The Debt 10 (Club Alpha) (6 page)

Faith felt a chill pass through her
body.
 
“Club Alpha?” she said.

“That’s the one,” Greg laughed, standing
up.
 
He pulled a pack of cigarettes
from his pocket and went to the window.
 
“Mind if I smoke?”

“Uh…” she didn’t really want him to, but
felt bad for him.
 
“Sure.”

He slid the window up and glanced
outside, before lighting his cigarette.
 
“I haven’t smoked in like five years.
 
Quit awhile back.
 
Seems like a good time to pick it back
up again.”

“I’m sorry for whatever happened to you,”
she said, watching him as he took a long drag.
 
“But I had nothing to do with it,” Faith
added.

Greg glanced at her.
 
“Never said you did.”

“So no need to apologize to me or hire me
back.”

Now he turned to face her, the cigarette
dangling from his lip as he spoke.
 
“You need to come back to work,” he said.
 
“Otherwise they’ll hurt me.
 
Bad.”

“They said that?”

He grabbed the cigarette from his mouth
and looked at it as if it had answers.
 
“That dude, Max.
 
He’s a big,
mean fucker.
 
Slapped me around,
tossed me into a wall outside our building—laughed at me when I
screamed.”

“Jesus,” Faith whispered, her jaw
clenching with fear.

“He said that they were aware of how I
treated you and it wasn’t going to be tolerated.
 
He said I was to come here and apologize
immediately, and to give you a raise and a promotion.”

“A promotion?”

“That’s what he said and it’s what I’m
going to do, Faith.”
 
Greg shook his
head in disbelief, took another long drag from the cigarette and his shoulders
relaxed.
 
“Your new boyfriend is
very powerful and he’s got some big guns on his side.
 
I don’t need this shit, okay?”

She realized that Greg was
petrified.
 
Truly petrified.
 

“Okay,” she said.
 
“Calm down.”

He looked over at her, his face creased
with lines of worry.
 
“So you accept
my apology?
 
You’ll come back to
work?”

“Sure,” she said, not even knowing why
she was agreeing.
 
The whole thing
seemed crazy, but she just felt terrible for Greg.
 
As badly as he’d treated her, she didn’t
want to see him hurt.

He straightened up, smiling a
little.
 
“Thanks,” he said.
 
“You’ll get an office, too,” he told
her.
 
“You know, I was always too
hard on you.
 
I was being a prick
about things between us.
 
Guess I
should’ve known you’d wait around until you landed a big fish like Chase
Winters.”
 
He puffed on his
cigarette and then tossed it out the window.

“You sure you’re okay, Greg?” she asked,
as he started towards the door.

“Yeah,” he said, not really looking at
her.
 
He was shambling, perhaps
limping, she decided, as he went past.
 
Suddenly, he swung towards her, putting his hand in his jacket pocket
and removing a plain white envelope.
 
“Oh, I almost forgot.
 
That
guy, Max, he told me to give this to you.”

He extended his hand with the envelope in
it, and Faith just stared, as if he was offering her something poisonous.
 
“What’s in it?”

“I have no clue.
 
Didn’t ask, don’t want to know.
 
I’m just doing what the guy told me to,
Faith.
 
Here, will you please take
it?”

She saw that his hand was trembling as
she took the envelope and then Greg was limping for the door.
 
“See you tomorrow,” he said, and then he
left, shutting the apartment door behind him.

“Bye,” she muttered, staring down at the
plain white envelope.
 
Faith decided
she’d never seen something so normal, so decidedly plain—take on such an
evil, malevolent aura as this envelope had.
 
She turned it over and over in her
hands.
 
There was nothing on the
outside—no address, no name, nothing.

It was sealed firmly shut and even
holding it up to the light didn’t show what was inside.

Finally, she set it down on the table and
stared at it, her arms folded.
 

Soon, her cell was ringing.

Don’t
answer it
, she told
herself.
 
You have to just ignore them.
 
Don’t empower them.

But Faith knew they weren’t going to forget
about her just because she didn’t answer her cell phone.
 
Finally, she picked up.
 
“Yes,” she said.

“Hi,” the voice said.
 
“It’s Max again.”

“I wish you’d leave me alone.”

“I intend to,” he said.
 
“Did our friend Greg give you the
apology you deserved?”

“Leave me alone.
 
You don’t know me.
 
And I don’t appreciate you beating up
people and threatening them on my behalf.
 
I want nothing to do with you or your sleazy company.”
 
Her voice didn’t shake as she said the
words, which Faith was slightly proud to note.

“That’s fine, sweetheart.
 
I didn’t do it for you.
 
It’s just business.
 
Did you see what’s in the envelope?”

“No,” she admitted.
 
“I don’t want it.”

“But you don’t even know what it is,” Max
said, his deep voice dripping with humor and dark intent.

Faith stared at the envelope.
 
“I don’t understand why you’re doing
this.
 
Chase and I aren’t
together.
 
So whatever arrangement
you have with him—that’s between you guys.
 
It’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Well, that’s not exactly true,” Max
said.
 
