Ruined

By Celia Crown

"You know I hate it when you don't listen to me."

 

Back then, Leos latched onto Rue like a toy, she held onto him intuitively, and their bond was haphazardly strung together with all the wrong pieces.

 

Now, he's matured, calculating, and brazenly insensitive. Somewhere in his guarded heart, he's still the same Leos who put her before everything.

 

"I only care about you. Why is that bad?"

 

When her father got injured, she made the decision to return home after years of living overseas, marking this her second biggest mistake.

 

Leaving Leos without telling him was and is the first one. He's going to make sure she knows and remembers it for the rest of her life.

 

Saddled with her father's debt, she calls the man who loves her with every inch of his cold heart. Rue realizes he's the first person she thinks of when she's in need, no matter how much she promises herself not to.

 

His selfishness has rubbed off on her.

 

Leos is willing to help her, just as she had thought, and she foolishly opens the door to his dream.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Celia Crown
• Release date: Apr 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215622360

Book preview

RUINED

____________________

CELIA CROWN

Copyright © 2021 by Celia Crown.

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction.

The book or any portion of the book may not be reproduced or used under any circumstances, except with the written permission from the author. Public names, movies, televisions, locations, or any references are used for atmospheric purposes. Any similarities and resemblances to alive or dead people, events, brands, and locales are all complete coincidences.

Contents

Ruined

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Epilogue

Afterword

More Books

Ruined

By Celia Crown

You know I hate it when you don’t listen to me.

Back then, Leos latched onto Rue like a toy, she held onto him intuitively, and their bond was haphazardly strung together with all the wrong pieces.

Now, he’s matured, calculating, and brazenly insensitive. Somewhere in his guarded heart, he’s still the same Leos who put her before everything.

I only care about you. Why is that bad?

When her father got injured, she made the decision to return home after years of living overseas, marking this her second biggest mistake.

Leaving Leos without telling him was and is the first one. He's going to make sure she knows and remembers it for the rest of her life.

Saddled with her father’s debt, she calls the man who loves her with every inch of his cold heart. Rue realizes he’s the first person she thinks of when she’s in need, no matter how much she promises herself not to.

His selfishness has rubbed off on her.

Leos is willing to help her, just as she had thought, and she foolishly opens the door to his dream.

Chapter One

__________

Rue

The man on his knees, pristine slacks dirtied by the wet cement, leans forward with a malicious grin tugging on his lower lip’s white scar. I shake in terror as his finger teases the sensitive trigger on his gun, the barrel nudging my forehead while he tuts jeeringly.

Pedestrians walk around us with a look of absolute pity and morbid curiosity. Nobody makes a move to call the police, not when there is a madman with a loaded gun in the vicinity.

I keep hoping someone secretly calls them, anyway.

I was just walking down the street when this man came from the alley and knocked me down. Before I knew it, he had a weapon stifling my mid-surprised complaint.

You owe my boss five hundred grand, the stranger said.

My vision blurs from being cross-eyed. I can’t take my eyes off the way his finger gently rubs the trigger back and forth.

I don’t, I mumble shakily.

I haven’t borrowed money from anyone, let alone from someone this ethically questionable. I have a great credit score, am gainfully employed, and have never taken out a loan before. I could’ve gotten a loan from the bank.

You do now, he corrects, his lip’s scar stretching wider before the burning flash of excitement rages through his eyes. Your dad put you up as the down payment, so you’re on the hook for his debt.

The man’s brow lifts expectantly. Capisce?

My nails scratch the ground, pain traveling up to my knuckles as people continue to move past without extending help. My heart thumps erratically against my ribs, bringing tension up to my neck while the heartbeats muffle in my ears.

There’s going to be interest and all that, but you can sell some of your… things, he advises with the sleaziest drag of his eyes down my trembling body.

Well? he quips, hand gesturing zealously. Go on. I can’t go see my boss empty-handed.

