Pulled Into The Billionaire's Redemption

CHAPTER 2

Anna POV: Locked Up

"No, you're not going to get on welfare," Beth says, her voice drifting over the separator wall from her tiny kitchen. "Besides, what's this?"

I look up from my plate of burnt toast as Beth walks into the living room, holding up a piece of cardstock. She turns the matte black card over in her fingers and reads aloud:

"Caine Hammer. CEO." She looks up at me, her brow furrowing. "Who's this?"

I freeze and stop chewing.

"What the hell," I mutter. "That's him. That's the asshole who picked me up last night. Where did you find that?"

"Right here, tangled up in the bills."

I leave my pathetic dinner on the table and rush over. I snatch the card from Beth’s hand to examine it. I must have accidentally scooped it up off the floor along with the scattered bills after Caine tossed them at me like garbage.

Beth turns her gaze back to the small fortress of green cash sitting piled high.

"Anna," she says, her eyes wide as she looks at the money. "You can't get on welfare when there are hundreds of guys like Caine prowling the street looking for people like us."

People like us? I don't want to do this. I never wanted to do this.

I go back to my meal and force myself to take another bite of toast, but my throat feels tight. Even now, nearly twenty-four hours later, my body still shivers from the toxicity of my encounter with Caine yesterday.

"Beth, what that dude did was horrible," I say, staring at the crumbs on my plate.

"Horrible?" she sighs and walks over to lean against the table. "Anna, that's the life. It comes with its own hazards, sure, but look how much you made in a single night. Now you can stop running from Mrs. Lucy. You can pay off your back rent and actually pay off some of your debt. Come on, Anna. Look at the bigger picture."

My shoulders sag, and I pout. I gape at my shaking hands. "I don't know, Beth."

The memories of the insults Caine hurled at me come rushing back vividly, making my cheeks burn all over again. I look up at my friend, needing her to understand the cost of that cash.

"He called me a slut, Beth," I say quietly.

Beth rolls her eyes. "Don't be naive, Anna. We are sluts."

"But I'm not."

"Of course you are," Beth says gently, as if explaining something simple to a child. "There's nothing wrong with that. Think of it this way: we're in public service, providing an essential service to men who would otherwise burst their balls m**********g. Half these men don't get any s*x from their wives anyway."

"I don't think Caine Hammer has a wife," I mutter, turning his name over in my mind. "No woman could live with a monster like that one. God, I hate him."

But I love how he smells. Damn.

Beth steps closer, puts a comforting hand on my shoulder and says, "Just imagine what you could make in a month if you keep this up."

I look at my friend and the numbers run in my head. I made three thousand dollars last night. But as I look at Beth, I realize something else: Beth has been doing this for months, and she has never made that kind of money in a single night.

"Beth, I did something for him," I confess.

She grins. "You f****d him."

"No, I didn't," I say flatly.

"Then what did you do?" she asks, looking confused.

"There was a financial equation on the board in his office. It was a derivative pricing model, something I'd done a thousand times back at the Vanguard before everything fell apart," I explain, gesturing vaguely with my hands. "So I helped him. I fixed it. That's what that money is really for. Unless you're telling me there are guys prowling the streets tonight looking for a hooker to solve their accounting issues."

Beth stares at me for a long second, then sighs and checks her watch. "We are leaving in ten minutes. I'm going to go shower."

I let out a defeated sigh and sink back into the couch.

Ten minutes later, we are in the street and it is a bitterly cold Chicago night. We are stationed on a dimly lit corner of W 18th Street in the Lower West Side. Beth is standing about ten feet away, scanning the passing traffic, while a few other girls occupy the shadows further down the block.

Suddenly a dark sedan slows down and pulls up right in front of me. My stomach does a nervous flip, thinking it’s a potential client. But the moment the door opens, Beth tenses up and curses under her breath.

"s**t," she whispers.

The man who comes out of the vehicle is wearing a black leather jacket. Long, thick dreadlocks frame his hard face, and he is decked out in jewelry around his neck and fingers.

"Hello, ladies," the man sings. He looks at me. "Do we have a new addition to my harem and no one told me?"

I instinctively take a step back, my heart running. Beth quickly moves between us.

"Lucas, please," Beth says, her voice trembling slightly. "She's my friend. She's only doing this for one night to make rent."

Lucas looks from Beth to me, his eyes traveling up and down my figure like he’s appraising a piece of meat. "What's your name, beautiful?"

"Who are you?" I ask.

Lucas bursts into a loud, mocking laugh.

"Who am I? Ask Beth, your friend here," he says, taking a step closer until I can smell the weed on his breath. "They call me the Sweet Daddy around here. I see you want to be one of my girls. Word on the street is you worked this block last night. Yeah, I have eyes all over Chicago, sweetheart. One of my eyes told me you got into a gray Bentley last night. Which means you owe me tax. Two hundred for standing on my sidewalk, and five hundred for doing it without proper registration."

Beth says, "Lucas, please, she doesn't have—"

"Shut up, Beth! You know how this works," Lucas snaps, his eyes flashing with sudden rage. He turns his attention back to me, his jaw clenched. "If she's on this sidewalk, she's my slut."

"I'm not a slut," I say, shaking.

Lucas freezes. He tilts his head. "What did you say?"

"I said, I'm not a slut!"

Crack, he slaps me hard across the face. The force of it sends me stumbling back, my cheek exploding in white-hot pain.

Beth gasps, cries out as she tries to hold me back, but she isn't fast enough. Adrenaline takes over. I scream, swing my small bag with all my might straight at Lucas’s face. The metal zipper catches him on his sizable red nose.

Things pretty much go downhill from there.

Lucas roars in fury, lunges forward just as blue and red lights suddenly flood the dark street. A Chicago police cruiser happens to be passing by the intersection. Its tires screech as it pulls up to the curb.

Minutes later, all three of us are hauled away to the precinct.

An hour later, Beth and I are sitting in a small holding cell. Both of us look like homeless girls, staring at the scratched concrete floor.

"I'm so sorry, Anna,” my friend says. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Lucas. Looks like you were right . . ."

I look at her mascara smeared face. Despair is coming out of her.

". . . I guess it's welfare for us both after this," she whispers.

"Or we try to get real jobs," I muttter.

"We tried that, didn't we?"

We both sigh.

The booking officer had asked us earlier if we wanted to make a phone call to bail ourselves out, but the option felt like a joke.

Beth is an orphan who has been surviving on her own for years. I have my parents, but the terror of them finding out I was arrested on a street corner trying to be a hooker makes that impossible.

I'd rather rot in this cell.

Despair starts creeping deep into my chest, suffocating me, but then my eyes light up.

The business card!

Caine Hammer’s business card is sitting in my hand bag. I sit up.

"What is it?" Beth asks.

But I remember how Caine treated me last night and I sag again. "Nah. Not a good idea."

"Anna, what is it?" Beth asks again.

"Nothing. It's a crazy idea, really."

"What idea?" Beth asks. "Do you know someone who can get us out of here?"

I stare at the iron bars of the cell, and they seem to reach for me.

"Yeah," I say slowly. "I do. Caine."

"The rich guy?" Beth asks, her jaw dropping in surprise. "The same one you hate? The one who embarrassed you?"

I nod slowly. "The exact one.”