Not For Sale: The Debt Is Paid

Seven years. That was the price tag attached to my father's life.

When my father gambled away money he didn't have, Michael Vance paid the debt.

He bought my father's safety, and in return, he bought me.

I was nineteen then. A peasant girl he polished up to look like a mob wife.

I was reapplying my lipstick in the vanity mirror of his armored SUV when I found a diamond choker tucked behind the sunshade.

It was a million-dollar piece of jewelry that wasn't mine, engraved with a date that wasn't my birthday.

That night at the gala, Michael threw his mistress's heavy fur coat at me.