He groans at my stunned silence and curses under his breath. He holsters his gun, but my forehead still tingles with a barrel-shaped imprint on the skin. The man rips my necklace roughly, the broken chain nicking the side of my neck, and dangles it tauntingly in his hand.

This will do for now, he utters, eyeing the glimmering diamond.

It’s not mine, I want to say.

My survival instinct is keen on keeping me alive, so my throat tightens in time to stifle protests. A flurry of snow glides with the wind breezing around my neck and cools the pain from the cut.

A distant siren shrieks, announcing the police’s arrival. The man blinks and squints over my head, a grin turning into a scowl as he shifts his weight from foot to foot.

I’ll see you again. You better have all the money in seven days, he warns, leaving unspoken threats of what will happen if I don’t.

He disappears back into the alley. Then, only after several dreadful seconds, does someone come to me and ask if I need help.

No, I mumble and climb to my feet.

I brush off the woman’s concern along with the wet splotches on my legs. I haven’t felt the melted snow since he held that gun to my face.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had strangers threaten me. My father owes money to practically everyone. He’s a degenerate gambler, and horse racing is his poison.

The earliest I could remember was when I was in middle school. A woman with black lipstick had relayed a message to me meant for my dad and finished the threat with a kiss on my cheek. I didn’t understand it was a warning or why she kissed me, but I was terrified and skipped class that day.

As time went on, I’ve come to expect someone to demand I pay my father’s debt, or I’ll be dead. So part of me is not surprised that I get ambushed the day I come back to the States. Getting a work visa and living in Australia for the past seven years was—and still is—the best decision I ever made.

I’m working on turning my U.S. citizenship into an Australian one.

However, living in Australia doesn't spare me from getting strongly worded emails and demanding phone calls from my father’s debt collectors. Changing emails and phone numbers is useless; people always find a way to contact me, probably because I talk to my mom on a daily.

I wouldn’t have stepped into the U.S. again if I had a choice. Mom had called and said Dad was in the hospital, but her tone raised too many alarms in my head. After many reassurances that she was telling the truth, I knew she was absolutely lying through her teeth.

My mother divorced my father the day I started high school, and she never spoke to him again. Then, my father filed for custody for the sole reason of thinking he would get child support from my mother if he won primary custody.

He lost, which was a given, but he was granted supervised weekend visits. Those visits went as well as him being an absent parent. No skin off my nose; I don’t care about him. He hurt my mom emotionally and physically, so he’s dead to me.

On the off chance that he is in the hospital, and Mom is there as a courteous thing, then I’ll be there for her. They were married for years, so maybe there is something between them, perhaps a forever farewell when she sees him for the last time.

The flashing colors from the police car startle me. I pick up my pace and rush into the crowd before the cops see me. I learned from experience that involving the police with criminals always puts me on the short end of the stick. The cops can only give the debt collectors a warning, but those men are more afraid of their bosses than a night in jail.

It’s my father’s debt; I’m not involved, but I’m also not free from it.

I sigh under my breath, fingers tracing the raw skin on my neck as I shudder from the thought. The necklace was a gift from Leos. We were fifteen when he gave it to me with bloody knuckles and splotches of blood on his shoes.

I was too afraid to decline.

Leos was my best and only friend. We lived next door to each other, and his family was great friends with mine to the point where they thought it would be adorable if Leos and I were to date.

He’s six months older than me, immediately taking on the older brother role, and one day, it was like a switch had flipped in him.

It was Valentine’s Day of my sophomore year, and I made chocolate for a crush I had because everyone was doing it. Leos ripped open the box of chocolate and shoved the pieces down the boy’s throat.

Where’s mine? he had asked with degrading judgment in his eyes.

We went home, and I made chocolate from scratch for him. Everyone knew he was a delinquent and would raise his fists, but they never thought he would nearly asphyxiate the boy. Students didn't rat him out, likely fearing they would’ve been next.

Money, money, I repeat softly as I stop in front of my childhood home. Thoughts about