“You see, Chase did call me
and let me know that he wanted you let out of your contract.
 
He feels badly about what happened.”

“I don’t really care,” she said, as her
hand sweated against the cell phone.
 

“Be that as it may,” Max continued,
“Chase is our client and his happiness is very important to us.
 
That’s our job—keeping him
happy.
 
So when he tells us that you
and he are no longer an item and that you’re very upset, it’s my job to come in
and set things right.”

“I don’t see how my personal life is any
of your business.”

Max was quiet for a long moment.
 
“Soon you’re going to find out that it
is part of my business.
 
I’m in the
business of managing things for my clients, making sure they have what they
need.
 
And what Chase Winters needs
right now—is you.”

She felt like she’d been punched in the
stomach.
 
“Please leave me alone.”

“You saw what I did to your boss,
Greg.
 
Right?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“So you know I’m not fucking around.
 
You signed contracts, Faith.
 
And more than that, you’re someone that
Chase Winters cares about.
 
Which
means that I care about you, too.”

“What if I tell Chase you’re threatening
me?” she said, her voice rising.

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Max said.
 
“If you get Chase worked up, then I
gotta go and tell my boss and then he gets really, really worked up.
 
And then I can’t control what happens
next.”

Faith felt a new wave of icy chills
running through her body.
 
She
couldn’t believe this was truly happening.
 
“I wish you’d leave me alone,” she said again.

“I will,” he told her.
 
“But first I need to make sure you get
the full picture, sweetheart.”

Faith’s mouth went dry.
 
She hated to admit that she was
frightened, but she was.

After all, Chase’s agent had set him up
with this company in the first place.
 
They were obviously big, and powerful and connected.
 
She was broke, powerless, and scared.

And they knew it.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” she
said, finally.

“I want a little cooperation,” Max told
her.
 
“We got you your stupid little
job back, since apparently you were upset about losing it.
 
And if you look inside your envelope, we
did another thing too—just to show we’re not all bad.
 
Now open it, Faith.”

His command was too forceful to ignore,
so Faith picked up the plain white envelope and tore it open.
 
Inside was a cashier’s check made out to
her name, in the amount of ten thousand dollars.

She felt weak and sat down, her legs
shaking, her eyeballs twitching.
 
“You can’t be serious,” she gasped.

“I am,” Max laughed.
 
“I’m very serious.
 
That check is just a little symbol of
our goodwill,” he said.
 
“We want
you to be happy.
 
We want Chase to
stay happy.
 
Now, what goes on
between two people—that’s your business, sweetheart.
 
We don’t tell you what to do in the privacy
of your home or bedroom.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” she muttered, still
staring at the check.

Ten thousand dollars.
 
It was the biggest check she’d ever seen
or held in her hands.
 
And it was
for her.

“Truth is, we just want our clients to
feel comfortable, to know we’re taking care of things.
 
Now, you’ve got to love Chase
Winters.
 
He’s a great guy, a hunk,
an athlete.
 
You can’t seriously try
and tell me you turn your nose up at Chase Winters, doll.”

“Don’t call me doll or sweetheart.”

“There’s worse things I could call you,”
he said, his voice edgy again.

“I like Chase, but I don’t trust
him.
 
Especially not now.”

“You don’t worry about trust,” Max
said.
 
“Trust is for
airheads—trust is for suckers,” he continued.
 
“We got contracts and we got lawyers and
we got money.
 
You just understand
that this is a very sweet deal for a gal like yourself.
 
Go have fun with the big football star,
have a party, let loose and keep the guy happy.
 
He’s got a lot of stress and he needs
you right now.”

“Sure,” she said, her voice sounding
empty to her own ears.
 
“Whatever
you say.”

“Have a little faith,” Max said,
chuckling at his own pun.
 

“Can I go now?” she asked.

“Don’t try and go back on the deal,” Max
said.
 
“I’m showing you the carrot,”
he continued.
 
“Please don’t make me
show you the stick.”

And then he’d hung up and she was left
alone with nothing but a dead phone and a check for ten thousand dollars.

Faith wanted to call Chase Winters and
scream at him—curse him for bringing Club Alpha, whatever that was, into
her life.

But she resisted the urge.

Chase was dangerous, and not in the cute,
sexy way.
 
No, Chase was dangerous
in the way that heroin was dangerous, or jumping off a bridge, or drinking
strychnine.
 

She wanted to hear his voice as much as
she wanted to hurt him, viciously tear him apart so that he could feel what she
was feeling.

Still, Faith knew better than to act on
her emotions.
 
Instead, she took the
check and slid it in the middle of an old issue of Vogue, which she then placed
on the top shelf of her bookshelf, amidst the piles of other magazines, books,
and some old newspapers she’d saved because they contained a little article
she’d once published.

The ten thousand dollar check was
something she didn’t want to have to look at for very long, because the
temptation was too great to cash it and use it.

She had plenty of bills, not to mention
what it could do for Krissi if Faith decided to part with some of that
cash.
 
Maybe help pay for a semester
of her sister’s future tuition, books, or any number of things.