DEBT

by Jessica Gadziala

  "You can't have my daughter," my father said, his voice so forceful that I actually jumped. That was not my father. My father was all smiles and laughs and cheery tones. He was the light and warm to my dark and cold. That was why, despite all the crap he had put me through, I never gave up on him.

  "So the decision is made," Mr. St. James said, giving him a small nod as he reached for the gun.

  This literally could not be happening. This could not be my life. I could not be in some ridiculous mansion with the jackoff owner reaching for a gun to kill my father. No way in hell.

  Before I even knew what I was doing, I flung my body in front of my father's.

  "Well, you can't have his life," I said, my voice sounding very much like my teeth were clenched together because they were.

  "You're not getting my daughter, St. James," my father insisted again, grabbing me and moving me away from him.

  "What's to stop me from killing you and then taking her anyway?" Mr. St. James proposed, effectively shutting my father up. "Yeah, thought that would shut you up," he added and I had to curl my hands into fists at my side to keep myself from crawling up on his desk and clawing the skin off his face.

  "St. James she's..." my father's voice sounded dipped in emotion and when I glanced over, his eyes were swimming. My father never cried. Never. Not once in my entire life.

  "I won't hurt her, Mack," Mr. St. James said, sounding almost annoyed at my father's obvious distress. "Not in the way you're thinking anyway," he added and I felt my stomach flip.

  Well, there was that at least.

  "I'll do it," I said automatically. It was the only way. I wasn't going to lose my father; he was all I had in the world. Alright, so he wasn't the best role model and I spent a lot of my time as a kid worrying myself sick over the bills he never paid on time. But even when the house was a studio apartment with no lights and roaches in the sink, he filled it with so much love that I never wanted to be anywhere else. He was the only ever-present person in my life, the only person I could lean on when life felt too tough. I would not let the cold-hearted bastard in front of us take him from me.

  "Prue..." my father hissed.

  I turned to him, shrugging a shoulder. "You know it's the only way."

  "No, honey. We will figure out..."

  "Tick tock," Mr. St. James' voice called out, making me shoot a scathing glance at him.

  "If there was another option, Dad, trust me, I'd be all over it. But it's either you die or I become chattel to some egomaniac." I heard a snort from St. James and rolled my eyes at him. "He said he won't hurt me."

  "Honey, you don't know what he..."

  "Nuh-uh-uh," St. James' voice broke in, drawing our attention. "No spoilers, Mack," he added and my father sighed.

  "This isn't a movie; it's my life," I shot back at him.

  "Not anymore."

  That cut off the words on the tip of my tongue as I stood there and bit into my cheek. Because that was true. It wouldn't be my life anymore. I was right when I referred to myself as chattel. That was exactly what I was. I belonged to him. And, what's worse, I had no idea what that even meant.

  But because he seemed like a bastard and his house had all the warmth of a glacier in the arctic, I didn't imagine my life would involve my usual trips to the coffee shop in the morning and my long, boring day at the bank, or going home to my economical, but cozy apartment where I would cook when I felt like it, order in when I didn't, and bake until my counters had no space left and I needed to start knocking on neighbors' doors to unload some of the sugary goodness.

  Hell, I wouldn't exactly have been surprised if the jerk put a freaking chain on my ankle.

  "Honey..." my dad said, reaching for my hands as he shook his head.

  "She already made the deal, Mack," St. James cut in, drawing my attention to find his dark eyes on me. "She's going to clean up your mess as I imagine she has had to do quite a bit in her life already. You want this to be the last hard lesson she has to learn on your behalf, shape the fuck up. Miss. Marlow," he said, addressing me though his gaze literally hadn't left mine the whole time he was speaking to my father, "you have until ten a.m. tomorrow morning to get your affairs and order and report here."

  He said it as he flicked a hand and turned away from us like it was the end of the discussion.

  "Ah, Mr. St James?" I prompted, feeling my father squeeze my hand like he was trying to shut me up.

