11

He would be a bald-faced liar if he said he wasn’t shocked. There was no resemblance whatsoever between Lo and Lou but Ty could faintly remember Lo mentioning that her mother had remarried, wanting Lo to have a father-figure and that the man she had married had been a divorcee with a son.
So this must be the son.
The man didn’t look like he was here to rekindle familial ties and judging by the way Lo had blanched when she saw his text, she wasn’t exactly going to be glad to see him. Ty’s immediate instinct was the get this man as far away from Lo as possible and to get him to stop bothering her altogether.
“So what do you want with Lo?” he asked briskly, amazed at his ability to keep his voice leveled and steady.
“She owes my boss and I some money,” Lou replied, taking a sip of his coffee like he had no care in the world.
“Who’s your boss?” Ty asked, and then added, “any amount she owes, I’ll pay it.”
If it was money they wanted, they wasn’t a problem at all. He would pay it five times over.
Lou ignored his question, “Nuh-uh, lover boy. This is Lo’s debt and she has to pay it. I'm just here to check up on her progress. Time is running thin, you know?”
Lou continued to watch Lo’s latest accomplishment over the rim of his coffee cup. He could see why the little slut was attracted to him. At first, he had thought it was the money she was after but when she had been dating him for months and didn’t produce the money, the boss had thought she was slacking. Giving her a two-month ultimatum was supposed to make her siphon the money out of lover boy as soon as possible but instead, she had sold her house. So the bitch was actually in love with the fucker? Lou tried very hard not to laugh.
“You’re the reason why she sold her house,” Ty said, thinking out loud. It had just hit him.
Lo was probably scared that Lou and whoever his boss was would come after him for the money and she didn’t want him to be a part of it. It was cute that she was trying to protect him but Ty really wished she would let him protect HER.
Lou dropped his coffee cup on the table and met Ty’s gaze straight on. From his eyes alone, Ty could tell that this man wasn’t mentally well. There was a twitch that gave it all away. The thought of this man being a part of Lo’s family made Ty’s skin crawl.
“I don’t give two fucks what she does to get my money,” he said matter-of-factly, “all I care about is that she GETS THE FUCKING MONEY.”
He hadn’t shouted the last part, but he had said it with a sort of avidness that made it seem like he had shouted it.
“And I said I will give you the fucking money,” Ty ground out in reply.
“The money has to come from Lo. If she gets it from you, I don’t give a rats ass. But it has to come from her.”
Ty knew there was no negotiating with this guy. But he needed to know why Lo was so scared of him. If she had borrowed some money and needed to repay it, there was no need for her to be so afraid or for him to threaten her so harshly. There was something amiss and Ty tried to think of how to approach it.
“She could go to the police if you keep on threatening her,” he said trying to be tactful.
“I’ve been threatening her for years,” Lou said triumphantly, “she wouldn’t dare.”
Ty could feel his control shredding, “And why the fuck not?”
Chucking, Lou brought out his phone and tapped on it for a few seconds, “Because if she does, the whole world will see this.”
He turned the phone screen to Ty and what was on it even made Ty blanch a little. If he was mad before, he was murderous now; he could feel his blood boiling and his heart beating fiercely.
It was a freeze-frame of a video in which a younger looking Lo was tied up and crying so hard her eyes were red and swollen. She was tied in such a way that her arms and legs were wide apart and she looked to be in pain. Her caramel skin was a harsh red in some places and there was a gag in her mouth. There was a sex machine between her legs and by the blur of the motion in the freeze-frame, it was pounding her vigorously. From what Ty could see, she wasn’t even wet and she was in a lot of pain.
It was degrading. It was embarrassing. It was sick. And Ty was sure Lou was the sick bastard who had taken that video.
Ty wanted to grab the phone and delete the video but Lou guessed it by the look on Ty’s face, “Don’t bother taking my phone. I have copies on this video on cloud storage and my boss has one too. A single tap and the whole world sees it,” Lo chuckled, “we even have bidders who want to pay millions to have the video exclusively.”
Ty was blind with rage. Actually blind; he couldn’t see anything but he knew losing his composure would do nothing in solving the matter at hand. And besides, Lou would probably get some sick joy in knowing that he was so fucking pissed.
“How much do you want?” he asked, “how much are they offering? I’ll pay double.”
“If Lo wants you to pay, she’ll tell you the price. And besides,” Lou chuckled, “I think she was enjoying it. You know she screams louder when you tie her up.”
It was true but Ty could feel his anger returning in torrents, “How the fuck do you know that?”
Lou shrugged, “Sheer curtains.”
“You motherfucker,” Ty growled, but Lou just smiled and stood up.
“I’m leaving. You can remind Lou that she has a month and a half left.”
And with that, Lo’s stepbrother and tormentor was gone. Ty sat there for a few minutes to regain his composure and stood up. In a second, Yaz was beside him.
“You should come into the office and cool down a bit. If you go to Lo like this, you’ll just end up causing more damage,” she said.
So Yaz knew, which meant Pam did too. Ty let himself be led to Pam’s office where Pam was too. When she saw the look on Ty’s face, Pam asked what had occurred.
