“Ella, Ella, Ella.” Abe pushes away from the wall as his eyes slide slowly over me, lingering on the curve of my breasts beneath my damp coat before sliding lower to visually measure my hips. The tip of his tongue slips out to moisten perpetually cracked lips. “You took your sweet time getting home tonight. I was startin’ to think you weren’t comin’ at all.”

“What are you doing here?” Fury that he’s here at my apartment straightens my spine. But fear of what he can do keeps my tone respectful. Two huge guys with no necks and stony expressions linger about halfway down the hallway. His bodyguards. A single word from Abe and they’d either kill me or beat me half to death.

A small, reptilian smile stretches across Abe’s wide, homely face, exposing his badly chipped and yellowed front teeth while his gray eyes sparkle between fat rolls. He ambles toward me. I force myself to hold my ground, despite my overwhelming need to bolt past him and lock myself into my apartment.

Doing so won’t do me any good. The two men with no necks and bored expressions standing about halfway down the hallway are more than capable of breaking down the door should Abe order them to, and no one in this building would even consider calling the cops, much less doing anything to help me.

This is a turn-a-blind-eye kind of apartment building, especially when it comes to local crime lords like Abe Paoletti.

Abe doesn’t stop until he’s so close his beer-stained breath moves my hair. Abe isn’t the kind of guy who cares whether he’s invading someone’s personal space. I don’t know if it’s because he lacks the necessary social graces or because he wants to intimidate. I suspect it’s a bit of both.

I curl my hands into fists to hide their trembling.

“So, Ella,” he says, “what’ve you been doin’ all this time?”

I bite my lip, hiding my fear. “Working…”

Abe barks with laughter. The sound reminds me of a documentary I watched on sea lions. “Workin? Ella, you work too hard. I keep tellin’ you if you’d be just a little nicer to me, things would get easier for you. When are you gonna understand that?”

I try sliding past him, but he blocks my move.

His short fingers wrap around my upper arm, biting into the muscle and holding me in place. It takes all of my sense of self-preservation to fight the instinct to plant my knee into his groin. His bodyguards would be on me like white on rice before Abe hit the ground, and even my overactive imagination refuses to consider what will happen to me then.

Abe sidles closer, pressing his body against mine. His arousal presses against my thigh.

Bile rises in my throat.

“I’d be so good for you,” he says in what – I assume – he thinks is a sexy murmur. “When you gonna understand that?”

The thing is, he might be. Based on what I’ve been told, when Abe takes a woman under his wing, he treats her like a princess. It’s all spontaneous dinners in Paris, skiing in the Alps, and wearing shiny diamonds. And it would wipe my debt. All it would cost me is my self-respect.

But then what?

I’ve heard rumors about the women who have submitted to his wishes and warmed Abe’s bed. He has the attention span of a squirrel. If they can’t hold his attention, and from I’ve been told, none do, he doesn’t just discard them. He makes them pay for the time they shared with him, like he’s some sort of god who did them a favor by paying attention to them—and those are the lucky ones.

If his father becomes involved and decides they’ve slighted his son… I refuse to let my mind go down that particular path.

“The next payment isn’t due until next Friday, and I’ll have it.”

Abe pulls back slightly, giving me some much-needed breathing room. His thick brows draw together.

“Will you?” He sounds disappointed, not a good sign. Abe has a strange code of honor. As long as I make my payments on time, he won’t force me to do anything I’m not comfortable with, but if I miss one, even if I’m just a day or two late, he’ll see that the bill gets paid, one way or another.

The look currently in his eyes makes me think he’d rather take option B than the money, and that Option B…

My knees shake. It’s been years since I’ve missed a payment, since they’ve demanded I put my special skill set to use. I don’t want to break my streak now.

“Yeah. I will.”

Abe’s grip on my arm tightens and I can all but see the wheels slowly turning in his head as he considers his options. For a second, I’m afraid that he’ll deviate from his normal pattern, that this time, he’ll press his advantage, forcing me to make a decision I’ve managed to avoid so far. For so long.

“Do you know there’s another way?”

I don’t respond. I just hold his stare and pray my terror doesn’t show in my eyes.

“My dad and I’ve been talkin’ things over, how you’d be an asset to our organization and all.”

This is new. Usually, Abe just wants to get me into his bed, to be his plaything for a few weeks before something better comes along. Not that he ever adds that last bit in.

“If you agreed, if you pledged your loyalty to us, we’d wipe your debt from the books. Hell, we’d pay you.”

I know I shouldn’t ask. That I shouldn’t do anything Abe will see as even the slightest bit of encouragement, but I can’t stop myself. I’ve worked so hard at dead-end jobs, given up so much in order to just keep up with the interest on what I owe. The thought of the debt disappearing entirely is too tempting a carrot to simply ignore.

“What would I have to do? Let you act as my pimp for the rest of my life?”

Once again, Abe shows off his chipped teeth in an animalistic grin. “Ella, baby, if you’re going to sleep with anybody, it’ll be me.”

My stomach bucks.

“But no. You know you have…other talents we’d like to utilize.”

A prickle of fear runs down my spine. Just one time, I’ve been forced to pay with something other than money and swore I’d never do that again. I still have nightmares and break out in a cold sweat when I remember what I did, of what the possible consequences could have been. What they still are if anyone finds out about my actions.

That was one of the reasons I work so hard to stay on top of the payments, even as the interest rate steadily kills me.

“No thank you,” I tell him, my voice firm. “I’d rather pay you and maintain my independence.”

“Fine. Just thought you’d like to know there’s another option, should you wish to take it.” Abe releases me and steps back. “I’ll be here Friday to collect, one way or another. But remember, my offer still stands…”

I watch him walk away, his bodyguards following a few steps behind him. I don’t start breathing again until the stairwell door slams closed behind him.