not mad at you. I know you’ll make it right.”
She dug her fingernails into her knees. “Cut the bullshit, Isaias. What do you want?”
He pulled a mock serious face, pursing his lips. “Tsk, tsk. Prison’s given you a dirty mouth, little girl. Is that any way to treat the man who’s keeping you off the streets?”
“I don’t need you. I only came back here because of Lizette.”
His lips pulled into a cruel grin. “You think you don’t need me? What do you think would happen to you out there, Riel? If they didn’t haul your ass straight back to jail for violating your probation by not living in your approved residence, then the wolves would split a cute little thing like you straight down the middle before the sun was up.”
“I’d find someplace else. I’d get a job.” But she could barely meet his eyes. A void of hopelessness opened in her stomach. He laughed.
“Sure you would. Easy for a nineteen-year-old high school dropout just out of prison to get a job, right? Especially a job that earns you enough to pay rent and bills all by yourself. ”
“I got my GED, and I have other people who would take me in.”
That made him laugh harder. “Who’d take you in? Evan? He your little boyfriend now, Rielita? Some big man he is. I had a little chat with him, and he ran away like a scared puppy, pissing down his leg. You won’t be seeing him any time soon. I guess he didn’t think you were special enough to fight for.”
She felt like he’d punched the air out of her lungs. Had Evan really run away? Tears rose to her eyes, and it just made it worse that Isaias could see them there. She wanted to scratch the look of triumph off of his face.
“Face it, Riel,” Isaias said. “You need me. You would have been fucked without me before you got busted, and you’d be even worse off without me now.”
She stared at her lap, pressing her lips together to hold back the sobs and the screams. She hated him. She hated him so bad that she had to clutch the seat of her chair to keep from punching him in his smug, asshole face. But she had to hold it together. She had to find a way out of this somehow, and she wouldn’t get anywhere by pissing him off worse. She swallowed hard, forcing her anger into a hard knot in her chest. “What do you want with me?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to put you back running again. You’ve proven you’re not capable.”
Riel huffed, but held her tongue.
“Besides,” he continued, leering, “I think you’re more valuable to me elsewhere now that you’re legal age and starting to fill out a bit.”
Riel’s shoulders tensed. Her heart took off running. “What do you mean?”
“I bought a club while you were away. It’s a nice little business, brings in a fair amount of money.” His leering grin grew wider, and he reached out with his sock-clad foot to nudge her calf. “You know how to dance, right?”
Before she could stop herself, she jerked away from him, her chair legs squeaking on the floor tiles. “Nuh-uh. No way. I’m not dancing in a titty bar.”
“Oh, come off it, Riel. You’ll be popular there if you loosen up a bit. You’re not the scrawny little kid you used to be. You’re actually turning out pretty hot.”
Riel crossed her arms, taking a deep breath through her nose and letting it out, willing herself not to explode. “No, Isaias.”
“No? Then what are you going to do to pay me back, Riel?” He raised his socked foot and ran his big toe slowly along the back of her calf.
Her spine stiffened. “Stop it, Isaias.”
He laughed softly, and the toe’s progress halted. He put his foot back on the ground. But then he leaned forward and reached out to squeeze her knee. “You don’t call the shots in my house, Rielita.” He dragged his fingers along the inside of her thigh. “I pay for the roof over your head and everything else, plus I saved your ass from a thirty-year sentence. You wouldn’t have a life at all if it weren’t for me, and this is how you treat me?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, bile rising into her throat. “Stop, Isaias. I won’t do this…I won’t do that to my sister.”
“Your sister won’t know what we don’t tell her.” His fingers made their way up