Staring up at the main house, I wait for Nathan to arrive. He crosses the paths through the grounds with his head low, some representation of the fact that he hates this life. He knows everything, just like I do, but it pains him more. That’s why he’s the accountant. He counts the numbers, moves the money, keeps us as clean as we can be, and then spends the rewards from that manoeuvring. If I need him for anything else, which is rare, he’ll do as he’s asked, but he’s never quite hardened up like a Cane should. Never quite able to give less care than average people do. He’s loyal—loyal to his family, loyal to me—but he despises everything we stand for. Constant damned challenges at me, little digs into my thickened skin. Thank fuck he’s at least learnt to be as hard as stone with his glasslike stare, our family resemblance only highlighting that to enemies who dare to forget their obligations.

Perhaps he should get some fucking dice of his own, ease the burden that way as I do.

“Quinn,” he says, the crisp lines of his grey suit as sharp as his jaw. “How’s Father?”

“Breathing.”

He snorts and then frowns, turning back to gaze at the main house with me.

“You ever gonna get married? That monstrosity will need new blood once he goes.”

Not a fucking chance.

“You know as well as I do what would happen to another Cane wife, Nate. There’s always a debt somewhere that needs paying.”

He sighs and turns around, his briefcase highlighting the business meeting we’re about to have as he heads into my house.

“Didn’t know you cared enough to worry about that,” he mutters, opening his laptop and resting it on the dining table. I don’t. Never have. I can’t damn well afford to and neither can he. I just stare in response, no answer to his taunt. If he had to deal with what I do daily, he wouldn’t care either. He shakes his head at me and sighs again, sprawling paperwork across the table. “On that topic, Mother looks like shit. Has someone upped her meds yet?”

“You know what happens when we do that. It’s not worth it, Nate. She needs some sort of life.” He shakes his head again and goes back to his paperwork, sliding himself onto the seat and booting the spreadsheets up. “You want her comatose permanently?” I look over his shoulder, watching the numbers pop up on the screen, and search them for deviations against my own spreadsheets.

“You know I don’t. She just…” He pushes the chair back, another huff coming from his mouth. “Fuck, Quinn. She’s not even on this planet most of the time.”

She was when six of the Mortoni family had their fun with her.

I lean in closer to the screen, wondering why October looks lighter than it should.

“It’s not a planet she likes very much, Nate. Leave her where she is. It’s nicer there most of the time.” I barely entertain the conversation. “Where’s the two mil gone from the Russian account?”

The door clicks behind us and makes me spin toward it, wondering who the fuck it is. Nate’s head turns just as quickly, his hand reaching inside his suit for the Beretta he always carries.

Josh ambles in, his dishevelled appearance instantly pissing me off. It makes Nate withdraw his hand and clear the paperwork, ready to stow it if I give him the nod. There’s nothing here to worry about.

“Josh, we’re busy. Go play somewhere else,” I snap, irritated at the thought of him seeing her and starting his mouth running. Nate I can cope with; Josh I can’t.

“Father said you were having a meeting, told me to come join in.” Did he? Interfering old bastard. I snarl at the thought, turning back and closing the laptop lid.

“I told you, Josh. No.” I swing back to face him fully, my feet finding their way to the door to show him out of it. “No meetings. No job for you. Go fuck around with something else.”

Nate snorts and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, the click of his lighter showing his contempt for little brother.

“Yeah, Joshy. Go smash another car up like a good little boy.”

“Fuck you, Nate,” Josh booms, his body growing to its full height and proving he’s not quite the little brother Nate thinks he is. I shove him backwards, ready to stop the family spat before it begins. I’ve got no time for it, and no desire to have this dick in my house while Emily could walk up at any second. I don’t even know why I left the door open for her, or why I put clean clothes on the floor for her to find, but I’m fucked if the first vision she gets of partial freedom is going to involve Josh and his mouth.

“Leave, Josh, before I make you.” He frowns at me, his body rumbling with aggravation. It makes me glower at him, ready to beat him back into place if he wants that retaliation. “You wanna do this with me?” Still he frowns, flicking his eyes between me and Nate. It’s enough for me to shove him again, reminding him who has control here.

It’s not my fucking father, that’s for damn sure.

He continues glowering until I see him give up. His head drops a little, his feet backing away a few steps towards the door. Whether it’s out of respect or the fact that there are two of us here to fight against, I don’t care. He’ll do as he’s fucking told. I can keep him safe and alive that way, protect him.

