Ester clucked and guffawed, riling her own emotions. “He has some nerve,” she said, getting up from the floor to sit down on the couch, then she got up again and went into the kitchen to start her liquor hunt.

If Archer had any sense, he wouldn’t have restocked the cupboards. Ester had been here a week, he had to have gone through the reserves, there couldn’t be much alcohol left in the apartment. That wouldn’t have stopped Ester from going out and buying her own though, which Nya figured she must have done when she pulled a bottle of red from the top shelf.

“He’s a fucking bastard. He follows me around all over the country, all the fucking time,” Ester said, talking fast as she twisted a corkscrew into the top of the bottle. “He pops up and tells me what to do. Well, I’m gonna put a stop to it.”

If Ester was really afraid, she wouldn’t have given him attitude. All Nya saw when she watched the couple was foreplay. “You don’t want to hurt him.”

Nya rose to go to the breakfast bar. The wine glugged from the bottle into Ester’s glass. “Hurt him? Derren doesn’t have feelings, he doesn’t have any emotions; nothing hurts him.”

“I didn’t mean emotionally. I don’t know what he does,” Nya said. “But if he’s anything like Archer, we don’t want to draw attention to their lives.”

Ester hadn’t even pretended to pour a drink for Nya, she was already three quarters of the way down her glass. “Yeah, that’s what’s stopped me for the last twenty years. He can’t get away with it anymore.”

“Every guy who hurt you, you come to Archer, you tell him, and Archer hurts them back. If Derren’s hurting you, Archer will fix it, he’ll fix him.”

Ester exhaled a pissed-off grunt. “They’re peas in a pod, all three of them. Him, Archer, Kristof, they’re all buddy-buddy, they’re all the same. No one else gets a look in.” Could that be what had upset Ester when she was with Derren the first time? “He thinks he can come in, throw his weight around, tell me what to do, you don’t know what it’s like.”

Nya parodied Ester’s exclaimed exhale. “I’m in love with your son. I don’t go twenty-four hours without getting an order from him or finding out he’s done something to control my life.”

“Then you should dump him now, run fast and far,” Ester said, lifting her glass out to the heavens. “Save yourself while you still can.”

“What Archer does, it’s love, Ester, it’s not evil. I know the difference. I had a boyfriend before who controlled my life. He would examine my body after we were out for a night and if I was out alone? Forget it, he’d spend the whole night quizzing me. He’d want to know every step I took, how many times I went to the bathroom, if I washed my hands, or brushed my hair. He’d want to know how many people were in the room, how many men I’d made eye contact with. If I’d left my glass alone for a second, he used to drug test me, Ester. He would actually drug test me. He bought these kits online then he would make me pee in a cup. He’d watch me do it.”

Ester’s bravado faltered and her glass descended as she became somber. “Oh, sweetie.”

“And if I gave him one answer that was inconsistent, he would hit me. He hated me as much as he loved me. And you know, after he slapped me, and punched me, and kicked me, do you know what he would say? He would say I made him do it. He would say that if I had just been honest with him, if I hadn’t lied, then he wouldn’t have to hurt me. He’d tell me he did it because he loved me. Because he was taking care of me. Sometimes, after the beatings, I couldn’t leave the house for days. Makeup covers marks, but sometimes my eyes would swell up or my lip would split, and that’s not as easy to hide. I lost count of the number of concussions I had.”

“Oh my God, Nya, that’s awful,” Ester said, putting the wine glass down to rush over to the opposite side of the breakfast bar. She leaned over, snatching Nya’s hands and pulling them to her face to kiss them. “How did you get out of that relationship?”

“I was in a car accident,” she said, smiling at how ridiculous the memory was. “It wasn’t even serious. I was in a cab and someone hit him from the side and I was knocked out. It wasn’t a huge deal. But they took me to the hospital to check me out. They found ribs that hadn’t healed right, bruises that didn’t come from the crash. He never used a weapon, so I got away without too many scars. But he would write on my body sometimes, with pen on my back, my chest, and my belly. I wouldn’t read the things he wrote. He did it so he could be sure I wouldn’t take my clothes off. He got such a thrill seeing those words on me in the morning and still there that night. The doctors saw it.”

Ester had forgotten about her wine and was stroking Nya’s hands. Talking about Damien was cathartic. Once it had traumatized Nya to even think about him, now her experience could help someone else and she wanted to share it.

“Bastard,” Ester murmured.