  "What?" he barked, lifting his head with the gun in his hand, everything about his body language implying that he was annoyed by me. Why, then, he wanted me to work for him or something when he obviously wanted nothing to do with me was completely beyond me.

  "I'm going to need more clarification about what..."

  "You're going to go home, pack up the shit you need day-to-day, quit your job, sublet your apartment if necessary, throw out all your food and shit, say goodbye to your father, get some sleep, get your ass up bright and early and get the fuck back here by ten tomorrow morning. Do I need to be more clear than that?"

  Quit my job? Sublet my apartment? Pack my shit?

  What the hell?

  "Quit my job?" I went with, my voice a weird whisper-sound.

  "Yes. Quit your job. You work for me now."

  Okay. Alright. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my pounding pulse and the swirling feeling in my stomach. It was just a job. A bank job. It was nothing. True, I had worked there for a couple years and I had a lot of respect from my managers, but I could work at another bank at anytime. I could even save face by claiming a family emergency for the reason I had to quit. They knew nothing of my personal life because, well, who wanted to hire a bank employee who existed around huge sums of money when they had a shameless gambler as a close relative? If anything, my managers would probably be worried for me and tell me that they'd try to save my job for me when I sorted things out.

  I could live with that.

  "Okay. But... sublet my apartment and pack my things?" I pressed, always being the kind of person who clarified every small detail to the point of it almost seeming obsessive-compulsive and anal. But, what could I say? When you grew up with a man who would say things like 'I'm going to go out for a bit' and I didn't press for how long, I learned it meant that he would be gone for three days straight God-knew where doing God-knew what while I lied to my neighbors and told them he was sick with the flu so no one got the idea to call child services because I was home alone at eleven.

  To that, Mr. St. James sighed heavily like I was a slow child and lifted a brow at me. "You live here now. Enjoy your last night at your apartment, take the things with you that you absolutely need, things like: shampoo, soap, conditioner, razors, makeup, tampons, a small supply of clothes, indispensable mementos, and leave the shit you don't need: all your books and pictures and sheets and everything else you don't need to survive day-to-day, and then drive here tomorrow morning because you live here now. Is that clear enough for you?"

  It actually was. And, normally, I would have truly appreciated that fact. But, well, he was a complete douchebag so all I managed was to small-eye him and jerk my chin. "Yep."

  "Mack, spend the night with your daughter. It's the last time you will see her for a while. But not," he went on to add as I felt my heart constrict in my chest at the idea of not being able to see my father, "the last time you will see me."

  "You said..." I started to object, pulling my hand from my father's and moving closer to his desk, ready to pitch a holy shitfit if he was going to go back on his word.

  As if sensing my argument and having no patience for it, he held up a hand at me. "We have some things to discuss. I give my word that is all it is for now."

  "Yeah, well... I have no idea how much your word is worth," I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest.

  "It's worth everything," he said in a heavy tone, putting his hands wide on his desk and leaning slightly over it in a way that was so threatening that I had to
fight to not take a step back. "Now if you're done acting like an impertinent child, I have business."

  Impertinent child?

  Impertinent child?

  "Let's go, Prue," my father said suddenly, his arm going around my waist as he forcibly turned me away from Byron St.James, knowing because he knew me like no other, that I was seconds from absolutely losing my mind. "We will talk, St. James," my father said, his back to the man in question as he led me toward the hall.

  Any time I tried to speak on the way out of the house to the car, my father actually shushed me. Shushed me. This was a man who was completely incapable of tolerating silence in any way. If he wasn't waxing on and on about something or another, doing so with so much enthusiasm and flourish that you were incapable of being angry about him interrupting whatever you had previously been doing, he was singing loudly to music; if he wasn't doing that, he was reaching for your hand and asking you about your day, about your life, about your hopes and dreams, about your fears... and listening. When Mack Marlow's attention was on you, it was on you and you felt like the most important person in the world.

  Quiet was never something that was afforded me when I was in my father's presence.

