“The two of you keep shit interesting,” he says, tossing the keys to Talent. “Do you need me to come along, or can I crash on the couch?”
“You can sleep in my bed,” Camilla says eagerly. Wilder’s sleepy-drunk expression rouses, and a wide smile spreads across his lips. Camilla blushes and corrects herself. “Because the couch isn’t any better than sleeping on the floor. You can sleep in my bed, and I’ll—”
Shoving my feet into a pair of shoes, I grab my phone from the counter and head toward the door. Talent follows me out, quickly stepping past me to lead the way to Wilder’s Mercedes. The night sky idles somewhere between night and morning, mostly black and star-speckled, edged by a lighter blue along the horizon.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Talent asks, turning the car away from the curb and whipping it around so quickly the tires squeal.
“She just said to come over, but this isn’t like her. Something’s wrong.”
Talent drops his foot on the accelerator, and the car roars against the quiet night. “Tell me where I’m going, baby.”
From the outside, Inez’s white two-story home appears vacant. There’s not a car sitting in the driveway, not a light on, no signs of life from the outside. Even the porch light is off. As soon as Talent parks the car, I unbuckle the seat belt and get out, running across the damp lawn to the front door.
“Dammit, Lydia,” Talent calls after me. “You can’t just run in there.”
The door isn’t locked and opens to a dark front room, utterly quiet and silent with the exception of a single light toward the back of the house where the kitchen is.
I step forward to follow it, but Talent captures my wrist and holds me back. “Will you fucking wait? We don’t have any idea what we’re walking in on.”
Finding his face in the dark, I tell him, “She’d never hurt me, Talent.”
Surrounded by the smell of lilac and cedar, I know this to be as true as my devotion to Talent. I don’t know what she’s protecting me from, but I know she’s doing it because she loves me. Inez, Talent, and Camilla are my family. They’re all I have, and I trust them with my life.
Talent insists he walk in first, keeping me an arm’s length away. When we step into the kitchen to find Inez pointing a pistol at Naomi’s head, he shields me with his body and says, “Shit.”
Naomi’s in the same blue dress she wore at the birthday party she got away from earlier this evening, but her hair is now disheveled, and makeup runs down her face with tears. She sits in a wooden chair pulled away from Inez’s dining room table with her hands tied around her back like Phillip’s were when he answered for his crimes.
“Inez, what’s going on?” I ask, clutching Talent’s arm.
As terrified as I should be by the scene unrolling in front of me, it comes second to the shock I feel at seeing Inez in a pair of jeans and a crew neck sweater. She’s wearing tennis shoes, and her flaming red hair is pulled back into a low ponytail. As if this entire night hasn’t been strange enough, what does that say about me?
“Naomi called earlier this evening when she had nowhere else to go and broke the news about the tragic loss of our friend Phillip Vogel at the hand of Giovanni Coppola today, like she hasn’t turned her back on us, too, ” Inez says. She has both hands on a silver pistol etched with roses, and her finger is on the trigger. “She told me he was trying to set you up, Talent. Please, tell your father and the Coppolas I had no part in her plot when I sent Lydia to your office.”
“You have my word,” Talent says.
Inez takes her eyes off Naomi long enough to smile at Talent and me. “I’m so glad you’ve found each other. It gives me peace to know my favorite girl won’t be alone once I’m gone.”
Naomi fights against her restraints. Susceptibility drains from Inez’s face, and her expression hardens once she returns her attention to the woman tied to a chair.
“You should have believed me when I said you wouldn’t be the one who took me down, Naomi,” Inez says through gritted teeth.
“What can we do?” Talent asks. He’s calm in the face of violence. “One phone call and I can have this taken care of.”
Inez shakes her head. “No, this is my mess to clean up. Just promise me to take care of Lydia, please. I know you can protect her.”
“Inez,” I whisper. My eyes burn and fill with tears.
“I loved once,” Inez reminiscences with a quivering chin. “It’s how I started all of this. His name was Gino Coppola and he was an underboss under Giovanni’s father, Lorenzo. They were killed, of course. Huge scandal, but I haven’t loved another man since. This gun was his.”
Talent swallows hard and says, “Gino Coppola … is that why Giovanni stays out of your business? And how you know about my family?”
Inez nods. “The mafia doesn’t put much thought into wives and girlfriends, but Gino made sure I’d be protected if he perished. Should something happen to him, no one would interfere with Hush as long as I lived. The way those men treat sex work is brutal, and I never wanted my girls to be subjected to such working conditions. But that protection does end with me. Granted, I hoped to have more time, but I wanted to prepare for the future. When the opportunity showed itself, that’s when I decided to send Lydia instead. I knew you’d fall for her. It gives me a lot of peace to know I was right. I knew your mother, and if you’re anything like her, my girl will be protected.”
“She’s safe,” Talent says. He takes a cautious step forward, holding his hand out. “You don’t have to worry about Lydia. But this doesn’t have to go down like this.”
“Naomi unwittingly soiled Phillip’s plans by bragging about the arrangement she had at Ridge & Sons, and I sent Lydia instead. To make up for her mistake, she put Hush on the table to make a deal on Phillip’s behalf, and I’ve had the motherfucking feds following my every move for weeks as a result. It’s funny she came to me when she had nowhere to go, like I haven’t had a bullet with her name on it since I found out.”
Inez presses the gun against Naomi’s head, and she cries out, begging for a chance to tell her side.
“It’s too late. Without Naomi and me, they’ll only have enough information to dismantle the spa. They’ll make an example out of a few of our girls, but the heart of Hush can be salvaged.” Inez nods toward a large folder of files on the kitchen counter. “Everything you need to oversee Hush is there, Lydia. The names of our girls. The names of our clients. Where the money is. All of it.”
Without me…
Her words play like a broken record inside my mind, and when I realize what she means, panic seizes my lungs and I can’t breathe.
“No,” I plead. Talent holds me back, and I’m too overcome with fear to get free. “Inez, no. There has to be another way. Let them take Hush. We can start over. We can do something else.”
“Tesora, this is the only way. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” She takes one hand off the gun to pick up the file and tosses it in our direction. The file folder slaps against the countertop closest to us, and Talent reaches forward to retrieve it. Inez’s eyes meet mine, and for a split second, her expression crumbles and she cries. “I love you, Lydia. And I’m so sorry.”