Chapter 10: Darling Nikki
The silence after the door slammed was absolute.
Jason lay on the rug, the cold from the floor seeping into his back. The smell of sex had turned acrid, mingling with the scent of champagne and betrayal. He was still inside Amanda, who hadn’t moved, her body trembling slightly beneath him. He pulled out, the wet sound obscenely loud. He rolled onto his side, facing the empty space where Nikki had stood.
No one spoke. The women were statues, their arousal frozen into awkwardness, their playacting shattered by a reality none of them had accounted for.
Ella was the first to move. She picked up her robe from the chaise, wrapping it around herself with a slow, deliberate dignity. She walked to the mini-bar, pulled out a bottle of water, and brought it to Jason. She knelt, placing it beside him.
“Jason. Drink,” she said, her voice soft but firm.
He pushed himself up, took the bottle, and gulped down half of it. The water was cold, a shock to his system. He looked around the room. Sky was pulling her dress back on, her playful energy gone, replaced by a subdued, almost frightened expression. Samantha lit a cigarette, her hands unsteady. Ashley and Angela had moved to the window, talking in low, urgent whispers. Amanda finally stood, gathering her clothes with a mortified haste. Coco just watched him, her expression inscrutable.
“Well,” Samantha exhaled a plume of smoke. “That was dramatic.”
“She loved you,” Ella said, not as an accusation, but as a clinical fact. “Or she was starting to fall for you. And you just showed her the monster under the bed.”
“I’m not a monster,” Jason croaked, his throat raw.
“Aren’t you though?” Coco asked from her chair. “You just took possession of a human trafficking ring for fuckbuddies, Jason. The branding is nicer, but the commodity is the same. Access to bodies. Her body… hers… was on the menu, and she saw the receipt.”
“It’s not like that!” he shouted in anger and emotion, surging to his feet. The force of his own movement made him dizzy. “I told her! I want to change it! I want to help people!”
“By fucking a lineup of women in a hotel suite not evenhours after accepting the keys to the kingdom?” Ashley turned from the window, her arms crossed. Her professional composure was back, but her eyes were sharp. “The road to hell, Jason. Paved with the best orgasms of your life, but still.”
He felt it then, the full weight. It settled in his stomach, a leaden, sick feeling. Nikki’s face, that moment of shattered hope, played on a loop behind his eyes. He had traded it all. For this. One beautifully complicated woman for a room full of beautiful, complicated women who now looked at him with a mixture of pity and wariness.
“I need to go after her,” he said, stumbling toward his discarded jeans.
“And say what?” Ella asked. “That you’re sorry you chose a harem over her? That you’ll give it all up? Would you?”
He stopped, one leg in his pants. Would he actually do it? He thought of the key in his hand on the roof. The terrifying, exhilarating sense of infinite possibility. To give that up, after one taste… His hesitation was answer enough.
Ella saw it. She nodded, a sad understanding in her eyes. “Then let her go. It’s the only decent thing left to do.”
“Fuck that shit…” He muttered, but the fight was draining out of him. He sat heavily on the edge of the chaise, pulling his pants the rest of the way on. “What do I do now?”
“You learn. That was a teachable moment.” Coco said. She stood, walking over to him. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “You wanted to change the system? Then change it. Start now. With us.”
He looked up at her. “How?”
“By remembering we’re people. Not just appointments. Not just booty calls.” She glanced around the room. “This… all this… this spectacle tonight. That was Ariadne’s last test. To see if you’d get lost in the orgy. You failed that one. Miserably. Nikki was the pop quiz you bombed. So now you take the real class.”
The others had gathered closer, drawn by Coco’s authoritative tone.
“What are you saying?” Sky asked curiously.
“I’m saying the free-for-all is over,” Coco stated. “If Jason’s serious about building something that isn’t soul-corroding, then the rules need to change. No more summons. No more ‘show up and spread ‘em.’ We structure it. We communicate. We set boundaries. And for God’s sake, we talk about something other than his dick.”
A faint, tentative smile touched Samantha’s lips. “You want to unionize the harem?”
“I want to give it a purpose beyond his nut,” Coco replied flatly. “Jason, you said you wanted to help people like you. Lonely. Inexperienced. Needing connection. Fine. But you can’t help anyone until you understand what connection actually is. And you,” she said, pointing a finger at his chest, “have exactly one data point that wasn’t transactional, and you just set it on fire and watched it walk out the door.”
The truth of it was a punch. He was silent.
