Page 43 of Psycho

No matter how crappy the neighborhood was, I didn’t want any witnesses around.

I opened the trailer door and shoved him inside. He fell to the ground with a cry, and I shut the door behind me, closing us in. He turned around and looked at me, shaking his head.

I stepped in closer. “Where’s my fucking money?”

“Please. I don’t have it. Just give me more time. Please.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment, taking him in. Was he really telling the truth, that he didn’t have the money to pay me back? But if he didn’t have the money, where did he pour all the winnings from the fights?

“And double your interest rate?” I asked quietly.

He didn’t speak right away.

That was what I thought.

I came up to him and pulled him up by his hair until we were nose to nose. His face turned red, and he struggled to get out of my hold.

“I’ve killed men for less than this. And you try to run away from me?”

He struggled even harder, shaking his head, but all that did was pull on his hair against my fist.

“What should I do with you?” I asked, pushing him off.

I crossed my arms over my chest and watched as he scrambled back on his feet, trying to get away.

What a stupid little fucker. He was stuck in this trailer with me. Where the fuck did he think he could go?

I took a step forward, and he flinched back a step.

I smiled, loving the fear that entered his face at the sight.

I opened my mouth to speak when I got close, but he knelt down in front of me. “Please. I will do anything. Please.”

“Anything?” I asked quietly.

He stopped crying and looked up at me, not saying anything. He knew I had him cornered.

And like a cornered animal, he would do anything, agreeing to anything to save his skin.

“W-What do you want?”

I looked around the trailer until I saw the small picture frame on the mantle atop the fireplace.

I walked over to it, feeling Ozzy’s eyes on me the entire time as I took in the smiling girl in the picture.

She looked nothing like the girl I had been watching for the last three years.

In this picture, she couldn’t be any more than fourteen at most. It was taken at the beach, and whoever took the picture had elicited a wide smile from her.

Her green eyes glowed in the golden light of the sunlight, her dark brown hair blowing to the left, and she was wearing a green tank top that showed off freckles on her shoulders.

The girl I had been watching was a shell of the girl in this picture. No longer fourteen, she was a cynical twenty-year-old who didn’t trust the world or the people in it.

And it had everything to do with this fucker.

“Her,” I said, turning to Ozzy. “I want her.”

He paled. “My daughter? You can’t just take her. She’s not a bargaining chip.”

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