He Said , “Go Die”

I listened to their crude taunts without expression, as if they were talking about someone else.

After seven years, I had learned to be an empty shell, hollowed out and devoid of feeling.

To escape the bounty on my head, I'd washed bloodstains off slum sidewalks and hauled crates in back-alley liquor warehouses.

I'd had guns pointed at my head by street thugs and been called a whore by gamblers who'd lost their last dime.

Dignity was a luxury, torn to shreds along with my father's life on that stormy night seven years ago.

I expertly shuffled and cut the deck, my hands moving with mechanical precision.

"Don Declan, your cards," I repeated.

Declan stared into my eyes.

He seemed to want to peel back my face and find a sliver of shame, a tear, anything.

But he was going to be disappointed.

There was nothing in my eyes but a deep, endless exhaustion.

My dead-eyed indifference finally enraged him.

He suddenly laughed, a cold sound, and threw a thick wad of cash onto the floor.

"You always loved money, didn't you?" Declan looked down at me, his eyes filled with a cold violence.

"Get out here. Kneel down and pick it up. It's all yours when you're done."

He was humiliating me in the most degrading way he knew how.

Seven years ago, he was a bastard with nothing, looked down on by everyone.

To buy me a decent dress, he'd once gotten two ribs broken in an underground fight pit.

Seeing him now, so easily tossing a fortune at my feet, I actually felt a flicker of relief.

He was doing better. It just had nothing to do with me.

Maeve leaned against him, giggling. "Oh, Declan, don't be so hard on her. She turned down the nanny job at my estate, but this is a lot of money. Sienna, hurry up and pick it up."

I had no choice. I needed the money.

I pushed away from the dealing table, walked over to his feet, and knelt down without a change in my expression.

One bill. Two. Three.

Just as my hand reached for the last bill, the sharp point of a stiletto heel slammed down on the back of my hand.

A sharp pain shot through my hand as the heel broke the skin, drawing blood.

"Oops, I didn't see you there," Maeve said, covering her mouth and laughing loudly, deliberately grinding her heel in a little deeper.

I didn't flinch. Didn't even pull my hand back.

I just knelt there calmly on the floor, waiting for her to move her foot.

Then, with my bleeding hand, I picked up the blood-stained bill.

I calculated how many days of food this would buy, how I could finally get my mother something decent to eat.

This was my life now.

I had no room for love or hate, only endless bills and debts I could never repay.

As for dignity, that was a game only the rich could afford to play.

"Thank you for your generosity, Don."

I tucked the cash away and stood up.

He saw my numb reaction. He saw my hands. The same hands that once gently tended to his wounds were now covered in calluses from shuffling cards, marred by a fresh, bloody wound.

Declan's pupils constricted, his expression hardening as if he were suppressing something.

But the moment was fleeting. He quickly reverted to his cold, ruthless self and kicked over the leather chair in front of him.

"Get out. Find a replacement."

Of course, I wasn't going to leave. For tonight's game, I needed the tips and my cut.

My mother's medical bills for next month were still unpaid, and the loan sharks were sending death threats again.

I went to the restroom and quickly rinsed the wound under the faucet.

I untied the silk scarf from my neck and wrapped it tightly around my bleeding hand.

Then, I pushed open the heavy doors and walked back into the lounge, back into the thick air of cigar smoke and violence.