“The doctors couldn’t do anything on their own. The cops came to question me and of course, I denied it all. And when they asked who they should call, I didn’t tell them to call Damien—that was his name—I told them to call my friend, Tag. When he came, after all the questions I’d been asked that day by doctors, nurses, and cops, I couldn’t hold it together. I told him everything. Tag took me from the hospital and I never saw Damien again.”

Nya didn’t realize she was crying until Ester rubbed the tears from her cheeks. “He left you alone?”

She shrugged. “Tag dealt with it. I don’t know what he did, I never asked. I don’t think I want to know.”

“He must have killed him,” Ester said like it was the only reasonable possibility.

Nya managed a feeble smile. “I doubt it. Tag’s not really into that.” Not that his men hadn’t killed, she knew from the Hexam mess that it had happened. But she didn’t think Tag had ever killed anyone himself. “He had enough sway, I guess you could say, that he must have scared Damien off. I stayed with Tag for months and wouldn’t leave the house. Maybe Damien tried to see me, I don’t know. Tag protected me from all that.”

“Well if he wasn’t dead then, he is now,” Ester said, still holding Nya’s hands when she took her elbows from the breakfast bar and stood up. “ ‘Cause I guarantee when you told Archer that story, he tracked him down and finished the job.”

Nya shook her head, took a deep breath, and let go of Ester to wipe the tears from her face. “I never told Archer,” she said, leaving the intense moment to go back for her coffee.

“Why would you not tell Archer?”

“He knows about Damien, I mean he knows he exists and that he raised his hands to me. He’s done some digging, although I don’t know how much specific stuff he knows. Archer does have a habit of coaxing details out of me, he’s kind of trained me to tell him things without prompting. But I’m a smart enough cookie to know that telling him something like that would just rile him. At least it would while we were together, I don’t know what it would do now. We don’t talk about personal stuff like that anymore.”

They talked about Tag. They talked about whatever was going on in that moment. Nya missed their talks in the wee hours when they’d pass the time learning about each other, or at least, he learned about her and made her feel valued. They hadn’t done that in a long time and as she stared into the reflection on the surface of her coffee, she grieved for all the conversations they’d never have.

“Talking about him upset you,” Ester said.

Nya was surprised to see her coming into the living room without her wine. “Damien doesn’t upset me anymore,” she said, the tears were more about the memories than the man.

“Because I just realized that I lost him,” Nya said and this time when she tried to smile, it wouldn’t come.

That was why she was angry, why she’d exploded at Archer last night, why she’d gone over to Tag’s to scream at him and been unable to leave because she didn’t want to be alone. It was why she had been determined to spend the evening with Ester and why she’d insisted that they relocate their dinner after the restaurant mix up instead of just cancelling it.

“How can you miss a bastard like Damien?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Ester exclaimed, rushing over, she discarded the coffee and pulled Nya into a hug. “You haven’t lost him, he loves you. You’ll be together again.”

Nya couldn’t see how that was possible anymore. She pushed out of Ester’s arms realizing that she’d just reached her tipping point. “I guess forty days is my limit. Forty days ago, he told me we were through and even in my darkest times I’ve thought…” She shrugged and licked her lips, annoyed that all the grief she’d held inside was going to seep out in his apartment in front of his mother. “It seems dumb, what I’ve done, chasing after him. God, I have to get out of here.”

Nya began to head for the door. “Nya, wait,” Ester said, but it wasn’t the words that stopped her, it was the knock. “Oh, that bastard.” Ester balled her fists as she stomped towards the door. “He’s just come back to insult me some more.”

She pulled open the door ready to scream abuse at Derren, except he wasn’t the man on the other side. It took Nya a second to recognize who it was, and before she could call to Ester to slam the door, the visitor’s eyes moved to her and his shock was as apparent as hers.

“You fucking whore,” he said.

“Jonno,” she gasped.

Ester was pushed aside and he barreled to her. Nya tried to run, but Jonno got a hold of her and pulled her to him. “Your fucking boyfriend owes me money!”

“Archer’s not here!” Ester screamed. “Get out of here! Get out, you bastard! Let go of her!”

It probably wasn’t a great idea to tell Jonno that Archer wasn’t here because it meant that they had no protector. “Where is he?” Jonno asked, shaking Nya so hard that her head began to hurt. “Where is he?” He slanted back far enough that he could backhand her while still holding onto her arm.

Ester screamed. Nya shoved. “Fucking let me go!” Nya shouted and stamped on his foot.

