26. Andy
Chapter 26
Andy
“Geez, no wonder Mom dates cartel men. The Domingos must be loaded,” I mutter when Nyx leads me into the entertainment room.
I can’t decide whether I’m impressed or disgusted. Maybe a bit of both. The villa alone is probably worth eight figures, without all the artwork and gold-covered everything inside. The chandelier in the foyer alone could feed a small third-world country for months.
“Weirdest part is, I’ve never actually seen anyone use this place.” Nyx shakes out her shaggy, dirty-bond hair and sweeps it over her shoulder.
I’d kill to have a body like hers. She’s not obscenely muscled, just toned enough that I know she spends several hours in the gym each week. She has the weirdest dress style, though. Maybe she likes men’s clothing, or maybe her guest room doesn’t have the same courtesy wardrobe as mine.
I wander around the room, staring at the projection screen, the mini bar with its massive silver coffee machine, the oversized reclining leather chairs.
“If not to watch reruns of Narcos, then what the hell do they use this room for?” I ask.
“To talk, I guess.”
“Yeah,” I scoff, sneering at the vending machine in the corner filled to the brim with snacks. “Hard not to feel rich and powerful in a room like this. I’m sure the president’s Situation Room has the exact same lighting. The Domingos probably use the same interior designer. What do you call this shade of red, anyway? Scarlet Slaughter?”
“Crimson Carnage,” Nyx says through a chuckle as she heads for the bar.
I laugh. “Massacre Magenta!”
“Shots?”
“Yeah, sure.” I flop down in one of the armchairs, then twist to the side and throw my legs over the armrest. “God, this is comfortable.”
“What’s your poison?” Bottles clink together as she hunts through the collection of expensive liquor.
“Anything that will get me drunk without making me blind.”
“We talking tipsy here, or waking up in a strange bed with a new tattoo?”
“New bed and strange tattoo days are long over for me. Though I wish they weren’t.”
“Preach, sister.”
Getting black out drunk sounds amazing right now. But I can’t drop my guard. After my time as sex slave, my boundaries have been replaced with concrete walls fifteen feet high, topped with electric fencing, and a fucking moat teeming with alligators, for good measure.
Nyx pours a shot and brings it over, clinking our shot glasses. “To surviving cartel life,” she announces dryly.
I crack a sardonic smile. “You should bring us the fucking bottle.” I swallow down the shot, then pucker my mouth and hollow out my cheeks as I drag in a harsh breath. “Ugh, what is this? It tastes like turpentine.”
“It worries me that you know what turpentine tastes like,” Nyx says, before tossing the shot down her throat like she’s sixteen without a fucking care in the world.
She goes back to the bar to fetch two bottles of water and the booze. “Twizzler?”
“No thanks. My stomach lining might survive the tequila, but my teeth definitely won’t survive those.”
“If you can’t drink their booze or eat their candy, maybe you should reconsider your living arrangements,” Nyx chuckles as she flops down beside me. She leaves a chair open between us so she can hike her legs up over the armrest too, our feet dangling side-by-side over the empty seat.
“Like I have a fucking choice.”
“You and me both, bruh.” Nyx tosses me a bottle of water, cracks hers open, and takes a long swallow. “Where’d you get your clothes?”
I pluck at my gray hoodie. “I assumed all the guest rooms had these. Yours doesn’t?”
“It might…if I had a guest room. But I’ve been forced to shack up with my husband, and he seems to forget that he has to empty out half his closet for my shit. Oh, and that I need like, you know, clothes and shit.”
She stares at me a moment before barking out a laugh, then carries on chewing on her Twizzler without explanation.
I kick her foot. “Come on, share the joke. If there’s something I desperately need right now, it’s a positive spin on things.”
“Oh, no,” Nyx chortles. “Nothing positive here. The joke is my fucking life, Andy.”
“Oh, god, it was that kind of a laugh.” I roll my eyes. “I can’t read people anymore. I should be a fucking expert by now, but after everything I’ve been through, it’s become a hundred times harder knowing what’s real and what’s a mask.”
“A mask?”
“People all wear masks.” I take a small sip of water, and then glance at the bottle on the floor beside Nyx. “I’m gonna need more of whatever the hell that is.”
Nyx leans over, setting her water bottle down to free up her hands, a stub of Twizzler stuck between her lips like a cigarette. She raises the bottle, squinting to read the name in the scarlet glow beaming out from under the chairs.
She chuckles. “Tears of fucking Llorona, if you can believe that shit.”
I’d just taken a sip of water, and most of it ends up on my sweats as I burst out laughing. “God, seriously?”
She bends over again, busying herself refilling our shots.
I stretch over the empty seat to take the shot she offers me. We both cheers, silently this time, before tossing the clear liquid down our throats.
This time I barely cough. Nyx makes a face and shakes her head before setting her shot glass down on the floor and picking up her water.
“I know what you mean about the mask thing,” she mutters.
