by Sophia Gray
Sebastian nodded. “There was one of them stationed outside and two of them in here. But I guess you guys took care of one of the guys before I got here.”
Nyssa shook her head. “Not me. It was Kimmie. All Kimmie.” Nyssa reached over to press a hand on Kimmie’s back, just to reassure her that she still there. “She saved me. She saved… both of us,” Nyssa said, gesturing to her stomach.
Sebastian put his hand on top of Nyssa’s, his fingers rubbing over her skin lightly a few times, but his eyes became unfocused and glassy, like his mind was a thousand miles away. “Is everything okay?” Nyssa asked hesitantly. She’d never seen Sebastian look like this, like he’d just seen a massacre happen, like he was genuinely shaken up.
“No,” Sebastian said, shaking his head. “It’s not okay. But it will be soon.”
“What do you mean?” Nyssa asked.
“The Giustinis. I’ll make them pay for this.”
“Please, don’t,” Nyssa said, feeling panic surge within her chest, her body slowly waking itself back up as fear returned to her. “I just want it to be over. I just want us to be safe.”
“We will be,” Sebastian said. “I promise. And I’ll bring you in when we are. It’ll just take me a few hours. I swear.”
“Swear on what?” Nyssa asked.
“On us,” Sebastian said, rubbing her stomach a little before pulling away. “I’ll be back. Take my gun. It’s full of bullets.”
“What about you?” Nyssa asked.
“I’ve got plenty more,” Sebastian replied as he got to his feet. “Just wait here. And take this burner phone, too. I’ll call you on it as soon as everything’s taken care of.”
Nyssa nodded as Sebastian exited the room, leaving Kimmie and Nyssa alone with the two bodies. Nyssa knew she should have been freaking out still, consumed with worry about what Sebastian was up to. But at this point she was too exhausted to be afraid. She’d faced death and walked away tougher, harder, and less frightened.
For now, at least, she just wanted to hug Kimmie. So that’s exactly what she did, remaining cuddled up with her best friend even as some of Sebastian’s friends came by to dispose of the intruders’ bodies. She held her close, hoping that in some way she could take the pain and fear and exhaustion away from her best friend, even though she knew there was no way she could really comfort her at the moment.
But it was okay. Somehow, Nyssa just knew that it was over. It was all over, and they were alive. They were safe. They were together.
Some six hours after he left, the phone Sebastian left with her rang. Nyssa answered it right away. “Hello?” she said.
“It’s done. You can come home now.”
“What?” Nyssa asked, confused. “I am home.”
“Home to the brothel. You know, Katrina’s old palace. It’s ours now. Come claim your throne.”
Chapter Twenty-One
When Nyssa finally convinced Kimmie it was safe to leave Sebastian’s bedroom and head outside, there was a town car waiting in the front of the condominium complex, a familiar-looking chauffeur waiting to usher them into the backseat.
Kimmie followed Nyssa’s lead, but she still jerked a little bit in alarm as the car lurched into motion, heading in the direction of Katrina’s brothel.
“It’s okay, Kimmie. It’s all okay,” Nyssa said soothingly. “Sebastian took care of it. I promise.” She spoke with perfect confidence, even though in all honesty she still had no idea what was going on. In the back of her mind, she was a little worried that the whole thing was an elaborate trap. Maybe the Giustinis found Sebastian and put a gun to his head, forcing him to lure Nyssa and Kimmie back to the brothel so they could be killed, too. No, Nyssa admonished herself silently. He wouldn’t do that. Even with a gun to his head. He wouldn’t put me in danger.
The town car eventually rolled to a stop in front of the old brothel, and Kimmie started shaking her head, trembling powerfully like a piece of sand tossed back and forth inside a tornado. “It’s okay, Kimmie,” Nyssa said again, rubbing her best friend’s knee. Kimmie was obviously traumatized at having to kill someone, even to save her own life, but Nyssa didn’t know exactly what to do to help. She probably should have insisted that Kimmie be brought somewhere else, anywhere other than the Giustini brothel, but she didn’t want to leave Kimmie’s side for a second. So she had to pull her out of the car by her wrist, tugging her along like dead weight. “I’m going to protect you, Kimmie. Just like you protected me. It’s going to be all right,” Nyssa said reassuringly as she dragged Kimmie into the brothel.
“I’m guessing he wants us to meet him in the parlor,” Nyssa said to herself, pulling Kimmie along to Katrina’s favorite room in the building.
When Nyssa opened the door and stepped aside, her jaw almost dropped open in utter shock. “What? I—what?” she stuttered out helplessly.
There, in the center of the room, were Katrina and Papa Giustini, handcuffed to each other, staring stonily at the wall behind Nyssa’s head. Sebastian was standing behind them, holding a gun, while various guards were stationed at other points in the room, strapped with weapons all over their bodies.
“Welcome to our new domain, princess!” Sebastian announced. “Or should I say queen?”
“Give me a fucking break,” Katrina muttered under breath.
