Chapter 13 - Epilogue
The next morning, the VIP lounge belonged to me again.
Downstairs, chairs were stacked and the bar mats hung over the sinks. No girls weaving through booths with sparklers. No bass pushing through the floor. Just chairs stacked near the bar and a cleaner dragging a mop across yesterday’s money. Daylight made the room look smaller.
Up here was different. The red sofa still sat crooked around the round mirror table. A dried smear of her lipstick marked the table’s edge.
I left it there.
My phone rested against my ear while I leaned back in the recliner.
“Fuck, Haile,” Lily said rough from sleep. “I feel last night every time I move.”
A grin pulled at my mouth before I let it. “That bad?”
“That bad? You came so deep I’m still leaking cum from my ass.”
“Think of it as a souvenir. Something to remember me by.”
“Don’t sound so fucking proud.”
“Oh, I’m very proud.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You’re the one who married me.”
She made a soft sound, half laugh, half complaint. “You didn’t go easy on me.”
“No.”
“Not even at the end.”
“Especially not at the end.”
A pause. I pictured her in our bed, blond hair loose across the pillow, one knee drawn up because she was too sore to lie straight.
“That’s how you like it,” I said.
Her breath moved close to the speaker. “I hate when you’re right.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” she admitted. “I don’t.”
I glanced at the lipstick mark on the table. “You eat?”
“Coffee first.”
“Lily.”
“Fine. I had toast.”
“One piece?”
“Don’t start managing my breakfast as well after what you let happen to me last night.”
“What I let happen?” I asked.
Another laugh, weaker this time. There was heat in it, but embarrassment too. “What you made happen.”
“That’s right.”
She went quiet for a beat. Paper rustled on her end. Probably working from bed.
“So,” I said, letting the word sit between us, “what did you do about the crew?”
Her sigh came sharp. “I knew you were going to ask.”
“You did fire my boys.”
“I know what I did.”
“Then tell me what you fixed.”
Her voice had lost the teasing edge. “I called the managers myself. Tedros is back on the door tonight if he wants the shift. Abel gets his courier routes again. Reza is back upstairs for VIP. Darryl’s schedule is restored.”
I waited.
“And,” she said, annoyed because she knew I was waiting for the rest, “they’re getting a bonus.”
“How much?”
“Enough that Abel will act like he owns the place for at least a week.”
That got a laugh out of me. “He already does that.”
“He does, doesn’t he?”
“You did right,” I said after a small pause.
She fell silent, I heard her breath through the receiver.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said.
“You thought firing them would make you feel safe.”
“It didn’t.”
“No.”
“It made me feel stupid.”
“You weren’t stupid. You were out of control.”
She didn’t fight me on it.
“I don’t like that word,” she murmured.
“I know.”
“I like it better when you use your cock to tell me that.”
My cock stirred. Lily didn’t need me chasing waitresses away to prove I belonged to her. She needed my hand at the back of her neck before her fear would take hold.
“That’s how it’s going to be now,” I said. “You feel yourself spiraling, you come to me. You don’t touch my payroll. You don’t fire my men. You bring that jealousy to my feet, and I’ll handle it.”
Her voice dropped. “Handle me?”
“I should’ve been stricter with you sooner. You wanted proof I cared, and I kept giving you patience. That wasn’t enough.”
“It wasn’t,” she said.
“Then I’ll show you different. More control. More direction. When you need to be reminded whose wife you are, I’ll remind you before you tear up what I built.”
A shaky little breath came through the line. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a promise.”
The door opened.
Spice eased in first, all hips and nerve, with Viccy peeking around her shoulder. Both of them stopped when they saw the phone at my ear. They had sense enough to wait, though Spice’s eyes still went straight to me like she expected a reward for standing still.
Lily’s voice sharpened. “Who walked in?”
I looked at the girls and almost laughed. “You got cameras in my walls now?”
“No. You get that pause in your voice when a woman is too close.” A beat. “It’s those two bitches after your dick again, isn’t it?”
Viccy tilted her head, catching enough from my face to know she had been identified. Spice just smirked.
“Watch your mouth,” I said, though there wasn’t much bite in it.
“Am I wrong?”
“No.”
“Ha.”
“We doing this again?”
Lily went silent long enough for me to hear her choose. Usually she snapped first and apologized later.
“No,” she said. “I want to. I’m not doing it.”
“Good girl.”
The words changed her breathing. I heard it even through the phone.
“I’m still going to call them bitches,” she said.
“You can call them what you want.”
She laughed. “I have to run. The accountant is waiting, and I need to get up from bed.”
“Remember that you won.”
“Did I?”
“You kept your husband. You kept your pride. You fixed what you broke.”
“I love you,” she said, quieter than before.
“I know.”
“Say it back, asshole.”
“I love you, Lily.”
“Have fun with your bitches.”
She ended the call before I could answer.
For a second, I kept the phone in my hand and let her name fade from the screen.
Viccy stepped closer first. She had widened her eyes into that helpless look. “We didn’t mean to interrupt, Mr. Getachew.”
Spice leaned a hip against the back of the sofa. “I did.”
Viccy cut her a look, then gave me a sweet little pout. “We just wanted to say last night was fun.”
“Fun?” Spice said. “That’s the word you’re using?”
Viccy’s cheeks colored, but she kept going. “If you want us included again, we’re very available.”
Spice folded her arms beneath her breasts. “And it doesn’t need to involve your wife, we can keep a secret.”
I set the phone on the arm of the recliner. Both of them noticed my gaze changed. Good. Let them understand the order of things.
“My wife doesn’t need you keeping secrets,” I said. “And neither do I.”
Spice’s smirk eased, just a little. Viccy straightened like she had been reminded this was still a workplace.
“Now go downstairs. Black coffee and today’s paper. Bring them up before I lose my temper with you.”
Viccy blinked, then recovered with a bright look. “Of course. We wouldn’t want that. Right, Spice?”
Spice pushed off the sofa, slower than necessary. “Sure don’t,” she said, but her wink told me a different story.
They left with their hips working and their ambition showing, but they left. That was the point.
I leaned back in the recliner and looked through the glass at my club waiting for night. The phone stayed beside me, close enough to reach if Lily called again. The table kept its little ruined mark from her mouth.
Downstairs, two girls hurried for my coffee. Beside me, Lily’s name stayed on the phone.