“Lou came,” Yaz said in an uncharacteristically sullen voice, “he showed him the video.”
“Fucking shit!” Pam exclaimed and put her head in her hands, “what was he looking for?”
Yaz shrugged, “I was about to get a smoothie and I saw them talking. So I waited around till Lou left.”
“Why didn’t you come to us?” Ty asked, his voice sounding to him like sandpaper on gravel.
“There was nothing I could do to be of help,” Yaz said apologizingly, “and that man scares the hell out of me.”
Yaz didn’t seem to Ty like the kind of woman to be scared of anything. For crying out loud, the woman handled the most complex acrobatic routines with the ease of picking a toenail. For her to openly admit that she was scared of Lou, then he was not to be underestimated.
There was a question nagging at the back of Ty’s mind that he thought the women might have the answer to.
“Who’s Lou’s boss?”
A few minutes passed by and Ty thought they wouldn’t answer him, then Pam said, “It’s her stepfather. I have no idea why Lou keeps calling his father boss.”
So both father and son were in cahoots and intent on ruining Lo’s life. Ty clenched and unclenched his fists. He really wanted to punch something and Lo’s stupid face would do just fine.
“I’m going to see Lo,” he announced as he stood up.
“NO!” both women yelled, stopping him.
“Let us tell her about today,” Pam said, “she will receive the news better from us. You just go home.”
Ty was beyond bewildered.
“You mean that you expect me,” he said with a deadly calm, “to leave Lo’s side after finding out the kind of danger she’s in?”
“No we don’t but you’re gonna have to,” Yaz said, “she will most definitely call you before tomorrow ends.”
“Just let us handle this,” Pam persuaded.
After much cajoling and some forcefulness, Ty finally left the bistro. It was empty now and Pam went to flip the closed sign and lock the front door before the lunch rush started. It would put a dent in her income for today but it was necessary. She knew she and Yaz would be with Lo for a long time.

“HE KNOWS WHAT?” Lo shrieked when her friends broke the news about Lou and Ty’s conversation.
“You heard me,” Yaz said. Ever the blunt one, she had been the one to break the news to her friend after they had sat down in Lo’s tiny apartment.
Lo suddenly started finding it hard to breath. Her heart was pounding and she put her hand on her chest to steady it. Her legs seemed weak so she bent over, resting one hand on her knee as the walls started closing in on her. She was on the verge of an all-out panic attack.
From a distance, she heard Pam’s voice, “Lo, darling, breath.”
She tried to follow the instruction, taking in deep unsteady breaths of air. The effort made her head spin and took the little strength left in her legs out so she ended up on the floor, trying to take deep breaths. Little by little, her world started to stabilize and her breathing evened out.
“My life is over,” she groaned when she could finally speak.
“No it isn’t,” Pam pointed out, “you have the money and Lou already promised to delete the videos in front of you and give you all the cloud passwords once you pay it.”
“Yes, but Ty’s seen that video,” Lo said, her face burning up, “I’ll never be able to face him again.”
“Yes, you can and you had better,” Yaz said pointedly, “he looked like he was about to rip Lou’s head off at the coffee table and use it as a very nice decoration outside Pam’s Place. Do you KNOW what we had to go through to get him to leave? That man is fucking pussywhipped. You need to give me whatever feminine wash you use girl, cuz that pussy’s on some genie shit.”
Despite herself, Lo smiled. She knew she would have to talk to Ty. He wouldn’t rest until she did, nobody would after seeing that video. Plus, she had to explain how she had gotten to be in that situation. That’s what worried her the most.
“Has the spotting stopped?” Pam asked carefully.
Lo nodded in response. She had started having cramps around the time she had left Ty and her OBGYN had thought it best to remove her IUD, hence the spotting which had stopped now. Pam was convinced it was the stress of that period that made her react badly to the IUD but Lo didn’t even know what to think.
Instead, she found herself thinking about Ty and the happy times they had shared. She thought about his quirks and his flaws, which complemented his attractive attributes so much that everything made up perfection. He had wanted her to meet his sister; from what he had told her, he and his sister were very close and he held her in high regard. For him to have wanted her to meet Gem, he must really consider her to be special.
Then Lo considered a life without listening to Ty singing, albeit badly, in the shower and not having him wake her up in the middle of the night, prodding her with his hard cock. She also imagined a life where he didn’t call her on her work trips to make her ,augh when a client had frustrated her or cheer her up when she was down. She imagined not being able to call him anytime she wanted to hear his voice and not being able to wear his shirts and sweatshirts as dresses. She imagined not being the source of his happiness.
Then she imagined another woman enjoying all those things and it was enough for her to make up her mind and once again, put her bad bitch panties on.
“I’ll go and see him tomorrow. Then once I'm done, I’ll pay Lou and Ben,” she stated.
Her friends smiled at her and nodded approvingly.
“But will you guys stay with me tonight?” she asked, looking at them with her best puppy dog eyes.
Yaz rolled her eyes, “I’m pretty sure that face only works on Ty but there’s no way we are leaving you alone tonight.
Lo smiled and for once, she was happy for everything she had and for the way things were looking up.