“What was that?” Sebastian said, dangling the tip of his gun in Katrina’s face. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
“Nothing,” Katrina mumbled.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Sebastian spat. “You see, you’re not the queen anymore, Katrina. You were a spoiled little daddy’s girl, and now you’re going to be a very poor little daddy’s girl. I was going to let you guys keep your side of the business while I went away to bigger and better things. But you just couldn’t let me go, could you? Worse, you had to go after the mother of my child. And that is something that I can never forgive.”
“Sebastian, boy-o, please, just listen,” Papa Giustini started to say, but Sebastian cut him off with deep, throaty laughter.
“Don’t waste your breath pleading with me. You must know, though, what your daughter doesn’t. That you’re ruined. You’re over. You’re done with in this town. In the whole world, actually, because all of your henchmen that didn’t come over to support me are dead now. Gone.”
Nyssa stepped a little deeper into the room, still gripping hard onto Kimmie’s wrist. “Sebastian, what is this? What are you doing? What’s going on?”
“They tried to kill you,” Sebastian said. “They tried to kill our baby. They have to pay. But I figured you should pick how they do that.”
“What? Why?” Nyssa asked.
“Because,” Sebastian said with a shrug. “You’re going to be my queen. You need to get used to this kind of decision-making. I’m going to need you to counsel me on everything from now on. We’re a team.”
Nyssa smiled a little, feeling a hint of excitement climb up her spine as she considered Sebastian’s offer. He was asking her to be his equal, his partner, his other half. It would mean a lot of responsibility, a lot of authority and power that Nyssa had never had before. It was honestly thrilling, but at the same time Nyssa felt a little fear unsettle her already unsteady stomach. She’d only ever been a streetwalker her whole adult life. How could she pretend to be anything else?
“Sebastian, thank you, but I don’t know if I can—if I should… you know. Decide on something like that,” Nyssa said sheepishly.
Sebastian frowned, furrowing his brows together and shaking his head. “No. It’s up to you.”
Katrina gasped softly and shut her eyes, breathing hard. Nyssa couldn’t be sure, but she had a feeling that her former madam and torturer was trying hard not to cry.
Despite everything—all the pain and worry, all the disrespect, all the fear that Katrina had forced her to feel—she felt bad for the woman. She wasn’t like Nyssa, after all. She hadn’t had to grow up on the streets, working hard for everything she ever had. She didn’
t know what it was like to suffer, to struggle. To fight to stay alive. Somehow Nyssa thought that Katrina probably wasn’t capable of that.
“It’s up to me?” Nyssa said. “You promise? Whatever it is I say to do to them, you’ll do?”
Sebastian nodded, a solemn, serious look on his face. “I promise.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Nyssa said with a nervous laugh. She slowly let go of Kimmie’s hand, turning to look at her friend for a moment and making sure that she was relatively okay before looking back on the Giustinis. They looked so pathetic, so horribly weak, sitting there chained together on the ground. How could Nyssa ever make things worse for them? They’d already lost their empire, their power, their prestige, and their legacy. And yet they’d killed so many people, terrorized so many people. Even before Nyssa came here, they hurt her by killing her pimp. How many working girls had gone without protection, all because the Giustinis acted without a single drop of empathy for any other human being?
“I know what we have to do,” Nyssa whispered. She saw Katrina’s whole body go stiff, while her father bent his head down to the ground, sniffling a little.
“What is it, baby?” Sebastian asked, clearly getting a little impatient at this point. “Anything you want. Just tell me.”
“Let them go,” Nyssa said as confidently as she could. As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew they were right. This was what had to be done.
“What?” Sebastian and Kimmie said in union.
“What are you talking about?” Sebastian said.
“You can’t do that, Nyssa,” Kimmie interjected.
“They’re murderers. Psychopaths. They can’t be loose on the street,” Sebastian argued. “Besides, they could just come back and try to kill us. Of course, with all the guards I’ve got now, they wouldn’t get very far on their own, but it’d still be a pain in the ass.”
“I know. I know,” Nyssa said, blowing out her breath before slowly walking across the room to approach the Giustinis. “But I can’t let them win.”
“What do you mean?” Sebastian asked softly.
Nyssa stopped a few inches away from the Giustinis, staring down at them with as much disdain as she could muster. “These people walk through life thinking that everyone is as horrible and rotten on the inside as they are. That’s the only way they can live with themselves. Because it’s a dog-eat-dog world, right? And the survival of the fittest means that the ends justify the means and you have to do whatever it takes to survive and come out on top, even if it means hurting everyone else on the planet to do so.”
Katrina scoffed at Nyssa’s words, rolling her eyes, but she made no move to interrupt, so Nyssa kept going.
“They think that everyone is equally horrible. Well, I can’t live that way. I can’t imagine what it feels like, to live without hope. But it’s what they’re going to do, isn’t it, guys?” Nyssa knelt down low on the floor, meeting Katrina’s eyes. “You’re going to live for a very long time, Kat. And you’re going to suffer, but you’re not going to make me like you. I’ll never be like you.”
“Oh, yeah? And why’s that? Being a whore somehow made you more compassionate than me or something?” Katrina spat out harshly.
