“Smart man.”

Byrne brought my hand to his mouth, pressing a cold kiss to the back of it, darting his tongue between my index and middle fingers, showing me what he wanted to do to the rest of my body. I swallowed a ball of puke and breathed through my nose. He was doing a great job of scaring the bejesus out of me, and he knew it. Byrne was a loan shark who was notorious for collecting his checks rain or shine, and my husband owed him over a hundred thousand dollars.

He rested my damp palm on his cheek, nuzzling against it.

“Sorry, Persephone. It’s nothing personal. I have a debt to collect, and if I don’t collect it soon, people are going to assume it’s okay to take money from me without paying me back. If you’re interested in reimbursing me through a different currency, I can stitch together a plan. I’m not an unreasonable man. But no matter how you look at it—you will pay your husband’s debt, and you better hurry, because the interest is stacking up nicely as the weeks tick by.”

“What are you insinuating?” My heart jackhammered its way through my rib cage, about to abandon ship and run out of the building without me.

This idea had never come up before in the months Byrne and Kaminski had been paying me weekly visits. I was a preschool teacher, for crying out loud. Where would I be able to find one hundred thousand dollars? Even my kidneys weren’t worth that much.

And yes, I was desperate enough to Google it.

“I’m saying if you can’t pay the outstanding balance, you’ll have to work for it.”

“Just spit it out, Byrne,” I hissed, every nerve in my body ready to reach for my purse, grab the pepper spray, and empty that bitch into both their eyes. As sleazy as he was, I doubted he would give up a hundred grand just to roll me between his sheets.

“Serving men who are less than hygienic and not much to look at.” Colin smiled apologetically. “You’re a good-looking gal, Veitch, even in those rags.” He tugged at the muddy, cheap dress I wore. “Six months working in my strip club doing double shifts every day, and we can call it even.”

“I’ll die before I dance on a pole,” I seethed, pushing my fingers into his eye sockets with the hand he held. He dodged the attack by rearing his head back, but I managed to put a few scratches on his cheek.

Kaminski stepped forward, about to interfere, but Byrne waved him off, laughing.

“You won’t be dancing,” he said, his eyes glinting with amusement. “You’ll be on your back in the VIP room. Although I can’t promise you won’t be on your hands and knees, too, if they’re willing to pay extra.”

The ball of puke in my throat tripled its size, blocking my windpipe. A cold film of sweat covered every inch of my body.

Byrne wanted to pimp me out if I didn’t come up with the money Paxton owed him. In the eight months Paxton had been gone, I’d stupidly hoped he would do the right thing and show up at the eleventh hour to deal with the shitstorm he’d created, leaving me in the eye of it.

That he’d grant me the divorce I’d begged him for in the days before his disappearance.

I’d held onto my anger, refusing to let it turn into resignation because that meant accepting this was my problem.

Now, I was finally coming to terms with the hard facts Byrne had already known:

Paxton was never coming back.

His problems were mine to deal with.

And I had to come up with a solution, fast.

“What if I don’t pay?” My jaw clenched. I wasn’t going to cry in front of them, no matter what. I may not have been as feisty and fierce as my older sister, but I was still a Southie original.

A sweet romantic—but a savage, nonetheless.

Byrne’s heavy boots clicked softly as he ambled toward the building’s entrance. “Then I’ll have to make an example out of you. Which, I assure you, Mrs. Veitch, would hurt me more than it would you. It is always a sad state of affairs when the wife has to take on the burden of her husband’s mistakes.” He stopped by the door and shook his head, wearing a faraway look on his face. “But if I let this slide, I’ll lose my street cred. You will pay. Either in money, with the thing between your legs, or with your blood. Catch you later, Persy.”

The door clicked shut behind the two men. Thunder rumbled, licking their shapes through the glass door in electric blue. They ran to a black Hummer parked across the street, slipping inside and gunning it back to the hellhole they came from.

I stumbled up the stairs to my sister’s apartment. I’d been staying with her since Paxton took off eight months ago. Shakily turning the key inside its hole, I pushed the door open.

I didn’t pay rent. Belle thought Pax stole all the money he and I had saved to buy a house when he ran away. That part wasn’t a lie. He did take our money. What she didn’t know was it wasn’t only that he spent my entire life’s savings in an underground casino—I was actually in debt because of him.

“Pers? Jeez, dude. There’s a thunderstorm outside.” Belle rubbed at her eyes, stretching on the couch. She wore a Fries Before Guys oversized shirt. A Korean drama danced across the flat TV screen, and a bag of peanut butter pretzels balanced on her flat stomach. A stab of jealousy pricked my chest as I watched her lying there. Trouble-free and relaxed.

She didn’t have to wonder if she would make it to next week alive without selling her body in a dingy Southie strip club.

She didn’t have her hand kissed, licked, and twisted by Colin Byrne, the scent of his cheap cologne lingering in her nostrils for days after each of his visits, making her stomach churn.

She didn’t toss and turn at night, wondering how to save herself from a gory death.

I hung my tattered windbreaker by the door. Emmabelle’s apartment was tiny but fashionable. A studio with hardwood flooring, trendy palm-tree wallpaper, deep green ceiling, and funky mismatched furniture. Everything she owned and wore dripped of her bold, sophisticated personality. We shared her twin bed.

“Sorry about that. Shannon’s parents went to a drive-in and must’ve gotten carried away. I didn’t even know drive-ins still existed. Did you?” I stepped out of my holed shoes at the entrance, concealing my despair with a smile.

Maybe I should admit defeat and do what Paxton did. Catch the next flight out of the States and disappear.

Only unlike Paxton, I was attached to the place where I grew up. I couldn’t imagine my life without my sister, my parents, my friends.

Paxton had been lonely. Orphaned at age three, he was raised by his grandmother Greta and various relatives. Tossed between houses whenever he got too difficult. That was what he told me when we first got together, and my heart went out to him.

“Drive-ins? Sure. Some of my favorite sexcapades happened at the Solano drive-in. But it’s been raining so hard, I doubt they could watch anything there. You really should’ve called me. I’d have picked you up. You know tonight is my night off.” She wiggled her toes under her throw.

Exactly. It was her night off. Who was I to take away the only free night she had for herself? She deserved to do exactly what she was doing. Binge on a TV show, junk food, and wear a discounted face mask from Ross.

“You already do too much for me.”

“That’s because that bastard, Pax, screwed you over. Remind me why you married him again?”