  So him shushing me, yeah, that was a giant, blinking, neon warning sign to shut the hell up.

  So I did.

  Until we got into the car.

  Until we got out of the driveway.

  Until we got across town to almost the Atlantic City limits where my apartment was.

  Until we climbed the stairs to my apartment and closed ourselves inside.

  Then and only then did he finally speak.

  "We need to go. Now," he snapped, moving around my apartment, grabbing various items into his arms as he went.

  "Dad... what are you doing?"

  "Mexico. Canada. The islands. Europe. God damn Ukraine. I don't give a damn, but we have to get the hell out of this country right now, Dear Prudence," he said, grabbing my picture off my bookshelf of the time he took me to Disney and we posed with Belle who was, as anyone with a brain knew, the best Disney princess.

  "Dad. Dad," I said louder, almost yelling to try to catch his attention. When I did, I saw nothing but fear and worry and regret in his face. "We can't run from this. You know that. I bet if you looked down at the street that one of his body guard guys or whatever they are is sitting in a car outside. He knows your instinct will be to run."

  "You can't go work for him. You can't go live with him!"

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm my own nerves that were screaming the exact same thing in my head. As was almost always the case, I had to be the level-headed one, I had to be the grown up. "I have no choice, Dad. And he said he wouldn't hurt me."

  "He said not like that."

  "Exactly so he won't..."

  "Beat or rape you, no," he said, the bluntness there making me flinch. My father wasn't blunt. My father was flowery words; my father was waxing poetic; my father was purple prose. "But you don't know him. You don't know what he is capable of."

  "Dad, he was willing to shoot you. In front of me. I'm pretty sure I get that he's the bad guy to end all bad guys. But that doesn't change the fact that I don't see any way out of this."

  "There's always a way out. There's always..."

  "A shortcut? A side exit? Some slight of hand to give you a chance to escape? No, there's not, Dad. There's always someone who has to go back and collect the shit and put it to rights. There's always someone who has to settle the debts and..." I clamped my mouth shut before I could say anything I would regret, anything that would hurt him, that would imply he had done anything other than his best for me. Because, while he had screwed up a lot and I did have to grow up fast and shoulder a burden too heavy for my little shoulders, I knew that was the truth. He did his best he could by me. He was sick. His addiction was no different from a heroin-user, a smoker, a pill popper, an alcoholic. He got high off the thrill and the win. He crashed when he lost it all. Then he needed that high again, by whatever means necessary. It was an illness. And it wasn't right for me to be angry about it.

  "And that has always been you," he said, surprising me as he dropped everything he was holding onto my couch and sat down beside the pile, holding his head in his hands.

  "Dad..."

  "Don't, Prue. Don't try to smooth it over. I know it's true. It's always been you. Before you, it was your mother. I scared her away. And now I'm having you taken from me. I'm such a..."

  "Don't," I said, moving to sit next to him, my ass half on the pile of my stuff.

  "Dear, dear Prudence..." he started, his voice thick.

  "I said don't," I interrupted, making my voice steel even though I felt like my insides were all cracking. "This is a mild setback. He can't keep me there forever. I will go. I'll do my job. And then we will get back on track. Stop worrying about me. I'm a big girl. I can handle myself."

  "Yeah," he said, shaking his head, not looking at me. "I guess you've had a lot of practice over the years."

  "Dad..." I tried again, wanting to take that tone out of his voice, the weight off his shoulders.

  "Okay," he said suddenly, clapping, surprising me enough to jump. "Let's have a going-away party then, shall we?" he asked jumping up and going for my fridge. "Leftover Chinese and pizza. I'll throw together a salad with all these greens. And we can use up this milk with some giant milkshakes for dessert," he said, his tone almost Santa Claus-cheery. But I would take fake happy over real sad with my dad any day.