Nyssa shrugged. “Pretty much.” She got back on her feet and headed over to Sebastian, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him in for a kiss but pulling away after a few moments to yell over her shoulder toward Katrina. “See, whores are people who sacrifice their bodies to help others. I’ll always be a whore, even though I doubt I’ll fuck more than one person for the rest of my life. But you, Katrina, you weren’t good enough to be a whore. And you never will be.”
“Whatever,” Katrina muttered, but there was something in her voice that Nyssa hadn’t ever heard before. Fear, with a healthy dose of shame.
“Untie them,” Sebastian said to the guards stationed around the room, who had been watching silently up to this point. “Untie them and throw them out on the street.”
“Sebastian, please, I—” Papa Giustini tried yet again to plead with his former employee, but Sebastian just shook his head and pressed a finger to his lips.
“Get out of the city. Get out of the country, even, just to be safe. Because if I ever see you again, I can’t promise you that I’ll be as merciful as my girl here. Get out.”
Katrina and Papa Giustini rushed out of the parlor, running down the hall toward the exit. Nyssa felt a deep sense of satisfaction as she heard the door slam behind them. There was no guarantee that they wouldn’t be back someday, but somehow Nyssa got the sense that they wouldn’t bother trying anytime soon, at the very least.
She turned around to look at the parlor, staring at every single inch of the place before turning to Sebastian again. “Let’s tear the curtains down,” she said.
“The curtains?” Sebastian said back to her, a little confused even though a slight smile started to spread across his face.
“Yeah,” Nyssa said. “I want to let some light in.”
Epilogue
“Come in!” Nyssa called out after hearing a gentle tap at her bedroom door.
Kimmie stepped inside and closed the door carefully behind her. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure if she was sleeping or not.”
“She’s awake, just being quiet for once,” Nyssa said with a laugh, gesturing to the crib that held her infant daughter.
Over a year had passed since the debacle with the Giustinis. Thus far nobody had seen any sign of them anywhere in the country, but Nyssa still felt on edge most of the time. She didn’t know if she would ever totally relax about the Giustinis. Maybe the day she eventually stopped worrying about them would be the day they finally came back to seek their revenge. Who knew? Nyssa sure didn’t, and she kept praying every day, wishing that she and Sebastian and baby Rose and Kimmie could live relatively quietly, in peace.
But for some reason Kimmie had a slightly scrunched-up, worried expression on her face now. “What’s up?” Nyssa asked, patting the empty spot on the loveseat beside her.
“I was just… wondering if we could talk about my role here. Like in the household, you know?” Kimmie said.
“What do you mean?” Nyssa asked.
“Well, you’ve said I can stay here forever, and I appreciate that, but it’s been a year now and you’re not pregnant anymore. You don’t need me hanging around to protect you all the time. Maybe it’s time I get going.”
Nyssa reached forward and grabbed both of Kimmie’s hands, keeping her in place. “Kimmie, no. Listen to me. You’re a part of the family. I can’t lose you.”
Kimmie smiled sadly and shook her head. “I wish it were that simple. Nyssa, you’ve got the perfect fairy-tale life here. Sebastian is great for you. You guys are great together, and now with the baby you’re a perfect family. You’re the one helping Sebastian run the drug operation into the city. The best I’ve been doing is occasionally sleeping with a guard here and there, but that was more because I wanted to get laid than for anything else,” she said with a self-deprecating chuckle.
Nyssa struggled to come up with the right words to say. How could she reassure her best friend that she had a purpose here if she herself didn’t feel inspired about her life?
Just then, Rose started wailing, high and sharp, her cries piercing Nyssa’s exhausted ears like knives. “Oh, baby, it’s okay, I’ll be right there!” Nyssa called out as she got to her feet. “Don’t go anywhere, Kimmie,” she shouted over her shoulder as she approached the crib. “We’re not done talking yet.”
Nyssa checked Rose’s diaper. It was still clean, and she’d been fed just twenty minutes earlier. She couldn’t be hungry, not yet. What was wrong with the baby?
“Sorry, Kimmie, I’ll be right there. I just want to get her to stop crying, and then I’ll—”
“It’s okay, no problem, Nyssa,” Kimmie said. A second later, Rose stopped crying, cooing lightly under her breath.
“That’s weird,” Nyssa said. She leaned down to take her daughter
into her arms, but after a few seconds of adjustment she burst into tears again, screaming right into Nyssa’s ear. “Oh, Jesus, no, baby, no! It’s okay, darling! I promise it’s okay.” Nyssa groaned a little and let her head rock forward between her shoulders, limp and useless. She was usually so much better than this at taking care of her baby, but she hadn’t slept in a little over a day and her nerves were being worn down to nothing. She didn’t know how much longer she could do this, but Sebastian probably couldn’t take over baby duties tonight, either.
“Well, let me hold her for a minute. Maybe she just needs—” Before Kimmie could finish her statement, the baby quieted down again and pressed her head into the crook of Nyssa’s neck. “Wow. Her moods change fast,” Kimmie whispered.
“I think I know what it is,” Nyssa said, thinking out loud. “Come closer, Kimmie.”
