There is no fucking money.

I've spent the last few weeks frustrating the fuck out of myself. Meticulously sifting through Nate Carter's life with a fine tooth comb. Working my ass off at the shop. Getting to know every technician there and subtly questioning them about Nate. Searching the house for bank or insurance records when no one is home. Scouring through Nate's Internet search history. Sucking up to Savannah. And I got nothing.

He has three bank accounts. One business checking, one personal checking, and one savings. Combined they clear about a hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars. There's no investment accounts. No stocks. No expensive art or gun collection. No stamps or coins. Nothing. Nate lives a very normal middle class life.

But something doesn't add up.

Ariana did not go to college on scholarship nor did she take out any loans. Nate paid for her education completely out of pocket. I saw the statements. An education at an Ivy League school runs at a minimum of sixty thousand dollars a year. That's not including dorm fees and everything else. Any way you slice it, that's a lot of money to cough up every year over a four year span from a business that according to his taxes hasn't made much of a profit in the last seven years.

A part of me feels terribly conflicted about this. On one hand, I hate drug dealers. Especially heroin dealers. Bucky was right about that. I've never been able to verify it, but I heard the same story from three different social workers who decided to break all types of privacy laws.

My mother was a heroin addict. An addict of the worst kind who was caught trying to sell me to a sex porn peddler. Any mother who would sell their child to someone like that has to be out of her mind. Out of her mind because somebody made her that way. Probably a lot of somebody's. But for me it starts and ends with the drug dealer who sold her her very first hit. So yeah, it's personal for me. Personal as fuck.

So, if that's who Nate is, if that's how he's made his money over the years, then he should pay. He shouldn't reap the benefits of destroying people's lives. People's souls. He should lose every single cent of that blood money.

On the other hand, I was hoping that I didn't find any money because truth be told, I like Nate. I think he's a good man, a fair boss, and a great father. It's hard for me to believe that someone like him was a drug runner. Even in his youth. Part of me wants to believe that Bucky is fucking with me. That this is all a game to him and that he's just doing this to get me to unknowingly run off one of the last few people in my life that actually gives two fucks about me.

But of course, if that's true, if Nate doesn't have any drug money, then that means I'm up shit's creek. I still owe a man seven million dollars, and I have no way to get it, which means that I would be forced to move forward with plan B. A plan which at this point I know that I could never follow through with, because if I attempt to make Ariana fall in love with me, there's no way that I'm going to be able to break her. In fact, it's the total other way around. She would be the one with the power to break me.

That's why ever since that day at the juice bar, I have had to slide my mask back on. Keeping things cordial, platonic, and respectful. She hates it. She hates me. She thinks I'm rejecting her. And she probably thinks I am because she told me she's a virgin. A twenty-five-year-old goddamn virgin.

Okay, I admit that was a mind blower. I mean she's had to have had horny little fuckers trying to tap that since she hit puberty. And I wouldn't be telling the truth if I didn't admit that part of me is petrified of what would happen if I did sleep with her.

If I was her first lover. The first inside? The first man to teach her how to ride on top? The first lover to put her on all fours and hit walls and muscles she never knew were there? The first guy to lift her juicy ass up and fuck her good and proper against a shower wall? If I think it's difficult to keep away from her now, getting inside of that shiny new pussy of hers would turn something primal on in me for sure.

So, you forget about breaking her per Bucky's orders. I wouldn't be able to let her go. And that will not only get me killed, but it would put her in serious danger too. And the thought of anything happening to someone as innocent as Ariana is just too much to bear.

I might as well lay down and die.

"What are you doing home?" she asks.

I can hear the venom in her voice when she speaks to me.

"Your father is at the shop, and so is your little friend Jake. It was decided amongst the staff that I should leave early for the day."

She rolls her eyes.

"Jake is harmless. You should let that rest."

"And you should stay away from him."

"My father actually likes Jake. He'd probably give me his blessing if I gave him first crack at it."

I crack my knuckles. A bad habit I picked up in jail. I know she's fucking with me, but she's pushing me to my limits when she talks like that.

"What are you cooking?" I ask changing the subject.

"I'm baking a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting."

"What's wrong?" I ask as I walk over to dip my finger into the cake batter.

She slaps my hand back.

"Wash your hands, convict."

I chuckle and move to the sink to start washing my hands.

"What makes you think that there's anything wrong? You sound like Nathaniel Carter right now."

"You cook for fun. You bake to forget something."

I shut her up with that. She thinks I don't know her, that I don't pay attention, but even when she gives me the silent treatment, I learn more about Ariana each and every day.

"I applied for a job that I didn't get."

Finally, a real conversation.

"What kind of job? I thought you loved your job."

"I'm applying for a traveling nurse position."

"A traveling nurse?"

"It's simply a placement of a nurse into an area with a nurse shortage. We get paid a great hourly wage and usually your housing is subsidized."

"So, you're leaving?"

"That was the plan, but you ruined the first opportunity I had when you ran Bill out of the juice bar. His sister owned the agency that was going to get me a prime placement. Now neither he or her will return my calls. He walks right by me in the hospital."

"Aww, that's too bad."

"You're such a jerk. Bill is actually a big deal in this town. I think he may have even put the word out with some of the other agencies not to hire me. There's no way that I shouldn't have gotten that job today."

"Maybe you don't interview well."

"Oh my God! Shut up and get out of my kitchen."

"I'm just saying you're being a little presumptuous. You think you're the only qualified nurse in the city of Philadelphia?"

"You get a kick out of seeing me suffer or something?"

"You're suffering working at one of the premier hospitals in the city? Making a super high five figure salary. Living rent free in a renovated house."

"I may not have done time like you," she says as she vigorously mixes the batter. "But there are times that I feel like I am."

Her eyes get a little glassy.

"What do you mean, Ariana?"

I place my hand on hers and stop her from churning the damn batter into butter.

"I'm suffocating in this house."

"Because of me?"

"No, my house is like a living memorial to my mother. And yes, while it's heart wrenching, and sweet, and romantic, it's painful as shit for me. He talks about her a hundred times a day. He compares everything I do to her. My cooking, the way I clean, how I talk, a joke I may tell, an outfit I may wear, the way I may laugh. It's exhausting. So, I need to get away. I need to breathe."

"Why don't you tell him."

"And break his heart? I couldn't. He's done so much for me. He lives to make me happy. I know that. So how would I sound telling him to stop grieving for my mother. How much of an asshole would I sound like?"

"Don't go, Ariana. Just talk to him."

One lone tear rolls down her face.

I catch it with my thumb and wipe it away.

"You'll get tears in the batter."

"Be quiet, son of jack. Just...be quiet."

* * *