Black Romance - 27 Forget Her

Salt,

I know, even as I write this letter, that my life means nothing to you. You don’t know me and you have no reason to believe a word I tell you. But putting pen to paper like this could very well get me killed.

And I’m willing to risk that, because I have to believe in something.

So here I am, spilling my guts to a stranger, trapped in this place like a caged rat, willing to put my life in your hands.

When I met you, there was something about you that was different. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, because I don’t know a damn thing about who you really are.

But you gave me something I haven’t had in years, you gave me hope.

It’s been so long since I’ve felt that, and this was the only thing I could do with that feeling.

You’re probably wondering what the point of this is, but it’s simple. I need your help.

This place isn’t what you might think it is. It’s all smoke and mirrors.

I didn’t come here by choice, I’m not a poor girl who needed to make a quick buck. I didn’t agree to sell my body and I never would. But it isn’t up to me, because I’m not free, I’m owned.

You told me there were things you could do for me, and if that’s true, then I need your help now more than ever.

Please set us free.

If you are the man I hope and feel you are, then you’ll know what to do.

Either way, no matter what you’re thinking or what you decide, I still say thank you. Thank you for giving me something back that I had lost a long time ago.

It means more than you could ever imagine.

—Drowning Girl

Folding up her note, I set it on my chest and stared up at the ceiling in my hotel room. Her words hit a nerve, they filled me with an endless hate for Virgo. I never really liked the guy, I always thought of him as a piece of shit, but what he did was never my business before. My family was paid for a service and we provided it. The ink was set, no questions were ever asked.

Now I had the voice and power to do all kinds of things.

You’ll start a war. . .

And I’ll end one too.

My brain was playing a game of tug of war, going back and forth between what was right and what was wrong. I felt strange, this foreign feeling of concern had started to work its way through my body.

It doesn’t matter, it’s not your place.

This wasn’t my home, I had no business getting involved in such matters. What he did on his own grounds wasn’t my concern. So long as it didn’t trickle down onto me and my business, I shouldn’t give a fuck.

But this shit, it didn’t sit right, it made me uncomfortable, and it always had. When my father ran things, he was the one who decided who we worked with, what jobs we would take, and who would execute them.

Now it was all on me. I didn’t have to look the other way, because I was the one who held all the power.

Laying my arm over my head, I picked up Berlin’s letter and read it again, then I read it a third a time. The woman was desperate, and she had no clue she was reaching out to a man that in all forms was just as bad as her owner.

You’re not like him, you don’t sell women. . .

But we’re both evil, we take lives, we don’t give them.

Closing my eyes, my hands trembled no matter how much I tried to steady them. My mind kept wandering to how deep in this whole thing I was willing to go. I had only come to set new terms, and now I was staring down the barrel of my own gun.

I knew what Virgo had for protection, because we were the ones who supplied it. Every gun and bullet he owned came from my father. Any time he needed to make someone who screwed him over disappear, my family would step in.

It wasn’t a pretty business, but it was profitable. The people I worked with went from high power government officials to low life scum. As long as they had the means to fund it, I had the power to make it happen.

But this fucking woman had seeped into my head, making it hard to concentrate, forcing me stick around a lot longer than I wanted to.

When she said I was playing games, I didn’t want to admit she was right. Because once I laid eyes on her, my whole purpose for that fucking trip suddenly changed.

My body was holding me there, making me go back over and over to see her. All I could think about was touching her, caressing her, making her scream.

But that was before I knew just how unhappy she was. What Virgo did wasn’t a mystery to me, but maybe I had always been too ignorant to realize that none of it was consensual.

You knew, you just chose to ignore it.

I turned my head, never looking any deeper than the surface. I saw the girls, I saw a stage, I saw women with a fake smile and flirty tongues. But I never stopped to actually see the truth. That was what my father had taught me to do, don’t stick my nose where it doesn’t belong.

And then I met her. I watched her dance on that stage the first night while I sat in the shadows. I knew her place, and still I let her pull me in with her endless curves and sexy, pouty lips. Her body moved in ways that made my blood surge through the veins and my cock thicken.

I want to fucking kill him.

The idea of just making it easy and killing Virgo weighed heavily on my mind. But that could come with a price.

What I did went well beyond a service for hire. I was supposed to be in the shadows, an unknown name that would come in and take care of a problem. There shouldn’t be any links to the person that hired me and no trail that would lead back in my direction.

But it was impossible for me to know what notes Virgo had, who he had told about me, and how much his men knew, or what they would do if I just took out their boss.

I had to play nice, at least for now. I wouldn’t risk my life for his.

That doesn’t mean she’s not worth the fight. . .

Berlin’s desperate attempt to seek my help made my chest hurt like someone was squeezing the muscle hidden behind my ribs. Each beat was a struggle, painful and wretched like my heart was turning to stone.

Forget it, forget her. She’s not worth the trouble.

Going to war was out of the question.

It wasn’t worth it for just one girl.