Chapter Three

Layla

My heart raced about a million miles an hour as that tall, gorgeous man with the gold and green eyes glared at me, talking nonsense about debts. “Maybe you ought to get your facts straight, asshole. My dad doesn’t have any debts. I made sure of it.”

When I came home from college a few years ago, I noticed that my father couldn’t survive without a little adult supervision. I took over paying his bills after coming over to find the electricity and water had been shut off and the phone didn’t work.

Gorgeous Asshole, which is how I now thought of him, didn’t seem at all put off by my statement. In fact, the fucker smirked. It was the move arrogant jerks all over the world used. Only with this particular jerk, there was a dimple on his cheek that made him even more devastatingly handsome. And I was a sick daughter to even think of him like that.

“Is that right?” he said.

I nodded, confident in my words because I knew the bills were paid, but still the “Yep,” I squeaked out sounded less sure. I blamed it on his proximity and the fact that he’d bloodied my dad’s face.

He turned to Dad. “You mean to tell me this pretty little thing has been taking care of your bills and you didn’t tell her about the most important one?”

Gorgeous Asshole shook his head and smacked his lips as he pulled back his fist and let it go, smack in the center of Dad’s face.

“Stop it!” The bags of groceries finally fell from my arms, hitting the floor with an unimpressive thud thanks to my five-foot-three frame. “Stop hitting him!” I ran the few feet to reach him, stepping between his raised fist and my battered father. “Just fucking stop, will you? We’ll get this figured out. Just stop!”

I looked up at him and again, I was struck by how good-looking he was. Too good looking to be a guy who beat people up for a living.

“It’s okay, princess,” my dad croaked out.

I turned to my dad, frowning so hard I felt a headache coming on, or maybe it was this fucked up situation triggering a migraine. “What do you mean it’s okay? It’s not fucking okay, Dad, to let this guy beat you up over money.” After helping him into his favorite recliner, I turned to Gorgeous Asshole and aimed a candy apple red nail at him. “You! I should call the cops on you, coming in here to beat up on an old, unsuspecting drunk. What is your problem?”

His lips, thick and full, formed into a perfect pout, twitched in amusement, which only pissed me off more. I was tired of people, specifically men, underestimating me. They either looked at me like a sex object or an incapable little girl. And I wasn’t either one.

“My problem is that your father owes the family money and he hasn’t paid. In weeks.”

A shiver slid down my spine at the deep timber of his voice, that scratchy, guttural sound that hit all the right nerve endings. “And so you thought beating the crap out of him would get your money faster? What in the hell kind of business is the family running?” I put up my fingers in air quotes. The Family. Hah!

“The polite reminders don’t seem to be working.”

Polite? “Polite? What a fucking joke! Polite? Let’s see how polite you are when the boys in blue show up.” Confident that would end this whole mess without Dad needing a trip to the ER, I reached for my phone and swiped to unlock the screen.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” His voice changed. It was still low but the seductive quality now sounded lethal. Deadly.

“Oh yeah, and why not? Oh that’s right, because you don’t want to go to jail. Well guess what, buddy? I don’t want my—” The words died on my lips when I looked up at the unfamiliar clicking sound that sounded close.

Too close.

“If you involve the police, this will get messy and I promise you, princess,” he said the word derogatively and my hands balled into fists, “you don’t want this kind of messy.”

I didn’t even know what the hell that meant but I believed that he knew of a type of messy I couldn’t possibly dream up and wanted no part of. My gaze went to the gun he held in his hand. His steady, non-shaking hand showed he was comfortable with a gun. Too comfortable. “Fine, I won’t call. Yet,” I clarified. He might have the gun, but that didn’t mean Gorgeous Asshole would win. If he killed us, he would never get his money. That thought didn’t stop the knot in my gut though. “How much is this debt, Dad?”

He looked up at me. One eye was swollen shut. His lip was split, and he had blood and bruises all over his face. My heart sank. He was so messed up. “Don’t worry about it, honey. I’m grown. I’ll handle this.”

“Wrong answer. You’re the dad, but I’m the grownup here and I can’t possibly attempt to help you if I don’t know how much you owe.” He dipped his head low in embarrassment but his mouth remained shut and I turned to the green-eyed pummeler. “Well?”

Gorgeous Asshole replied, “It’s more money than you have, princess. It’s a lot and it needs to be paid. Now.”

Why did this man try to make everything he said sound like an invitation to get naked and sweaty? “Well how the hell am I supposed to pay it if you won’t tell me the amount, genius?”

“Layla, stop. Please. Eamon don’t hurt her.”

So Eamon was his name. Go figure with that smooth, shiny brown hair and those colorful eyes that I bet were sixteen shades of trouble. “I won’t stop, Dad. You owe him money, how much?” Both men nodded. “Great, so somebody tell me how much and I’ll get it paid.”

Now neither of them had anything to say. No surprise there. “I’m handling it, Layla.”

“Yeah Layla, he’s handling it,” the annoying Eamon said.

“Just because this dick gets off on beating the shit out of people doesn’t make it handled. How did this happen, Dad? What is the money for?”

“Oh, fuck,” Eamon grumbled behind me, a sound that was equal parts disbelief and worry.

“Just a run of bad luck at the tables.”

“The tables? What tables?” His clear eye, the one that wasn’t already swollen shut, gave me a look that said I couldn’t possibly be that stupid and now, it all made sense. He owed money not to Eamon’s family, but to The Family. Rocket may not have been Las Vegas, but I knew exactly what family with a capital ‘F’ meant.

Bloody reminders.

Cement shoes.

Bodies in the desert.

Debts paid one way or another.

“You borrowed money from the Connelly mob to fucking gamble? Dad, how could you?” I was beyond disappointed, beyond disgusted and deep down, terrified for my dad. Though it occurred to me that maybe I should be worried about me as well, now that I knew who and what, Eamon was.

“I figured the streak had to heat up again, princess. Remember that year we went to Disney? That was a good year.”

“Disney? Dad, I was twelve when that happened.” Mom had been dead for four years already and Dad had been a shell of himself, but still mostly happy and not quite as stressed. “Wait, you’ve been gambling since then? How in the hell did I not know this?”

He nodded, not at all ashamed which pissed me off even more. “Your mom helped me keep things under control but without her, I’m useless. I’m sorry, honey.”

Shit. I couldn’t take this anymore. I turned back to Eamon. “What can we do to settle this gambling debt?”