I appreciated the fact that he wanted me to be able to claim ignorance about some of the more unsavory parts of his business, but I hated not knowing what exactly he was into and what the chances were of him making it back home in one piece. All that uncertainty and fear was why I had held him off for so long in the first place. The anxiety of what I was going to do if something really did happen to him while he was off doing whatever he did made my skin feel like it was a size too small for my entire body and I couldn’t seem to stay still.
It sucked that the club was flooded because it left me with nothing to do and too much time on my hands. I started to wonder about the girls that had moved from the strip club to the new club. I wondered whether, if someone had offered them a way out, a way all the way out, they’d have taken it. So few people in this city, women especially, were ever offered an opportunity to experience life beyond the hard streets and crumbling economy that kept the Point what it was, and even though Nassir had his own type of escape route in place for the women he protected, he wasn’t offering them anything outside of the city limits. Even after he’d cleaned up Spanky’s and turned it into the Empire, it still amounted to little more than putting lipstick on a pig. There should be a way out for those who wanted it, and I started to wonder if the way I could help my community was by setting free those women that never really had a shot at surviving it.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the gorgeous housekeeper making her way through Nassir’s home, since I was stuck in for the night. She had been making herself scarce ever since our showdown the night Nassir got hurt. I assumed she was trying to be discreet and lay low so that I didn’t tell Nassir to get rid of her. But as I watched her stroll through the house like she owned it, I started to wonder if I had been wrong. The other woman was entirely too comfortable in the space I had claimed as my own, and it rankled.
I moved to the top of the stairs and called down to her. “What are you doing here?”
She looked up at me without so much as a flinch or jolt of surprise. Her dark eyes took in my stance and the very obvious spill of belongings that I had left scattered all over behind me, things I hadn’t found a spot for yet.
Something that was a bastardized version of a smile twisted her perfectly painted mouth. I hated that she was so stunning and just as mysterious as Nassir was. I didn’t want her to be a better match for him than me. I didn’t want anyone to understand my devil and why he existed the way I did.
“Working.”
I felt my eyebrows shoot up at her snotty tone, but I cocked my head to the side and asked her, “If Nassir hadn’t brought you here, if he had offered you a way out of the life and the city, would you have taken it?” I knew the woman had feelings for my devil but I was curious if that was all that kept her here. After all, those same kind of feelings were what brought me back.
She rolled her dark eyes and huffed at me. “You know nothing about me or my life. You have no idea what it’s like to come from the kind of place where Nassir and I are from. You know nothing of suffering and sacrifice. Here is so much better than there, so why would I go?” Her dark eyes tried to sear me with her obvious contempt and loathing. “I belong here, with him, but you . . . when he speaks to you in Arabic or Hebrew, can you even tell the difference? Would you even know if he told you he loved you in his native language? He deserves someone that knows what it’s like to make it through hell and survive. He shouldn’t ever be ashamed of who he is or how he got what he has. He should be proud he lived, that he was better than all the rest.”
I walked down a few steps, dragging my fingers along the railing. I returned her twisted smile with one of my own as I got closer. She crossed her arms over her chest and continued to glare up at me.
“You think he survived hell?” I gave a bitter laugh. “He’s the devil. He never left the inferno, he just jumped from one fire into the next. Does the Point have IEDs going off or RPGs taking out buildings? No, but it does have people fighting every single day for power and control. The Point is full of innocent people suffering, of men and women willing to sacrifice their lives for an unseen force that owns them. Where you’re from, everything comes down to religion and belief; here addiction and greed control the masses. Nassir never stopped fighting. He just found another kind of battle. Now he’s the general, not a foot soldier.” I took another step down. “And the fact that he understands he won’t ever be able to make up for all the things he did before getting to the Point is what keeps him human. His regret is what keeps him from going back to being nothing more than a weapon waiting to be aimed and used without thought as to who he might be pointed at. He cares about things here even if others don’t see it. He has a cause here, his own kind of code, which might never make him a good man but does make him a better one than he was before. The Point gave Nassir his own kind of honor.”
I finished walking down the stairs until I was just one above her and I could see the fury that my words had ignited inside of her. She was shaking just a little bit, and her cheeks were bright red.
I lifted an eyebrow at her and gave her a real smile, even though it was sharp and had a lot of teeth in it. “And I don’t need to understand the words he says when he tells me every single day with his mouth, with his hands, with his cock, and the way he can’t get enough of me tells me exactly how he feels about me. Not to mention he waited years for me to be ready for him. Not for sex, because he could have taken that anytime he wanted if he pushed; he waited for me to be strong enough and smart enough to stand at his side. I don’t need a translator to understand that.”
I knew it was going to annoy her. I was the only one Nassir had ever let all the way inside. I was the one he had been holding out for while he took Bayla to bed and then discarded her and everyone else as soon as I was ready for him. I didn’t know her story but she had given me enough clues to let me know it was just as ugly as Nassir’s, so of course she didn’t want a Prince Charming. She wanted my prince of darkness. That he preferred me was a slap in her face especially since on paper, she was a better pick for him. She was arguably the better choice, but I was the one he had always wanted. I was the one he fought for.
I was anticipating her move before she made it. When you work with a bunch of cutthroat girls all out for the most money and the most attention from the customers, a throwdown every now and then is par for the course.