“What did you decide?” Father stands at my door while Livia sleeps next to me. It took a lot to convince her that it was her I wanted. Somehow, I even started believing my own words as well.

“I’ll start tomorrow.”

He nods happily. “Good! I’ll cancel school. Quinn will show you everything.” He turns, placing his hand on the rail, his voice echoes through the hall. “I’m proud of you, son. You’ll do great.” Then he walks off taking one step at a time.

“You’re not really quitting, are you?” Livia asks. Turning around, she’s naked in my bed, but she’s sitting up now with the sheet not covering her breasts.

Pulling a shirt on, I answer, “I am.”

“Okay...” she says, laying down.

“Now you’re fine with it?” I ask, pulling my boots on.

She shrugs her shoulders. “Maybe being at school isn’t the best option for you.”

“I’ll still see her, you know that, right? Our town isn’t the largest, Livia.”

Her eyes squint at me. “I want to hate her, but I can’t.”

Walking over to Livia, I kiss her softly on the lips. “It’s why I love you.”

She turns away from me as I leave the room. Quinn is waiting at the door when I walk out, coffee in hand and a smirk on his face.

“Boss.”

I shake my head, taking the coffee. “You still have your own boss, my father.”

Quinn shakes his head, following me down the stairs. “Wrong, Boss. Now I’m all yours.”

Stalling, I face him.

“Now if you had an ass and tits that may be taken differently. Since you don’t, I’ll take it as business.”

Quinn doesn’t laugh, he just smirks at me. Walking down, everything is clean, and the house is back to how it was before the party. My father’s servants don’t mess around.

“You ready to start playing?” he asks.

I nod my head, he presses his cell to his ear, and our day is full.

Just like that.

***

LIVIA’S GONE BY THE time I get back. She hasn’t been blowing up my cell all day either which is a surprise. Usually, I put my cell down for ten minutes, and I have at least one message from her.

Quinn spent the day introducing me to all our employees, even the strip club ones. Some weren’t impressed being managed by someone younger than them. Lucky for them they don’t have to stay if they don’t like it. They can fuck off and find another job. Some of the women, though, fuck, they’re beautiful. I now understand why my father’s been single for so long.

Why the fuck would I want to settle down when I can have my choice of women?

“Only three of the bars are open tomorrow. Monday will be your slow day,” Quinn says as he picks up his keys, getting ready to leave.

“Do you enjoy working here?” I ask him because I’m very interested.

Quinn’s smart, very smart.

“Yes, and one day soon you’ll hand me one of these clubs, or give me full access to the other business that I specialize in. I’m happy, and I can wait.”

Quinn’s job is one of the dirtiest. He doesn’t mind, though. He actually loves it. The dirtier the job, the more he likes it, or so he tells me.

Being the collector, he acquires the girls and delivers them to the Spikes MC Chapter here in Darwin, then sends them to the Spikes MC Chapter in Melbourne. He wanted to collect Barbie once, but that can never happen. I would outbid every single bastard who tried to purchase her. But he isn’t the dirtiest. No. That honor would go solely to my father. Which, in turn, is going to be me.

How can I become that dark and fucked up, I don’t see it happening. I actually have a heart, unlike him.

“He still has that, Quinn. I don’t intend to take that part.”

He shakes his head. “You will, though, and you will be better than him.” He walks out without saying goodbye, and as he does, Stiles walks in. His face red, his hands clenched at his side.

“Stiles...”

He throws a punch at me, and I duck, just missing it.

Standing up, I step back to put some space between us. “That was a free pass. The next one you won’t get.”

“Stay the fuck away from her! You have Livia. Why the fuck did you want to talk to Saskia last night?” Ah, she hasn’t told him everything. “Livia told me you two were in the same room. That’s how she cut her foot.”

“We had unfinished business, Barbie and I.”

He holds his hands up to his ears then drops them. “What the fuck is with that? Why the fuck do you call her Barbie?”

I smirk to myself but don’t answer him. He doesn’t need to know the answer to that question, that’s for Barbie and me.

“Is that all you came for, Stiles? If so, I think you should leave.”

“Fucking stay away from her.”

“Maybe you should tell her to stay away from me.” I smirk at him.

He goes to speak, but nothing comes out. So he turns and leaves the same way he came in.

“You’re still seeing her, aren’t you?”

Turning around, my father’s standing at the top of the stairs looking down at me.

While shaking my head, his side lip perks up. “Don’t lie to me, son. This is your last warning. Stay with the brunette. Stay away from the blonde if you don’t know how to play and not get serious.” He turns, disappearing.

He confuses me. I understand he’s trying to look out for my best interests, or what he thinks is my best interests. But he isn’t. He doesn’t know how I feel.

“He’s so serious.” Cane laughs, he’s sitting in the dining room. I didn’t even see him come in.

“When the fuck did you get here?”

“When you had a heart to heart with your new boy toy,” he sneers at me. “On a serious note, I want to work for you, too.”

“No. No way.” Stepping away, I hear the drag of the chair as he gets up to follow me up the stairs. Just as I reach the top, he talks again, not giving up.

“Let me work for you, Ryken. You know I’d be one of your best employees. Well, the most trusted one.”

Turning back to him, I look to him at the bottom of the stairs. “I haven’t even started yet. Give me to the end of the school year to decide.”

He should finish school. One of us should at least graduate.

“Are you going to stay with her?”

I shrug my shoulders. I don’t know how to answer that, or if it’s even my choice anymore.

“He’s right, you know, she would be a better fit than Barbie. Barbie just doesn’t suit the world you’re in.”

“Everyone keeps saying that.” It’s like that’s all they can seem to say about her. She doesn’t fit. But what if she does fit. How the fuck would they know any better? How do they know what she can and can’t do, or accept? She might be awesome in this world, in this fucked up existence my father has created for me to inherit.

“You’ve seen her. You’ve seen where she comes from. You think if she were suddenly all around the money, drugs, women, she’d be okay with it all? Knowing how your father runs those businesses? Because we all know the tarnished money that made those businesses came from his underworld activities. How would she feel knowing that? Because no normal person would be fine with the selling of other women, Ryken.”

“And you all think Livia could handle it any better?”

He nods his head. “Of course. She’s the type of woman to turn a blind eye, as long as she got the designer shoes and the man she wants. Do you think you could buy Barbie like that?”

“I’ve bought her before.”

“Has she spent the money? Is she still wearing the same hand-me-downs? Is she still catching the school bus to school?”

Fuck! I nod my head, and Cane leans against the banister.

“Of course she is, because she doesn’t care for it the way we all do. She wasn’t raised with it. So she doesn’t find a need for money like we all do.”

“I won’t see her again.”

He rolls his eyes at me. “Of course, you won’t. Who are you trying to convince? You hated her, now love her. We all know it.”

“Fuck you.” Walking away from him, I step into my room, slamming the door. I hate that she can pull feelings from me, that’s what I hate the most.

My cell starts ringing the minute I’m in there. It’s Livia. Of course, it is.

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