Page 4 of Tristian (The Doherty Mafia)
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Maybe it gave me some courage I lacked before, because I felt compelled to speak to him truthfully.
“I shouldn’t trust you either.”
Tristian took in a deep breath, then nodded.
“You’re right, you shouldn’t. Why don’t you start off by telling me exactly why you thought you’d come to us for help.”
“I didn’t plan on calling your brother and asking for your family to help me. That was what happened. They were the circumstances I found myself in. I wanted to get out of there for a while, I just didn’t know how. And when they brought your nephew in…he’s just a kid. So small and fragile. I wanted to help him.”
Once again, I felt myself tearing up and getting misty eyed. All that time when I refused to speak to Tristian, trying to keep my distance from him—I was able to keep it together. But now, it felt like the floodgates had opened. It all spilled out uncontrollably. I was embarrassed.
It didn’t seem as though a man like him would be moved by my tears.
“So you just happened to be in a position where you had something to offer us and now you think we owe it to you to offer you protection?”
No matter how sexy he was and how I imagined sparks flying between us, the way he spoke to me reminded me he wasn’t on my side. I had nobody on my side. I was completely alone.
“Isn’t that the least you people can do in exchange for the life I saved?” I asked bitterly.
When Tristian didn’t reply, I drank the rest of the beer. It tasted bitter and disgusting and I almost gagged on it.
“Something tells me you don’t come from this world, do you, Elsie Harlow? This isn’t reality for you,” he said.
“No, it isn’t. I have no idea how any of this works. I’m just trying to survive.”
“What is your profession? Do you have a job?”
He looked me up and down, almost like he tried to assess me—playing a guessing game in his head. I couldn’t help but wonder what he thought I did.
“I’m an accountant,” I replied, putting a stop to the mystery. “I’m good with numbers and that makes me an asset to Aldo Baron.”
“An accountant?”
I registered the surprise in Tristian’s voice.
So, whatever profession he’d subconsciously assigned to me, an accountant wasn’t one of them.
He was right when he said I didn’t belong to this world.
This lifestyle had never realistically crossed my mind. I had a fairly normal upbringing. My parents encouraged me to study hard and I was always interested in my books. Math had been a passion of mine, and especially as a teenager, I found out the hard way how it wasn’t such an acceptable thing.
I was the nerd. I was the girl who’d never easily made friends. I was the girl whose longtime best friend dumped her when she started going out with their mutual teenage heartthrob.
My parents seemed normal for the most part. They loved and nurtured me, encouraged me to follow my dreams and passion. I idolized my father. He was a businessman and usually worked late hours. He made it a point to make me see he worked hard. That anyone who wanted to make anything of their lives would have to work hard.
The kind of money I’d seen around Aldo Baron, and the kind of apartment Tristian Doherty lived in—they belonged to a different world from me.
Most importantly, they lived on the edge. On the other side of the tracks. What I would’ve so far considered the wrong side of the tracks.
In the span of just a few months, I was exposed to the kind of violence and crime I had never imagined myself to be a part of. To witness firsthand. I only thought that stuff happened in the movies. It had to be just folklore. Real people couldn’t live that way.
But there I was, standing in front of a guy who set my body on fire, and at the same time—could snap me into two pieces any time he wanted.
I had every reason to be afraid of him.
“So, you’re telling me Aldo captured you? Picked you off the streets randomly because he knew he’d use your skills?”
Tristian’s eyes narrowed while he studied me closely. Maybe he was trying to figure out if I was lying to him. I had a feeling he’d pick up very quickly if I was to lie to him. He was not the kind of man you lied to because he wouldn’t go light on a punishment. In fact, I didn’t even want to imagine what he was capable of doing.
I had already witnessed what Aldo Baron was capable of.
“No, there was nothing random about it,” I replied.
I needed a moment.
It’d been a few months since everything unraveled. Since my life came tumbling down around me and I lost all control. But it hadn’t been long enough. Everything still hurt.