Although he winced, he didn’t release her. “Your boy Taggert still owes me, big time. What the fuck is going on with Hex? Where’s Arch?”

Oh God, now Nya was in a real dilemma. Taggert was in his apartment. Hexam was on Archer’s leash. And Archer was in Nevada, according to Derren. Nya had all these facts. But instead of offering them up, she drew her head back and spat in his face.

“Go to hell,” she said. “We’ve had this fucking conversation, you prick! And I’ll tell you now what I said then, you can go fuck yourself.”

He slapped her again and shoved her so hard that she stumbled back and hit her head on the wall-mounted TV. Jonno pulled her forward, slapped her, and then threw her to the floor.

“You fucking bitch, you fucked everything up!”

He pulled his belt from its loops. Rape might be her greatest fear, but she didn’t think that was what was on his mind when he raised the belt above his head. But before he could bring it down, there was a crash. He stilled and then collapsed, smacking his head on the coffee table as he went down.

Scrambling away from him, Nya ended up in a crouch at his feet and Ester was standing next to her with a pot from the kitchen in her hand.

“Who the fuck is this guy?” Ester asked, tossing the pan to the floor. “Did I kill him?”

Nya didn’t want to go over to check but she had to. There was blood seeping from the back of Jonno’s head that would leave a stain on the rug under the coffee table. Staying as far away as she could, she edged forward and stretched herself over Jonno to feel for a pulse. A strong beat thrummed beneath her fingers, and although she hated this guy, she was relieved Ester wasn’t a murderer.

“He’s alive,” she said, looking back at Ester and realizing the pan she’d used was Archer’s favorite for cooking steak. If his TV was damaged too, he’d resort to murder.

“What are we supposed to do with him?” Ester asked.

That was the next question, Nya stood up next to Ester and they scrutinized their victim for a minute. “We’ll figure it out.”

“We could dump him in the street,” Ester said. “But how do we get him down the stairs?” She tapped a finger on her chin. “Archer does shit like this all the time, we have to be able to figure it out.”

Archer chained people up for information. Nya had never checked the protocol on what to do with men who wanted to cause trouble. “Archer has experience.”

“Should I call him?” Ester asked and again answered her own question. “No, he’ll be so pissed. There’s nothing he can do from Vegas. But he’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll have to keep this sack of shit here ‘til then.”

“Overnight? What are we supposed to do with him overnight? He’ll wake up before then.”

Still, Ester was considering it and when a gradual smile began to form on her face, Nya felt her wariness grow. “We’ll just do what Archer does. You spent some time chained in his bathroom, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you can show me how it’s done.”

Ester was excited, but Nya swayed on her feet. Adrenaline could only keep a person going for so long. “My head is spinning.”

“Do you need to sit down? Should I take you to the hospital? Did this prick hurt you bad?”

She’d hit her head, but not hard enough to cause serious damage. The nausea began to subside. “No, I just… I’m better now, I just felt dizzy for a second.”

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” Ester suggested and then perked up. “Oh my God, maybe you’re pregnant! If Archer’s knocked you up, you have to get back together!”

Archer had reminded her that her period was due and it hadn’t come. But that wasn’t unusual for her. When there was stress in her life, her natural cycle had a habit of checking out.

“I’m not pregnant,” Nya said, but she was already being tugged into an Ester hug.

“Oh, we’ll get you a test! We can tell Archer when he comes home! He’ll be thrilled!”

Thrilled with the idea of a pregnant ex-girlfriend, when that ex had taken responsibility for birth control, Nya didn’t think so. But it didn’t matter, she knew she couldn’t be because she’d never missed a pill. “I’m not pregnant, I always take my pill.”

Ester let her go and deflated. “Sometimes they don’t work if you take antibiotics, have you been sick?”

“I’m not sick and I haven’t…”

She hadn’t been to the doctors for antibiotics, but…

“What?” Ester asked, grabbing her again. “What is it?”

“Archer gave me a shot once, but…” Nya shook off her worry. “No, it’s dumb, that was months ago and we weren’t even sleeping together then.”

Ester’s eager hands gripped tighter. “How long between the shot and the shagging? Docs say you should use alternatives for a week.”

When it came to sex, Ester was a wealth of information. “Three days maybe four,” Nya said and Ester was grinning again. She didn’t want to encourage the woman, but the timing of the injection became less important when she remembered that she’d missed her pill while attached to his floor.

“Then it’s possible!”