A noise echoes at me from across the room, making me spin on my heel and look down through the space. She’s standing there by the bottom of the lounge, the oversized blue tracksuit drowning her small form as she cowers and grabs at the stair rail. I scowl in response, wondering what the hell to do with Josh in the vicinity. And then there’s a split second when I see a spark of tenacity threaten. It rises in her whole frame, making me question what the fuck she thinks she’s about to do with three men in her path. Her eyes shift from mine towards the door behind me, a half step forward joining the thought.

Josh is suddenly by my side, his body pushing past me slightly, and I watch her body slump in defeat as she realises her fate. Good. She’d be fucking dense to try running here.

“Who’s this?” Nate asks, a puff of smoke clouding the space around him.

“Yeah, who is this?” Josh asks, too, charm pouring from his lips as he walks in her direction. “New plaything?”

I watch Josh going to her, her frame edging away towards the wall as he goes, and roll my dice in annoyance. Nate stands up and comes to my side.

“Debt,” I reply, backing towards the dining table and lifting the lid on the laptop.

“Where from?” Nate asks, turning to face me. I don’t look at him. It’s fuck all to do with either of them.

“It’s personal.” I flick through the numbers again, ignoring her and trying to find the missing two million. “The money, Nate. Where is it?”

“Switched to Geneva, through Columbia.”

She squeals suddenly, making me look over my shoulder at what’s happening. Josh is attempting to cajole her to the seating, all the time defending himself as she bats him away. Why the hell he’s behaving so gentlemanly is beyond me. He takes women as quickly as the rest of us do, no thought for their comfort.

Eventually, she gets partly dragged to the seating, him smiling the entire time in the hope that he can get in her pussy if I let him.

I won’t, not this time.

“Quinn?” My name trembles from her lips as she curls her body up into the white couch. I don’t answer. I’m not here to make her feel comforted. She probably thinks the three of us are going to enjoy her for a while. And while that’s not fucking happening for anyone but me, I like the sense of fear she’s emitting. It arouses me, her innocence mingling with my lacking morals. She’s pretty in this guise, small and weak, and fucking distracting me from the task at hand—money.

The door knocks sometime later, Maria coming in with trays of food for our lunch and breaking my quiet stare at Emily. She walks straight through to the main table, no speaking as she goes like a good servant. She’s been here long enough to know how to serve me. Quietly. Like a fucking mouse who’s never seen.

“You had enough?” Nate asks, his fingers putting paperwork into folders as I keep looking though more documents.

“Yeah.” I flick my eyes back to Emily to see her still curled up as she fiddles with the bottom of her hoodie and tries to avoid Josh’s eyes. He’s been interrogating her about where she’s from, who she is. She's looked like a deer caught in the cross-hairs for most of it. Every time she lets her shoulders relax, he takes another shot at her. Luckily for her, she’s kept her mouth shut for most of it, the occasional look at me for guidance on what she should say. She’s had nothing in response to help. “For now—we’ll do it again next week.”

It’s been interesting watching her deny him everything he usually gets so easily. Amusing even. I expected her to be squealing and trying to back away from him, trying to run again maybe, but she’s been quiet and subservient after the initial look of terror. Whether that’s through intelligence or fear I don’t know, but it’s shown that she’s learnt her place here.

I close the laptop and wander over to the table, grabbing a bread roll and tearing some off.

“You want some food, dirty girl?” I ask, pulling out a chair. Her eyes fly to mine, her fingers instantly stopping fiddling at the hem of her top. Nate is silent as he comes to the table.

“Dirty girl? That’s not nice, brother,” Josh says. “Her name’s Emily.”

I smirk at him then look back at her, amused at his manouvering around her. He’s always been good at that, at least. If there’s one man on this planet who can get a woman to spread her legs through charm alone, it’s Josh.

She nods, her body hitching itself to stand. I throw some of the roll at her before she gets a chance to move. I didn’t say she could eat at the table with us. She’ll stay there. Pick at whatever offering I give her.

“Quinn,” Nathan says, contempt heavy in his tone. Fuck him and his sensibilities. I arch a brow, shutting his mouth before he opens it any more. He knows better, and what does he think this is? Marriage plans?

Dick.

We eat after that, Josh eventually leaving her side to join us and dive into Maria’s home cooked meals. They’re the only ones any of us ever get. It’s normally elite restaurants, delivering precise plates of no fucking food at all. It reminds me of our youth as we eat and talk, the atmosphere becoming more comfortable than it has for a while between us all.

“Seriously, though, what are you doing about Mother?” Nate asks.

“What the fuck do you want me to do, Nathan?”

