Chapter Two

The night air felt unusually cold as Serena stepped out of the restaurant. She tightened her jacket around herself as she shivered and glanced at the paper bag in her hand.

Mia's burger.

A small smile touched her lips.

"No matter how tired I am," she murmured, "I promised."

The streets of New Orleans buzzed with distant music and flashing neon lights. Most people were heading home after a long night of laughter and drinking, shoulders loose, and faces flushed with warmth. Serena wished she could do the same. Instead, her mind went to rent, electricity and the grocery for next week with victor's debt sitting at the bottom of everything.

The city's jazz music filled through the open doors of a nearby bar, sweet and mournful at the same time. A couple walked past her, with their fingers intertwined, laughing at something only they understood.

Serena looked away. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed like that. She turned into the quiet corner sidewalk that led toward her bus stop, the sounds of the city fading behind her.

That was when she heard it. The slow, deliberate roll of tires.

A sleek black SUV crept along the road beside her, matching her pace. Serena's footsteps slowed.

Her breathing did too.

"No..."

The SUV suddenly rolled to a full stop directly in front of her, its headlights flooding the deserted sidewalk with harsh white light.

She froze as the driver's door swung open.

A tall man stepped out, dressed entirely in black. His movements are slow and calculated. A cigarette resting lazily between two fingers,glowing orange in the dark.

He smiled at her.

It wasn't a friendly smile.

It was the smile of someone who enjoyed watching others when they had nowhere to run.

Victor Crane.

Blood drained from Serena's face so quickly she felt dizzy.

"I've been looking for you," he said pleasantly, as though they were old friends running into each other by chance.

She instinctively stepped backward, her heel scraping against the pavement.

"Victor..." Her voice cracked."I was going to call you."

"Were you?"

He took a slow drag from the cigarette, tilted his head back, and exhaled a long ribbon of smoke into the cold night air. His eyes never left her face.

"You've become very difficult to find, Serena."

"I've been working extra shifts." She kept her chin up even as her pulse thundered in her ears. "Please. I just need a little more time."

Victor laughed. It was a low, unhurried sound, and it sent ice crawling down her spine.

"You've already had time."He snapped his fingers once.

The sound was barely audible. But the SUV's back doors opened immediately, and two large men climbed out, moving towards her without a single word.

Serena's mind screamed at her to run.

Her legs refused.

She knew better. Running from Victor's men only made it worse. She had seen what they did to people who ran.

"Victor, please–"

Before the words fully left her mouth, one of the men grabbed her shoulder with a grip like iron.She barely had time to process anything.

CRACK!!!

The butt of a pistol connected with the side of her head.

Pain exploded through her skull in a white-hot burst. She cried out as her knees buckled, her body folding as she collapsed onto the pavement. The paper bag slipped from her fingers as Mia's burger hit the ground, the wrapper splitting open, the smell of warm bread drifting uselessly into the cold air. Her ears rang as blood traced a slow path down the side of her face. She pressed her palm flat against the pavement, trying to push herself upright, but her arms trembled violently under her weight.

Victor crouched down in front of her.His polished shoes were inches from the crushed burger on the ground. He studied it for a moment, then looked up at her.

"Look at me." He commanded. 

Serena lifted her eyes slowly as tears blurred everything, but she refused to let them fall. She would not give him that pleasure.

"You borrowed money from me," he said calmly, "because your mother was dying."

She said nothing.

"You sat across from me in my office and you cried." His voice held no sympathy, only the flat recitation of facts. "You told me you had no one else. You told me you would repay every cent." He continued talking. 

"I will," she whispered weakly. "I swear I will."

Victor's expression didn't change.

"I don't care about promises, Serena." He tilted his head slightly. "I care about results. Every person who has ever sat in that chair across from me has made promises. Promises are cheap. Do you know what isn't cheap?"

She didn't answer.

"Patience." He straightened slowly, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. She clasped her trembling hands together.

"Please. Just two more weeks. I'll have a full payment ready."

Victor went silent for several long seconds.

The kind of silence that made her skin crawl. Then he smiled.

"Fine." He said as he gestured his hands.

The single word released the tight knot in her chest.

But before she could feel relief he killed her short joy.

"But if you fail me again..."

His smile vanished so completely it was as though it had never existed. "I won't come for you."

Serena's brow furrowed.

Victor bent down one final time until his voice was low and close so she would hear everything he said.

"I'll pay your little sister a visit instead." He said darkly.

The world stopped. Every sound on the street fell away. The distant jazz. The hum of traffic. The ringing in her ears.

All of it is gone.

Nothing remained but those words.

Victor straightened, smoothed his jacket, and walked back to the SUV without looking at her again.

His men followed. The vehicle rolled away quietly into the dark as Serena remained on her knees on the cold pavement, one palm pressed to the wound on her head, the other spread flat against the ground to keep herself from collapsing completely.

Beside her, Mia's burger had been crushed beneath one of his men's shoes. She stared at it for a long time.

Then she closed her eyes, drew the coldest breath she could take into her lungs, and made herself stand.

She walked home slowly with an absent mind.

She cleaned the wound herself in the bathroom mirror when she got home with cotton wool and antiseptic. She didn't cry.

She had learned a long time ago that crying used energy she couldn't afford to waste. When Mia knocked on the bathroom door asking if she was okay, Serena called back that she was fine and was just tired.

She spent the rest of the night sitting on the edge of her bed with the lights off. Then suddenly she broke down in tears. The weight of everything felt suffocating and by the time morning came, she had already decided with a bobbling headache and red swollen eyes that she needed more money.

She needed it fast.

And she needed Victor to never look in Mia's direction again.