“No,” Nya said, “not a chance.” Because she couldn’t face that it might be a possibility, not because there wasn’t one. “If I was pregnant Archer would go insane! I can’t be, no, not now, we’re not even together.”

“You will be if you are,” Ester said. “It’s just the excuse he needs to get his head out of his butt.”

“Can we focus on the problem at hand and not talk about things that are impossible?” Nya asked.

Ester grumbled, but didn’t argue. “Fine, help me move this bastard into the bathroom, let’s see how he likes being tied down.”

Anybody else might think that chaining a guy to a pipe for slapping a woman was a bit excessive. It had taken both of them a lot of sweat to drag Jonno from the living room through to the bathroom. Nya was just grateful she’d locked her own chains before so she knew exactly how to wrap them and attach the padlock, and she remembered the cuff Archer had used on her. It might not be needed, but Jonno was a piece of shit who’d had two goes at beating her now.

Pressing the duct tape to his mouth, Ester had been quite proud of their work. Nya was more pragmatic. Jonno was going to wake up and make a noise. The saving grace was that the downstairs neighbor wouldn’t complain.

 

 

He had made a racket. Nya had been in Archer’s bed with Ester, not that she’d slept because she was in her ex’s bed, and after her conclusions tonight, it felt wrong to be here. Feeling wrong in Archer’s bed made her feel sick. This was the grief she should’ve gone through at the end of the relationship. But like she’d said to Ester tonight, it had just taken her forty days to realize that she wasn’t going to win him back.

Ester liked having a captive and it was amusing to see how she slipped into the role like a pro. Sometimes she was chatty, driving Jonno insane with her chatter. Later on, she’d spent some time poking him with the spiked heel of her shoe, telling him what a piece of shit he was. Nya enjoyed listening to that.

Ester had needed supplies, like wine and cigarettes, but she didn’t want to leave the apartment because Nya had just unrolled Archer’s knives on the dining table at Ester’s request and pulled out two that she felt confident about using to keep Jonno in check if they needed to.

Insisting that she should stay, Ester sent Nya to the store for food, liquor, and more duct tape. So Nya had gone on the run and been gone for less than an hour. When she was coming back in, she was in a hurry, but slowed in the entry hallway when she saw a man sitting on the stairs. He wasn’t just sitting alone; there was a toolbox and wood lying on the floor. He wore jeans and heavy boots, but it was the muscles under his tee shirt that she took notice of.

It was a feminine awareness as well as a prickle of wariness that trickled through her. He was a potential threat who could hurt her if he wanted to. He would have the strength to knock her out if he knew how to throw a punch. Because of where he was sitting on the stairs, she couldn’t get by him, and there was no lift or alternative route.

But it didn’t matter because as soon as she approached the stairs, he turned and landed his bright blue eyes right on her. They were so striking against his dark hair and the scruff on his chin, she was taken aback.

“Excuse me,” she said, with every intention of squeezing past the guy to run up the stairs.

He put an elbow on the stair behind him and leaned back. “What’s the secret password?” he asked, his warm smile startling her.

Examining what he’d been doing with the tape measure on the stairs, she registered the new bannister spindles on the floor and the tools beside them. “Password?” The old spindles were looser than they had been before. “You’re fixing the bannister.” It had been broken since before Archer had carried her in here over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he said and patted the wall. “Then I’m gonna paint.”

“You’re a handyman?” she asked. “Who hired you?”

As far as she knew, most of the apartments in here were owned by the same guy, the guy who was happy to take as much of Archer’s money as he could and do as little as possible to manage the building. He nodded toward an apartment door by the communal entrance. “One B,” he said. “I just moved in. I like looking at pretty things and…” He scanned the environment. “This is not a pretty thing.”

Raising her paper bag on her hip, Nya adjusted the weight of it. “Then why move in?”

“It’s cheap. Near where I work and now I’ve found that it does have something pretty for me to look at.”

But she wasn’t in the mood for pick-up lines. “Can I get past now?”

“You live in the building?” he asked.

“I’m Two B,” she said. “One up.”

That was good news to him. “Ah, so you’re above me. I like a woman on top.”

So he wasn’t finished with the cheesy lines. Typical that she should find herself the meat in the most arrogant apartment sandwich. “Lines like that don’t work on any woman who’s worth a relationship,” she said. “If you want a bimbo who’ll drool on your muscles, I’m not that girl.”

Nya tried to go past him, but he slid across the stair to get in her way. “What girl are you then?”