  So as he moved around my kitchen, humming some song I didn't recognize because it was probably older than me, I walked into my bedroom under the pretense of changing into comfortable clothes and quickly and efficiently starting to pile necessary items into a box and a suitcase. I figured that would be the maximum amount of items that would be considered practical and I rolled my clothes to make as much room as possible, packing things that were practical: a few blouses, pairs of slacks, jeans, a couple tees, a sweatshirt, pajamas, socks, undies, and bras. Then I socked away all my bathroom essentials, grabbed a picture of my dad and an old copy of Sense and Sensibility, and called it a day.

  Then I went out and had a going-away party with my father.

  He gave me a huge hug and said goodbye to me like he expected to see me the next weekend, like always.

  But I knew better.

  And I knew he knew better.

  So it stung a little that he was leaving it at that.

  With a pit the size of Russia in my belly, I called my manager and laid it on thick about a family emergency. I told her my dad was really sick and, in my mind, it wasn't a lie. He was sick, just not in the way I was implying. I checked my savings account, deciding against subletting, and paying my landlord for the next three months ahead of time. I couldn't imagine I'd be gone longer than that. It left me woefully low on cash for when I eventually did re-emerge, but I would figure it out.

  I always did.

  THREE

  Prue

  Somehow, the house looked even bigger as I pulled up in my crappy little fifteen year-old white sedan and parked it far to the side of the lot, not having been given instructions on what to do about my car. I flipped down my visor and looked into my eyes as I smoothed my hair back into the ponytail where a few wisps had blew about in the breeze of the open windows.

  "You can do this," I told myself, pretending not to hear the hint of hysteria in my tone. It had been building all morning. My alarm had buzzed, as per usual, at seven. I climbed up with an immediate plummeting sensation in my stomach as I looked at my bag and box stashed next to my bedroom door. It only got more and more intense as I grabbed clothes: a pair of black slacks, a light blue silk blouse, and sensible barely-there kitten-heeled shoes, and made my way into the bathroom to shower. Then it became positively nauseating as I forced myself to drink coffee and eat a corn muffin from the coffee shop on my way over. I had no idea what my day would entail so I wanted to be caff
einated and have something in my stomach just in case.

  I exhaled loudly, pulling out my keys, then climbing out of my car. I went to my trunk, popping it, pulling out my rolling bag and box, then making my way toward the door where the same guard from the day before stood there, watching me struggle and not bothering to offer any kind of help.

  Apparently Byron St. James wasn't the only asshole in residence.

  But that was fine.

  It was okay.

  I had spent my entire working life dealing with difficult people.

  I could do it with a smile.

  I could bite my tongue.

  I trained for this.

  "Am I supposed to stand here all day?" I asked, keeping my tone mild as he stood there in front of the door, seeming to make no move to let me inside.

  "You're early."

  "Ah, yes," I said, brows drawing together. It wasn't like I was obnoxiously early. It was ten minutes. I always left myself a ten to fifteen minute buffer in case of traffic. I'd never found someone who thought being a teensy bit early was a bad thing.

  "He'll be ready for you at ten."

  And that was apparently that because he looked pointedly away from me toward the gates and kept standing in front of the door.

  With a nod and, what I was sure was the second of many, sighs of the day, I put down my box and sat on the top step, waiting until Mr. Byron St. James could whittle out a couple of minutes to tell me what my fate was.

  Judging my the time on my phone, it was the exact second the big hand hit twelve and the hour changed to ten that the door swung open, making my heart feel like it did a similar motion as I whipped my head around to see St. James standing in the doorway in gray slacks and a tailored white button-up, another expensive watch on his wrist.

  "Miss. Marlow," he said, jerking his chin at me then disappearing inside. I took that to mean I was supposed to follow so I scrambled up, grabbing my box and bag and moving inside. "This way," I heard from above me and turned to see him standing halfway up a staircase.

  With a shrug, and figuring he was showing me to my room given that I was going to be living there for God-knew what reason, I pushed the handle of my bag in and grabbed it by the strap instead, struggling up the stairs behind him. He, like his man outside, was apparently born and raised with no manners as he didn't so much as ask if I needed any help.