She stared at me for so long, eyes on mine, that I lost focus, and she blurred like a watercolour painting. It was impossible to read her anyway, so I just concentrated on not throwing up at the idea of what punishment she might dole out.
“Fine, I expect a replacement tomorrow to finish off the scenes,” she said finally, on an exhausted sigh as if I had thrown a tantrum. “But, Lila? Agua que no has de beber, déjala corer, hmm?”
If you are not going to drink the water, let it flow.
I recognized the saying from Ignacio who was a fan of offering such advice to his lackeys when they got cold feet if the cops started sniffing around.
Don’t get involved with something you don’t have the stomach for.
In a way, she was right. I had no stomach for the exploitation of youth and women. I had no ability to digest the awful ways Irina conducted her legal business, so I knew I would not be able to fathom the depths of her illegal practices.
But wasn’t that the point?
Irina was the most villainous woman I’d ever met. Knowing that, knowing her and all the horrific things she did, wasn’t it obvious I should get involved because I could? And if I could, perhaps I could end her and her tyranny?
The answer was yes.
One thousand times yes.
And this standoff only solidified my righteousness.
So, when Irina blinked her sloe eyes at me then turned back to the set to bark at the actor for losing his erection, I was quick to gather my things and head to the office.
Lysander followed behind me, still carrying Honey.
“Thanks,” he grunted before I could disappear into Irina’s office.
I looked over my shoulder at him, at the lines beside his eyes and the brackets carved deeply around his unsmiling mouth.
He was a hard man who had lived a hard life, but he still had an inner softness.
And wasn’t that what differentiated a monster from a man?
Irina had none of that softness.
I nodded my head at him and smiled gently, feeling a tenderness for him born of camaraderie against an evil bigger than his sins of the past.
“Take care of her. If you need help, just text me, okay?”
His smile was limited to his mouth, his eyes a flat, hopeless brown. “Tried to get her to quit the drugs ’bout fifty times now.”
“I can hear you, you know?” she said drily from the shelter of his arms, peaking through her hair to glare at me. “I’m fine. It’s not the first time I’ve been hit.”
Sander growled low in his chest, and I winced.
I only hesitated for a moment before I got closer, gently pushing back the sweaty locks of Honey’s beautiful strawberry blonde hair.
“I know what it’s like to grow up in a burning building and assume the whole word is alive with flames outside. It makes it so easy to choose the horror you know over the horror you don’t. But I’m telling you, Honey, you take one step out of this door, there will be an army of men in leather with their women at their sides ready to shelter you from the burn.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and the full set of her mouth trembled before she could purse them flat. When she spoke, her voice was threadbare, the sentiment so worn in her head I’d wondered how many times she’d tread over it before now. “They didn’t want me then, they won’t want me now.”
My chest ached as my ribs shifted to make room for the sheer mass of empathy I felt take root in my heart. I cupped her cheek and leaned close to whisper, as if Lysander wasn’t even there.
And in a way, he wasn’t.
This was sacredness between women, a safe place for a girl who had been abused in one way or another her whole life.
“I promise you, they won’t. The Garros have had a rough go, too, and they’re the last people to turn their backs on someone in need. If you let them, they’ll help. If you let Sander, you and I both know he’ll be there too. If you let me, I won’t abandon you,” I swore with a solemnity that made the hall a tomb, my dress a cassock.
Her tears fell then, prettier than I’d ever seen, rolling like crystal down her cheeks to collect in the divots of her sharp collarbones. Lysander adjusted her until she was cozied up to his massive chest even tighter, curling around her like a human shield.
“Got this,” he murmured when she turned her head into his pectoral and wept softly. “You focus on what you gotta do for the club.”
I nodded at him, gave his concrete forearm a brief squeeze, and ducked into the office.
It had been months of no leads even after being swallowed into the belly of the beast as I was. I’d spoken to Zeus about it, and there was no way Venturas were that clean. He’d explained that there was always a trail, and that Lion Danner, who now ran his own private investigations service, was working that trail from the outside.