Page 47 of Hard Bargain

For reasons Dominic didn’t care to examine, he pushed again. “Tell me.”

A beat passed.

Then another.

Finally, Knox spoke. “She’s not well. Some days she doesn’t get out of bed. Other days…” He swallowed. “Other days she’s there, but not really. She can’t keep a job. My dad died recently, so it's just me now. I pay the bills, buy groceries, and get her medicine. All of it.”

Dominic was silent for a moment. “No other family?”

Knox bit his lip before shaking his head. “I’ve got a half-brother, but we’re not close.” He shot Dominic a hard look. “What is this? You running a background check, or are you just nosy?”

A smirk almost tugged at Dominic’s mouth, but he buried it behind another bite of his sandwich. He wasn’t sure why he liked his attitude. “Just due diligence. If there’s drama at home, I want to know it before it lands on my doorstep.”

Bullshit.

He’d never once asked any of his men about their families. Knox was different. That realization sat badly with him.

Their eyes met, something charged crackling in the space between them. Dominic broke the connection first. “You ever ask for help?”

Knox barked a laugh, the sound flat and bitter. “Yeah. Sure. You know a lot of people lining up to help a broke kid from a shit neighborhood?” He shook his head. “There’s no help. Hell, even my own parents were never any help.”

Dominic didn’t let up. “You resent her for it?”

Knox’s jaw worked. “She’s sick.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Knox’s fingers curled into a fist. For a second, Dominic thought he wouldn’t answer. Then Knox spoke, quieter this time. “I know she can’t help being sick. But sometimes…” He stared at the wall instead of at Dominic. “Sometimes I think she just stopped trying. I just wish she’d fought harder. For me, if nothing else.”

The confession hung there, raw and fragile. Knox had gone completely still, not looking at Dominic, while Dominic found himself watching him a little too closely. He cleared his throat. “That’s a shit hand to be dealt.”

Knox shot him a look, half-grateful, half-defiant. “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “You play the cards you get.”

Dominic nodded. He understood that mindset. Maybe respected it more than he should. Part of him wanted to keep digging. To ask more. To pry Knox open until he understood every hidden bruise. Instead, he forced himself to pull back.

For now.

“You’ll be paid well,” he said. “I don’t let my people struggle.”

Knox’s posture changed instantly, the vulnerability gone as fast as it had appeared. “Right,” he said coldly. “Because money solves everything. You can’t just throw cash at someone and expect them to be loyal.”

Dominic’s patience thinned, his eyes narrowing. “You want something more than that? Money’s what keeps you breathing. Keeps your mother’s pills coming. Or would you rather I sit here and cry with you about how unfair it all is?”

Knox recoiled like he’d been struck. His mouth twisted, wounded and angry.

Something ugly twisted in Dominic’s gut. Not regret, but something adjacent to it. He needed Knox to understand the world didn’t owe him kindness, and Dominic sure as hell didn’t either.

Knox’s voice was furious when he spoke. “You think because you can pay for shit, you get to decide what people owe you.”

Dominic felt the now-familiar spark of irritation. And something else. That relentless defiance should’ve made Knox easier to dismiss. Instead, it kept pulling Dominic in. “This isn’t charity,” he snapped. “You think I give a damn about saving you?”

Knox looked straight at him. “You’re right. You don’t care. So why am I here?”

For a while, Dominic just stared at him, pulse pounding hard enough to feel in his throat. He didn’t have an answer. Not one that made any sense. The easy lie would’ve been about business, control, and keeping order. But sitting there with Knox glaring at him, furious and broken, those excuses felt thin.

This wasn’t about work. It was about the way Knox refused to bend. The way he pushed back, again and again, daring Dominic to meet that fire head-on. Every defiant look and refusal to cower awakened something electric inside him.

It pissed him off how easily Knox got under his skin. He sure as hell wasn’t about to start dissecting that now. So instead, he did what came easiest. He turned the blade outward. His voice dropped, cold enough to cut. “You’re here because I made it that way. Don’t fool yourself. If you had anywhere better to run, you’d already be gone.”