“I don’t know, but she’s not right, Quinn. There’s insane and then there’s…” I glower at him, cutting the conversation dead and flicking my eyes to Emily. He looks at her as if he’s forgotten she’s here. Josh hasn’t; he’s spent the entire time gazing at her and smiling. A predator waiting for his moment. Well, he won’t fucking get it with her.

“Just leave it, Nate.” I turn in my chair, focusing myself on her fidgeting as she cowers into the seat looking small and appealing. It stirs my dick. “It’s time for you two to leave,” I say, getting up and grabbing at a plate. “I’ve got things to do.” Like fucking into this debt that needs paying back.

I start layering some meat onto the plate, another half eaten bread roll joining it.

“What about something to do then, Quinn?” Josh asks, his chair scraping my polished floors.

I sigh and look back at him, wondering where the hell I can place him. Nate gets up, too. It makes me look between the two of them, noting the family resemblance and smiling at it. Tall, broad, dark hair, blue eyes. One cut sharply, the other softer in his look but no less threatening because of it. I don’t know if it’s the family reminiscing, or the fact that dirty girl is screwing with my mind, but Josh is right. Regardless of me not wanting him anywhere near us, he is a part of this, and if something should happen to either Nate or myself, what then?

“I’ll think about it, Josh. Find something.” He looks like the cat that got the fucking cream, his smile widening into the same one he gives my father as he begins to leave the table. “As long as you both get the fuck out of my house now.”

Nathan raises his brow at me as he picks up his bags, tossing his napkin down.

“You sure?” he asks. No, I’m not sure, but something has to change.

It’s a constant question from Josh’s mouth lately, and while it might piss me off, it’s also something that needs dealing with. He’s not a child anymore, and this business is getting deeper and thicker into criminality with each passing year. He wants to be part of it, he can be. I just need to work out where. Find something safe for him to do. Safe isn’t a concept we’ve lived in these past ten years. It could be a damn sight safer, though, if the right fucking players took over in the right places.

The closing door behind them signals the beginning of something more interesting, especially for my dick. I walk over to Emily, a plate of food in my hand and a glass of wine in the other.

“Get up,” I snap, already thinking about the feel of her pussy around me. Her throat might have been good, but it’s nothing compared to what’s between her thighs.

She moves as quietly as she has been sitting, gently placing her feet onto the floor and fiddling with her outfit again. I look her over, enjoying the way she tucks her hair behind her ears, attempting some kind of perfection in this fucked up world she’s in.

“You clean?” I fucking hope she is, not that I give too much of a damn if she is or not for what I’ve got planned. She wrings her fingers and nods.

“Yes. Uh, thank you for the clothes.” She needn’t thank me. I just don’t want the stench of vomit invading my nostrils again while I fuck her. “And for letting me out of…” She fumbles around the rest of the words, muttering them. Maybe she said dungeon. I don’t know, or care.

“Come upstairs,” I call back to her. Nothing happens as I get to the bottom of them, and I turn back, catching her as she spins her head back from the door to me. “Try running, Emily. Give that shit a go.” I keep walking away, climbing the stairs and looking down at her. “You’re in my estate on the outskirts of Chicago. Guards patrol the grounds, three of them with dogs. All of them armed.” She stares at me, shock all over her flawless fucking face. “Didn’t realise?”

She shakes her head.

“Well, you are. It’s a long way home, Emily. That’s if you can get past my men first.”

She frowns at that, and eventually I hear her feet moving to follow.

“Were those men your family?” she asks, barely any volume in her voice, as I turn into a bedroom.

I place the food and drink down on the mahogany table by the chair and walk towards the windows, closing the curtains.

“That’s not relevant to you.”

The swish of the dark blue fabric instantly blackens the room. So I walk to the lamps and switch them on one by one, uninterested in anything but what this dirty girl can do for me in the next hour before I have to leave.

“You can stay in here while you’re with me,” I say, wandering back to the chair and getting my dice out of my pocket. She doesn’t say anything as I sit. No thank you or appreciation. She’s probably right not to. Nothing is going to be nice about her stay, other than orgasms if I can be bothered to ensure she gets some. “Take the clothes off, dirty girl.” She hovers just in front of the doorway, barely moving short of the twisting hands in her grip. “You can do this the easy way or the hard way, Emily. But you should know from last night that the hard way hurts far more.” I stare at her over my shoulder, the roll of my dice easing around my hand. “You might even pick the right number if you’re lucky, get a chance at what you want.”

Her feet move after that, eyes narrowed as that option presents itself, and her fingers slowly reach for the hem of her top.

Clever girl.