“Yeah?” I’m starting to feel warm and fuzzy. Llorona must have been a powerful bitch if her tears are already having such a noticeable effect.
“I was a runner for the mob.” Her voice is hollow, her eyes fixed on the water bottle in her lap. “I met so many people on my drops. They didn’t have a choice but be involved, one way or the other. You wouldn’t look at them twice if they passed you on the sidewalk.”
She finally makes eye contact with me again, her blue irises dark in the red light.
“I think some of them have worn their masks for so long, they’ve forgotten how to take them off.”
There’s such intensity in her eyes, I have to look away. I’ve always had a problem with eye contact.
It takes on a whole different meaning when someone is demanding you look at them as they hurt you, defile you, break you.
“Another,” I croak, gesturing with my chin.
I can see her glancing up at me every few seconds as she pours us each another shot, but now I’m the one staring at my hands as they try to throttle my bottle of Evian.
We silently salute each other with our shots, and toss them back in unison. It’s getting easier, but Nyx hardly seems to know the difference between her water and Llorona’s Tears anymore.
Apparently I’m not the only one waking up with a hangover tomorrow.
“Vito told you about the auction, right?” Nyx asks in a tight voice.
“Yeah.” I toy with my bottle cap. “I’m so sorry your sisters have to go through all this shit.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then blurts out, “How’d you make it out in one piece?”
My mouth moves around before I can find words. “I…I’m not sure I did. I mean…I have some serious issues.”
“So it’s game over for them? If they survive, they’ll be fucked up for life?”
I shrug. “I mean, I don’t know them. I don’t know how strong they are. There were women with me who broke down after the first day and never recovered. Some of them didn’t even seem phased. I don’t know which of the two types have the best chance at leading normal lives, but if your sisters are anything like you, they’ll fight.”
Her mouth forms a line. “It’s all my fault.” Her words are shaky, her eyes gleaming.
I kick her again, harder this time. “You are not responsible for this asshole O’Brien’s actions.”
“He wouldn’t even have known about them if it wasn’t for me.” Her voice is starting to crack, and she savages another Twizzler like she wishes it was Sullivan’s windpipe she was sinking her teeth into.
Fuck, if she starts crying, I’m going to start crying.
“Did you give him permission to take them?” I snap, annoyed that someone as strong and fierce as Nyx would dare feel sorry for herself like this.
“No, but?—”
“But nothing. For fuck’s sake, Nyx, no one can blame you for what happened, not unless you want them to. Is that what you want?”
She’s staring into the corner of the room, eyes glazed over, methodically chewing her red licorice. “It’s what I deserve.”
“Ugh. If I knew this would turn into a pity party, I’d have told you I was washing my hair or something.” I swing my legs over the chair, managing to stand on the second try. “I’m going to bed.”
Nyx catches my wrist as I walk past, and I hope she’s going to change her attitude, maybe to ask me to stay.
“I don’t expect you to understand.” There’s a glimmer in her eyes, like budding tears.
I know I’ve only just met Nyx, but it’s weird how so many things about the woman just suddenly fall into place. She seems so willful, so full of life that it would be impossible to crush her spirit, no matter how hard you stomped on her.
But ever since she came out of The Foundry, it’s like she’s a more brittle version of herself. Not just easily broken, but prone to shatter into a million shards.
With her arm up, and from the angle I’m standing, I can see the slope of her breast. And a fresh bite mark on her skin.
Maybe the reason she seems so broken is because she’s been manhandled one too many times.
“Savage give you that?” I cut my eyes to the mark, and she snatches her hand away from me to cross her arms over her chest.
It’s my cue to stop asking questions, but I didn’t get where I am today by sticking my head in the sand. I crouch down beside her chair, catching myself on my fingertips when I wobble. Holy hell, that sad bitch Llorona pulled a number on me.
“What happened after I got thrown out of The Foundry?”
When she looks at me, there’s so much pain in her eyes it feels like she punched me in the gut. I sit back on my heels, grabbing her wrist.
“What did he do to you?” I say.
Nyx rolls her lips, glancing away like she’s building up courage.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it. You think if you just pretend it never happened, that the memory will fade, along with the bruises.” I gently squeeze her wrist. “And you’re right…about the bruises. They’ll disappear over time. But not the memories. Those will keep haunting you.”
She tugs as if to pull out of my grip, but I clap my other hand on top of hers, sandwiching her fingers between mine.
“You need to tell someone.”
“I can’t,” she rasps, blinking rapidly as if to keep back the tears threatening to spill.
“Whatever you tell me stays between us, Nyx. “
“What about Vito?” she asks with a wry smile.
“Screw Vito,” I scoff. “He’s not my keeper. I can be discreet.”
It looks as if Nyx tries to swallow, but it’s like there’s something stuck in her throat. I’m pretty sure it’s shame, not a piece of Twizzler.
“Fuck discrete. I need Pentagon-level security here.” She leans closer to whisper, “If Savage finds out I lied to him, he’ll never forgive me.”