Page 25 of Ruthless Daddy
She went even colder. I could feel her closing doors in her head.
“They weren’t going to kill you,” I said, and that made her face snap up. Her eyes hit mine, hard, and I watched the hope die before the question could even form on her lips.
I didn’t let her ask. I told her. “Halberd,” I said. “The hedge fund. You familiar with the name?”
She froze. An almost-perfect freeze, except for the tiniest jump of a nerve at her jaw.
I pressed. “Interesting. Why do you think a bunch of white-collar criminals in prison for cleaning Valenti money would send men to hunt you down?”
She looked away, and when she spoke it was almost a whisper. “I don’t know anything about Halberd.”
I shook my head. “Not a good liar.” I stepped closer, one slow pace. “They want you alive. No questions, no damage, just bring you in. That’s not normal, not for this crowd.”
She cut me off. “How did you get this out of them?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I do. Did you hurt them?”
“Not personally,” I said. “I let someone else handle it.”
She shook her head, her skin dragged taut. “You’re the same as them. All monsters.”
“No,” I said. “We are not. I would never pay men to do what those men were planning to do with you. Do you understand what they were going to do to you? Take you to a brothel, force you to work. Forever. Or at least the despair and pain got to be too much.”
She stared at me then, really looked, like she was seeing me for the first time. I saw the scan happening, the way she was piecing the past forty-eight hours into a new shape.
“Two others before you,” I said. “Both dead.”
“You don’t even know me,” she said, but her voice was softer. “Why do you care?”
I didn’t answer her right away. If I told her the truth, she’d run; if I lied, she’d know. I let the silence fill the space until she had to look away.
I said, “You can get back on that bus. But they’ll find you. The world these people move in—their world—it’s invisible to everyone except themselves. You can’t win by running. You have to hide inside the monster’s mouth, or you get chewed up in the street.”
She let out a laugh, but it was empty, a sound made only to fill the air. “You are so fucked up,” she said.
I didn’t disagree.
I told her, “I have a place. No one knows where it is. I will look after you until it’s safe. We’ll work together to find these people, and we will make them pay for what they’ve done—for what they planned to do with you. Only you decide.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t even move. For a second, I thought she’d gone catatonic, but then she spoke.
“What if I say no?”
I shrugged. “Then you say no. I won’t stop you. I won’t even follow you out the door.” It was a lie, but only on the margins.
She stared at the linoleum for a long time. The room smelled like canned air and old coffee and the chemical sweetness of the cupcakes in the vending machine. I tasted all of it at the back of my tongue while I waited.
Finally, she looked up. Her voice was rough. “What’s the address?”
I told her. She put it in her phone, but didn’t hit send—just kept her thumb over the screen.
I said, “I can take you there now. Or you can go alone. I’m not going to force you.”
She blinked, hard. I saw the tears start but she killed them before they got past her lashes.
“Why are you doing this?” she said.