Ella sat beside him. “She’s right though. You have resources now. Access. Knowledge. Use it to build something… kinder. But you have to start with yourself. You need to understand what you’re offering, and it can’t just be a slot on the roster.”
“So what?” Jason asked, desperation creeping in. “We just… talk?”
“We start there,” Ashley said, pulling a chair over. She sat, leaning forward, her elbows on her knees. “For example: I’m Ashley. I’m a data analyst. I like control in the bedroom because I spend all day controlling spreadsheets and project timelines. I came here tonight because Ariadne suggested it, and I was curious about you. Now I’m… intrigued. And concerned. Your turn.”
The directness was jarring. They were all looking at him. Not with lust or hunger, but with expectation.
“I’m Jason. And before this, I was lost. I still am. I thought this would make me found. It just made me emptier. And I fucked up. I hurt someone I care about. A lot.” The words hurt coming out, a confession scraped from a raw place.
“Good,” Coco said. “That’s a start.”
They talked. As the night bled into the early hours, the suite transformed from a scene of debauchery into something resembling a bizarre, intimate support group. They ordered real food from room service. They drank coffee. They shared stories—not just sexual ones, but real ones.
Sky talked about the pressure of college and her family’s high expectations. Samantha spoke about the loneliness of the music industry and the performative nature that was her life. Amanda confessed her fear of aging out of the fitness modeling world. While Angela, shyly, talked about her desire to be truly desired, not just aggressively taken.
Jason listened to all of it. He learned about them as people, with fears and hopes that existed outside of his sexual orbit. It was overwhelming, and humbling.
Around 4 AM, Ella yawned.
“I have a board meeting at nine. I need to sleep in my own bed.”
One by one, they prepared to leave. There were no dramatic goodbyes, no lingering touches. It was practical, sober.
Ashley was the last to go, aside from Coco who had decided to stay in the suite. At the door, Ashley turned to Jason.
“You have my number. Use it for a drink. Or a conversation. Not just a booty call. Understood?”
“Understood,” he said.
She left.
He was now alone with Coco. The older woman was clearing the room service cart. “You should get some sleep,” she said. “The bed’s clean. I’ll take the couch.”
“Coco… thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m investing. In you. In the idea that this doesn’t have to be a grotesque parody of human relationships.” She looked at him. “Now go to sleep. Tomorrow, we begin.”
He slept fitfully, haunted by dreams of Nikki’s eyes and Ariadne’s oiled skin. He woke to the smell of coffee. Coco was on the balcony, dressed in a hotel robe, reading something on her phone.
He joined her. The morning city was loud and bright, scrubbing away the secrets of the night.
“Ariadne emailed,” Coco said without looking up. “The full data transfer begins today. Client lists, profiles, financials, safe house locations. The whole architecture. She’s… relinquishing control. It’s really yours.”
The reality of it was vertigo-inducing. “What do I do with it?”
“You learn it. Every line. Then you decide what to keep, what to burn.” She finally looked at him. “But first, you have a session.”
“A session? What?”
“With me. You’re my client now. Lesson one: re-framing the objective.” She stood, draining her coffee. “Inside. Now.”
Back in the suite, she pointed to the couch. “Sit.”
He obeyed. She didn’t sit. She paced in front of him, a professor lecturing a failing student.
“Your goal is no longer to ‘get laid’ or ‘build confidence.’ Your goal is to create a mutually satisfying encounter. The focus shifts from your performance to her experience. Your confidence comes from knowing you can provide that, not from how many times you can make yourself come.”
“Okay,” he said, the nerdy part of his brain latching onto the instruction.
“Your tools are no longer just your cock, or your hands, or your mouth. They are your attention. Your observation. Your communication. Your mind. You will learn to read a woman’s body like an instrument. Every hitch of breath, every flutter of a muscle, every change in skin temperature is a note. You learn to play the song she’s feeling, not the one you have memorized.”
She stopped pacing. “Stand up.”
He stood.
“Take off your clothes.”
He blinked but complied, stripping down to his boxer briefs.
“Those too.”
He pushed them down, stepping out of them, standing naked and self-conscious in the morning light.
Coco didn’t react to his nudity. She circled him, assessing. “You hold tension in your shoulders. In your jaw. You’re bracing yourself. For what? For her? For failure? That tension transmits. It tells her you’re working, not connecting.” She placed her hands on his shoulders, her thumbs digging into the tight muscles. “Breathe, Jason. And drop this.”
