hand fell on hers.
“No, wait. I should do it.”
“Amie—”
“Just hear me out. I know these guys. They talk a lot of shit, try to get under your skin, but at the end of the day, all they want to do is collect and move on to the next.”
“And if they can’t collect, selling people to sex mills is apparently the next best thing—”
“But that’s not going to happen now because we have the money.”
Caspar sighed through her nose like a bull, glaring at the bruising on Amie’s wrist.
“Caspar, look at me. I’ve done this part before. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Please? It’s almost over. I just want it to go smoothly. And it’s all over your face that the second they say one thing out of line, smooth goes out the window.”
