Beholden to the Devil

By ML Uberti

Zoe Xavier has been taking care of her brother since they were kids, and now that he’s in debt to the richest and most dangerous family in Waterston, Kentucky, she will have to do more than just pay back Quint Lear with money.

Quint and his brothers are determined to carry on the nefarious family business, but his intentions with Zoe seem outside Quint’s normal behavior. When her life is in danger, will he continue to be the devil Zoe is afraid of, or will she be able to see beyond that to the man inside?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: Oct 7, 2021

Book preview

Chapter One

I can do this, I told myself aloud, steering my car into a parking space on a dark street near a narrow alley. I can do this. It’s important. I’m not afraid. I can do this.

I was totally lying, but maybe my subconscious would be fooled into bravery and this whole knee-knocking, pants-pissing experience would be a breeze.

Unlikely, but I could dream.

I shoved open the door to my rusted-out Chevy truck, a hand-me-down that had been first passed on to my cousin Lita, who had it before me. You couldn’t have the headlights, radio, and windshield wipers on at the same time or it would blow a fuse. So if it was raining at night, you had to turn the music off. Which was really just a couple of AM stations that came in fuzzy.

But it ran so I kept it. Not that I could afford anything else -- and thanks to my brother Tyler, I probably never would.

Tyler was the reason I was on this little errand, walking as quietly and swiftly as I could toward a dingy brick building affixed at the intersection of two off-map, seedy streets, with crumbling concrete steps and a pink neon sign that simply said: BEER. No clever tavern name or funky hipster décor. One window, the magenta light, and a brown wood door.

I took a deep breath, steeled my nerves, and threw the door open.

A few heads came up to look at me, but mostly I was largely unnoticed in the dim interior. A smattering of old-timers at the bar, a couple dry humping in a booth, a handful of bikers shooting pool. I didn’t see who I was there to find, so I figured I better ask. I wanted to get this over as quickly as possible.

The bartender was a surly-looking man with a long white beard and a shiny bald head. His face was affixed in a frown but I thought it might permanently look like that. Just years of shit life reflected back in his features.

Hi. I began to smile, then dialed it back when he sneered in reply. Okay, not a happy-go-lucky crowd. I could dig that. I’m looking for someone.

His head swiveled around as he took in the entirety of the room. Well, then -- look, he stated, a brow raised in suggestion.

Someone -- uh, I don’t see him, I took another cursory glance around. His name is Quint Lear.

It was like the proverbial record scratch as all chatter ceased instantly and every eye in the place swung to me.

Quint Lear? What the hell you want with him? one of the boomers at the bar asked in a ridiculously loud tone.

Just -- uh, a personal errand, I fumbled. I -- he -- I paused. I should have rehearsed. It’s a personal errand. I repeated lamely.

Chuckie! the bartender bellowed loudly, not taking his eyes off me, and smirking when I jumped at little at his shout.

A gangly young guy with a shock of red hair poked his head out from the window that delineated the kitchen from the bar room. Yeah?

Got a girl here wants to see Q. He around? the man went on, still not looking away from me.

Lemme see -- she cute? He peered deeper into the room and took me in top to toe. Yeah, she’s cute, he added with a lewd grin, then vanished.

I forced another smile -- I had been cuter a few years back in high school, when I was a cheerleader, and homecoming queen, and had a hell of a lot less problems than I do now. But my father died, my mom started drowning herself in pills and booze and my little brother started selling drugs for a very, very bad man.

Mr. Quint Lear.

Who my only sibling Tyler owed ten thousand dollars to. And honestly, it may as well be ten million since I was just as likely to be able to raise that and hand it over to the man of the hour.

I had three hundred and eighteen bucks in the bank. My mom had an insurance policy worth maybe five hundred dollars if we cashed it in. Any savings we’d had had been wiped out by my dad’s medical bills. Which is why Tyler thought he would help out our little family slinging meth to addicts down by Lawson Avenue and up toward Davidson.

But he got greedy, listened to a stupid friend of his, and now he owed the Lear family ten grand. And the Lears weren’t known for their charity.

I tugged on my jean jacket, pulling it closer around me. I had thrown on a black top and jeans, not thinking maybe I should show a little more skin, entice Quint Lear. I didn’t want to go down that road, but I literally had nothing else to offer him besides my beat-up truck and three hundred and eighteen dollars.

The young guy appeared through a swinging door beside the bar, nodded his head at me then tipped it backwards, gesturing to follow.

I paused, not sure I was ready to die. Or beg. Or -- whatever the hell else I was going to do here.