He tried to relax under her firm, knowing hands. It was strangely non-sexual, clinical almost.
“Now,” she said, stepping back. She untied her robe, let it fall. Her body was a testament to time and care, full, soft in places, toned in others, beautiful in its realness. “Your objective is not to fuck me. Your objective is to make me come, using any means I allow, with a focus on my pleasure. You may ask three questions to begin. Use them wisely.”
His mind blanked. This was a test, harder than any before. He looked at her, really looked, pushing past his own nerves.
“What’s something you generally like to start with?” he asked.
“Good. Open-ended. I like a slow, thorough build. Pressure over friction to begin.”
“Is there anywhere you don’t like to be touched right now?”
“My breasts are a little tender today. Avoid them.”
“What’s a ‘safe word’ or sign for if you want me to stop or change something?”
“‘Red.’ And I’ll push your hand away. Now. Begin.”
He approached her, the old anxiety creeping in. He pushed it down. Her experience. Not your performance. He led her to the couch, had her sit. He knelt on the floor between her legs. He didn’t dive in. He placed his hands on her inner thighs, just above her knees, and applied a firm, steady pressure. He felt the muscle underneath, warm and alive. He leaned in, kissing the inside of one thigh, then the other, his lips soft, his facial hair grazing her skin. He heard her breath deepen slightly.
He moved closer, his face mere inches from her sex. Her scent was musky, clean. He exhaled, letting his warm breath wash over her. He saw her clit, a small, dark pearl nestled in its hood. He didn’t touch it. He used the flat of his tongue to lick a slow, broad stripe from her entrance up through her folds. She tasted earthy, complex.
He did it again, varying pressure. He used his lips to gently suck on her outer lips. He teased the very entrance of her vagina with the tip of his tongue, circling, dipping barely inside. He was mapping her, listening. Her hips made a tiny, almost imperceptible shift.
He brought his mouth to her clit, but didn’t suck. He circled it with the very tip of his tongue, feather-light, maddeningly slow. He built a rhythm, a gentle, persistent orbit. One of his hands came up, his thumb finding her perineum, applying a soft, rhythmic pressure in counterpoint to his tongue.
Her breathing became ragged. A soft, low moan escaped her lips. “Yes… right there. Just like that. Keep the pace.”
He did. His jaw began to ache, but he ignored it. He focused on the feedback—the way her thighs tensed, the way her clit grew harder under his tongue, the wetness that now coated his chin. He slid two fingers into her, slowly, curling them upward. He found a ridged, spongy area inside and pressed.
Coco gasped, her back arching off the couch. “Fuck. Yes. Right…There. Press and hold. Don’t move your fingers. Just your tongue.”
He obeyed, holding that internal pressure while his tongue continued its relentless, circling dance on her clit. It was an intricate, demanding coordination. Her body began to tighten around his fingers, a slow, gathering tsunami of tension. Her moans lost their control, becoming sharp, rhythmic cries.
“Don’t… stop… God, don’t stop…” she chanted.
He didn’t. The ache in his jaw was fire, but it was irrelevant. He was a mechanism for her pleasure. Her clit was a live wire under his tongue. Her inner muscles clamped down on his fingers like a vise.
Her orgasm erupted. It wasn’t a scream, but a series of deep, guttural groans that seemed to be torn from her core. Her body bucked against his face, her hands gripping his hair, holding him in place as she ground herself against his mouth, milking every last pulse of sensation. He stayed with her, gentling his touch as the waves subsided into shuddering aftershocks.
Finally, she went limp, her hands falling from his hair. He slowly withdrew his fingers, gave her one last, soft kiss, and sat back on his heels. His face was slick with her cum. He was painfully hard.
Coco opened her eyes. She looked spent, peaceful. She looked at his erection, bobbing thick and ignored between his legs.
“Lesson one,” she panted, a faint smile on her lips. “The best sexual tool you have is your mind. The thing between your ears, not your legs. When you prioritize her pleasure, truly prioritize it, your own becomes… profound. Different. You’re not chasing a nut. You’re participating in a shared event. The orgasm you give… that can be your orgasm.”
She reached out, her hand closing around him, stroking slowly. The sensation was electric after the focused denial. “But you’ve been very good. So you may come now. How would you like to?”
The question itself was a gift. He thought of Nikki, of the anger, the sadness, and the loss. He thought of the hollow power of the night before. This felt different. Real.