“I’m the girl who wants to get upstairs. I have to get back to my friend, she’s waiting for me.”

“You have a roommate?” he asked. “Or a girlfriend?”

“None of your business.”

He laid a hand on his chest. “Oh, you’ve cut me deep, smexy.”

She squinted. “What the hell is smexy?”

“Smart and sexy,” he said, proud that he knew that. “I got it from my kid sister.”

“Better a kid sister than an ex-girlfriend,” she said because it seemed like one of those teenage words and if his ex was a teenager, this guy had serious issues.

“No ex-girlfriends for me,” he said, opening his arms. “I’m free and single.”

“And that’s none of my business.”

He didn’t seem to be getting her lack of interest. “Levi,” he said, offering his hand.

“Nya,” she reciprocated, but ignored his hand.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asked, not dissuaded by her snub.

“Color?”

He stroked the wall. “We’ll use it for the walls and have a paint party, do the whole thing, all the way to the top. Do you think I could get the other tenants involved?”

Ok, the guy was making an effort and it wasn’t his fault that she was having a shitty day, preceded by a shitty night. She decided to relent. “I can introduce you around,” she said. Maybe if he made other friends in the building he wouldn’t bug her. “Georgie-Boy lives next door to me, he’s friendly, you’ll get plenty of chat from him. Ella lives opposite, she’s a bit quiet and kooky, but kindhearted, don’t fuck with her.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m always gentle.”

“Next door to her is an older guy, Mr. Reyes. It kind of depends what day you get him. Sometimes he’s in a great mood and wants to talk all day. But be ready, he likes to complain about everything, it’s his hobby. So be prepared to hear every grievance he’s had since 1952.”

He laughed and leaned against the wall. “Roger. Who’s on the floor above?”

That floor wasn’t as welcoming as hers might be. “I’d maybe stick with the first two floors,” she said. “It gets a bit dicey when you go higher.”

“I can be friends with anyone,” Levi said. “What are we talking? Drug dealers? Hookers?”

“No hookers,” she said. “Though I think everyone in this building has a criminal connection somewhere, except maybe Ella, I think.”

“That include you?”

“I plead the fifth,” she said, happy to leave him wondering on that one.

“What’s the deal with Ella?”

“Her brother owned her apartment, then he OD’d. She’s his only family, and inherited the apartment. I guess staying there makes her feel closer to him or maybe she just can’t afford anywhere else. He was dealing a while, so I figure the place is paid off. Mr. Reyes owns his place too. He says he bought it before the neighborhood went to shit. The rest of us try not to take his opinions personally.”

He laughed again and she smiled, it was so weird to be having a normal conversation without drama or life and death dilemmas hanging over their heads. She didn’t have to think about who was pissed off for what reason, or who this guy might be allied with, and if he could be an enemy. He was a guy with a tape measure and a tool box, not a leather-bound roll of knives or a bag of cocaine.

“When you introduce me around, I’ll show you how I can charm anyone.”

That was quite a claim. Though it could be her insider knowledge that made her dubious. “You think you can charm everyone in this building?”

He seemed to think about it, but she knew he was just drawing out the suspense. “I bet I can.”

“Bet what?”

And again, his smile grew. “I like a girl who holds a guy to his word. How about dinner?”

Nya was taken aback. “If you can charm everyone in this building, I have to go to dinner with you?”

“Yeah.”

Hmm, Nya considered the proposition. “What does charm mean? There has to be a benchmark.”

“Let’s say if I get invited in for a drink, we consider that success.”

That was a laugh, he’d end up passing out. “If you have a drink in every apartment, you’ll never get back to yours.”

“We don’t have to go in, the invitation is enough.”

Nya was confident that he wouldn’t be able to charm everyone in the building because she’d seen what a frosty reception Archer could give to his guests. She held out her hand as much to solidify the deal as to make up for being rude before.

“Ok. But now I really do have to get to my friend,” she said, and he stepped aside to gesture at the stairs.

Nya ran halfway up before she paused and looked back. “Thank you,” she said.

He scratched his brow with the end of his tape measure. “For brightening your day?”

She laughed. “For caring about the place. It’s more than anyone else has done for a long time.”

The graffiti hadn’t changed since she’d been coming in and out of here, and she hadn’t had issues with the neighbors or heard of gangs fighting on the stairway, so she’d guess that over time, those who had mistreated the place had moved out or moved on. But no one had bothered to come in and fix the building up.