Don’t leave ’im waitin’, the bartender advised with a growl.

I moved on leaden feet toward the open door and felt the kid brush his hand across my ass as I slipped past. He just smirked as he strutted down a long hall, past the kitchen, a set of bathrooms, and to a black door at the back.

He rapped three times and a deep voice called out an invitation to enter.

The guy turned the doorknob, grazing my chest in the process, then turned and walked away, chuckling softly to himself.

The words last known location sang through my head as I figured this is where I would die. But I’d go out swinging I supposed, trying to save my idiot brother before I was six feet under.

I took a tentative step inside and looked around. There were two men inside -- one behind a desk and one sitting in front of it. The guy in front was bouncing his knee anxiously, chewing gum and snapping it with a sharp echo.

The guy behind the desk was Quint Lear. I knew this because everyone in Waterston knew the Lears. They were the richest, most connected, and most felonious family in town. Probably all of Kentucky.

Four brothers who had inherited a fortune and an enterprise of shady dealings from their father, who spent most of his time now hobnobbing with wealthy locals. His father and his father before him did the same. Four generations of dealing in the illegal -- and doing it while looking damn fine.

Not the old guys -- ew. But Quint Lear and his brothers, Deacon, Ranger, and Boone were all drop-dead gorgeous. One high school in town, a handful of restaurants, bars, and even fewer shops -- you were bound to run across a Lear once in a while. And even though the youngest was a decade older than me, every girl from fifteen to fifty thought the Lears had two things to offer: their good looks and their unlawful goods.

Quint Lear’s piercing green gaze shot up to me, then back down dismissively, like he was already over whatever it was I had to say here and he was looking for a gun to put one between my eyes.

You have thirty seconds, the guy in the chair announced, not even bothering to look at me as he kept chewing his gum -- then started cleaning under his fingernails with a large bowie knife. A comforting activity to watch.

Uh -- hi. I swallowed hard. I really should have scripted this out and brought cue cards. I’m --

Zoe Xavier. Know that already, Quint said, and my brows went up in surprise. What I don’t know is what the fuck you’re doing here.

I shook my head to clear it. How the hell did Quint Lear know who I was? Uh, my brother --

Quint let out a long sigh and sat back in the high-back leather chair, lifting his gaze to me a second time. Yeah, your brother owes me ten large. Gonna guess you don’t have that stuffed in your pockets, so, again -- what the fuck are you doing here?

The guy in the chair looked me over again. I got ten grand I can give you for her, he snarled, his lecherous glare aimed right at my tits.

That’s not -- I took a large step to the left, away from the man with the knife. Listen, I can try to get it for you, I started.

It was supposed to be here, today, Sweetness. Quint arched a brow at me, his face dark and sinister -- but oh so handsome. Dark slashes above his eyes, they were the same color as the hair on his head -- a deep, opaque brown. Close shaven on his skull, but with a half an inch of growth on the sides and longer on top in an easy fade. His jaw was chiseled and flexed, his tattooed hands gripped the arms of the chair like if he put a little more pressure on it, it would splinter in half. His long legs splayed under the desk, ink wrapped around his arms and under the sleeves of his shirt pushed up nearly to his elbows and a thick, corded neck filled out a nearly perfect -- but definitely frightening -- package.

I know that, I told him, fidgeting. I have three hundred right now -- I began and the guy in the chair snorted a laugh. And I can get you another five hundred next week.

Fucking funny, offering nine hundred on a ten-grand debt, knife-boy commented. I didn’t bother correcting his math.

It’s eight, Quint muttered, then sat forward, eerily calm with his hands folded, wrists on the desk. Then what?

Then what -- what? I blinked at him.

I saw a whisper of a smile. My gut twisted in an unknown emotion, then it was gone. Then when do I get the other nine thousand, two hundred dollars, Sweetness?

I don’t -- know, I told him honestly. Ty is obviously going to -- work off -- what he owes you, I spit out the word work like it tasted bad. Because it did. The work was selling drugs, which I hated to begin with. But now he’d have to do it for free. Even worse. For everyone.

You want to work off the rest with that golden pussy? the guy that wasn’t Quint asked and I felt all the color drain from my face. He had already implied that but not stated it. And now that he had, I had a streak of fear that either of them might actually want it.

I wasn’t a virgin and honestly, I’d had sex that wasn’t worth ten thousand dollars plenty of times. But being a whore -- fucking for cash -- was something I’d rather not have to resort to if I could help it. Because if I did it -- I don’t think I could ever come back from that.

I already had a fractured family, a low-paying job, a shitty apartment,