Chapter Five

Layla

I was still fuming over Eamon’s so-called proposition as I moved around Dad’s kitchen, whipping up a casserole for him to eat over the next few days. Making far more noise than cheeseburger noodle casserole required, my thoughts and my anger were all twisted up and aimed at Eamon. And Dad. If not for these two fucked up men—both awful in their own ways—I could be at home relaxing in the bath with a tall glass of Jack & Coke. Instead, I was chopping onions and green peppers to add to the ground beef, grating cheese and being domestic.

Fuck, these guys pissed me off!

Why in the hell was I doing this when the man sitting in his faithful fucking recliner was the one who’d had all the fun from spending all the money he’d borrowed? Why was I forced to step up and do the unthinkable just to keep him out of trouble? The more questions flashed in my mind, the angrier I got and the more noise I made in the kitchen. I knew what I had to do. Hell I’d do just about anything to keep harm from coming to my dad, even though he hadn’t thought about the future, about how he’d pay the money back. Or what would happen if he didn’t.

“Layla, please.”

Please? Was he seriously giving me shit about the noise I made while I cooked meals for him? “Please what, Dad?” I turned to stare angry daggers at him through the wall but there he stood, right in the doorway staring at me with sad blue eyes, well one sad blue eye and one swollen shut purple eye.

“Please don’t do whatever it is Eamon Connelly asked you to do in order to forgive my debt.” He looked so broken and not just physically. Dad used to be a vibrant man so full of life that he was like a magnet, pulling everyone around him into his orbit. When Mom was alive, they’d been so happy and so in love, I envied that. Wanted it for myself someday because it made me believe in true love.

But if I thought watching her die had been hard, watching him slowly die every damn day since was killing me. It had taught me a valuable lesson about love. It was a trap. Sure, you might end up like those couples who were happy together for fifty or sixty years. That would be amazing and beautiful. But for most people, you found that the sick, cruel universe conspired to take love from you.

By any means necessary.

The sorrow and the cruelty were written all over my dad’s face, tearing me apart one tethered shred at a time. “What makes you think he asked me to do anything?”

He sighed and raked a shaky hand through his damp hair, no longer greasy and stringy since his quick shower. “Because I know Eamon and more importantly, I know how the Connelly family operates.”

I scoffed out loud at the certainty in his voice. “Oh, do you? Is that why you borrowed a sum so big neither of you cowards will tell me? Or worse, why you refused to pay them back, because you know them so well?” He opened his mouth to offer some excuse, but I was tired of them. “Because if you knew them so well, were you so damn worried about what they might do that you might have, I don’t know, paid them back? Or at least had the decency to tell me I might walk in and find some gangster beating the ever-loving crap out of you!”

“Princess, please—”

“No Dad, don’t princess me. I’m not in the mood for it. You know what happens if you don’t have that money by the end of the week, right?”

His shoulders drooped and his head fell forward, giving me a quick glance at the thinning top of his graying blond hair. “Yeah, I know. And it’s my problem, not yours.”

Could this insane person really be my father? “Tell me you’re kidding. Please tell me that you don’t think them maiming or killing you is somehow not my problem!” I sounded hysterical and I knew it, but the thing was, this version of my dad was infuriating.

This wasn’t the same man who’d come to my volleyball games and cheered so loud he annoyed the other parents and the coaches. It wasn’t the same man who’d cheer loudly during my debate club performances, who’d taught me to ride a bike and who let me eat mashed potatoes and ice cream for a week after I broke my arm while attempting to fly out of a tree. No, this guy was a much paler, weaker, beaten down version of that guy. And as much as I loved him, I didn’t like him at all.

But I knew my dad was still in there somewhere and I had to believe he was because it was the only way I’d agree to Eamon’s degrading plan without hating myself for the rest of my life.

“You can’t trust him,” he said.

Another laugh escaped and this one was more bitter than the last. “Of course I can’t trust him, Dad. I wonder if there’s anyone I can trust, but that’s not really the point. is it? I know I can’t trust you to pay back the money before they kill you, which means I have to trust that man to keep his word.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Well then fuck, at least I know I did my best,” I spat out, tired of the bullshit.

It was a question I’d already asked myself and there was no satisfying answer. If I spent four days in Eamon’s bed and he still enforced the debt, then selling my body would be the least of my worries. “If he doesn’t then you’ll likely be dead in the desert and I’ll have more important things to worry about. Like other fucking gangsters coming to me to pay off your stupid debts.”

“You don’t know Eamon,” he insisted, worry and fear clouding his eyes.

He was right, I didn’t. Other than what I’d heard about him through the Rocket grapevine, which I tried to avoid, I knew very little about Gorgeous Asshole. But I knew he was hot as fuck, and if I’d met him under normal circumstances, I would have wanted to get naked with him, which meant I knew my answer. As if I had a choice in the matter. “No, I don’t but I do know that if I don’t agree with him, then I’ll be signing your death warrant.”

“Maybe that’s what needs to happen. We both know I haven’t been the same since your mom passed. Without your mom here, I’m afraid everything has turned to shit. When you left for college, I was glad, happy that you wouldn’t see me like this.” He motioned to his battered face with a sharp laugh. “But now I’ve put you right in the center of my shit show, which was the last thing I ever wanted.”

“Oh, so now you’re suicidal? Why didn’t you tell me about your gambling problem? Did Mom know how bad it was?”

He nodded. “She did and she put limits on me. No more than a hundred bucks every now and then because that was all we could afford to lose without suffering, and it worked well.”

“Until it didn’t.”

Dad nodded again. “My grief over losing your mother was bad, sweetheart. Most days I didn’t know how to deal with it. How to cope. Once you were in high school and didn’t need me to make sure you got up on time or finished your homework, it was an excuse to let go. Let the addiction consume me.”

The regret that his face displayed only strengthened my resolve. “I’ll do this, Dad, because I have to. I love you and you’re all I have left in this world, so whatever I need to do to keep you safe, I’ll do it.”

“I know, I just wish you didn’t have to.”

That made two of us because, as much as my body might be screaming out that I was a big fat fucking liar because I wanted Eamon, I was worried that I might hate my dad forever for putting me in this position. And if that was the case, was it even worth it? “Yeah, me too.”

But everything about this situation had trouble written all over it and as certainty and resolve settled around my shoulders like one of those super cute sophisticated New York City cloaks, another unwelcome sensation crept in...

Trouble.

Whatever happened during the next four nights, I was sure I wouldn’t walk away the same woman I was today.