Collecting On The Debt

GIOVANNI

Elaine's house was even more pathetic than the description I'd received.

The paint on the outside was peeling, one part of the roof was tilting at an unnatural angle, and a good layer of dust covered the entire thing. And that was just the outside. I could only imagine what the inside looked like.

I wouldn't let my dog sleep here, let alone a grown woman with a young child.

I kept my disgust to myself as I took a drag from the cigarette in my hand, surveying the house through the tinted lenses of my sunglasses.

It'd been two weeks and a day since I'd given Elaine the ultimatum. She'd failed to produce my money, and now I was here to collect what was due to me, one way or another.

There was no avoiding me now. I knew she was at home. I also learned from my informants that she was barely scraping by, even though she'd taken up the weirdest and oddest jobs she could find in the past two weeks.

Different thoughts and questions swirled in my head as I continued smoking, watching a