“In your mouth,” he said, the request feeling both filthy and respectful.
She nodded, sliding off the couch to her knees. She took him into her mouth without hesitation, her suction immediate and strong. It was a reward, skilled and intense. He watched her, this wise, fierce, older woman servicing him, because he had earned it by servicing her. The paradox wasn’t lost on him. He came quickly, with a hoarse cry, his release pumping into her warm, accepting mouth. She swallowed, cleaning him with a thoroughness that was both maternal and deeply erotic.
When she was done, she stood, wiping her mouth. She looked at him, her gaze appraising.
“You have potential,” she said. “But you have a long way to go. You need to apologize to Nikki. Not to get her back. But because it’s the right thing to do. And you need to meet with Ariadne. To understand what she’s really given you, and what she expects in return. There are always strings, Jason. Always.”
She walked toward the bathroom. “I’m showering. Then we go over the files. Your empire awaits. Try not to be a tyrant.”
He sat on the floor, the taste of her still on his lips, the ghost of Nikki’s pain in his heart, and the terrifying, limitless data of Ariadne’s world waiting in his inbox. He was no longer just a client. He was the keeper.
He was now the keeper. The words echoed in the silent suite, a crown of thorns. Coco’s shower ran. Steam crept under the bathroom door. His phone, a black slab on the glass coffee table, held everything. Ariadne’s data. Nikki’s number. The two poles of his new world.
He picked it up. The screen showed a cascade of notifications—emails from unknown addresses, encrypted file delivery confirmations. He opened the most recent. The subject line was blank. The body contained only a set of geographical coordinates and a time: 10 PM. Tonight. It was her. It was a summons to his own coronation.
The shower stopped. He put the phone down, his fingers tingling. Coco emerged wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping. She saw his face. “The first call came,” she stated.
“Coordinates. For tonight.”
She nodded, squeezing water from her hair. “Then you have today to get right. Or as right as you can.” She dressed in yesterday’s clothes, her movements efficient. “I’ll be at my apartment. The files can wait a few hours. Do what you need to do.”
After she left, the silence was a physical presence. He paced. The taste of Coco was a fading tang on his tongue, a lesson etched in sensation. But the sharper memory was Nikki’s face, that final, empty look. You own everything. And you have absolutely nothing. Her words were nails in the floorboards, tripping him with every step.
He couldn’t do the files. Not yet. The enormity was a paralytic. He scrolled instead, past the encrypted deliveries, to his contacts. He stared at her name. Nikki. Just the letters felt like an accusation. His thumb hovered. The phantom smell of her leather jacket and citrus perfume cut through the sterile hotel air.
He tapped the call button.
It rang. Once. Twice. His throat tightened. Three times. Four. He was about to crumble, to hang up, when the connection clicked.
There was no hello. Just breathing. A shallow, waiting sound.
“Nikki.” His voice cracked.
“What.” The word was flat, stripped of all texture.
“I… I needed to hear your voice.” It was a weak but true thing to say.
A bitter, soft laugh traveled down the line. “Yeah? How’s the harem? Everyone recovered from the morning-after awkwardness?”
He winced. “Don’t. I’m not calling about that.”
“Then why are you calling, Jason? You wanna explain again how you’re gonna be everyone’s favorite humanitarian pimp? How you’re gonna fix the system from the inside?” Her voice was gaining edges, sharp with sleeplessness and pain. “Save your fucking breath. I’m not one of your clients. You don’t need to manage my expectations.”
“I’m sorry.” The words felt inadequate, childlike. “I’m so fucking sorry, Nikki. Not for the system, or the… the offer. I’m sorry for how I hurt you. For letting you walk in on that. For not being who you thought I was. Or who I thought I was.”
The silence on the end was different now. Not just empty. It was listening.
“I took it,” he continued, the words tumbling out. “The keys to all this. The whole sick, beautiful, terrifying thing. And you were right. For a minute, I felt like a fucking king. For a minute only. Then I just felt like a thief. I stole my own fucking soul, Nikki. And I saw it walk out the door with you.”
He heard a sniff, sharp and quick. Was she actually crying? The idea of it carved a hole in his chest.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” He confessed, sinking onto the couch. “Coco made me… she gave me a lesson this morning. On focus. On pleasure. It was the most intimate thing I’ve ever done, and it had nothing to do with me getting off. It just showed me how far I have to go. How much I used you all as mirrors, just to see my own reflection.”
“Stop.” Her voice was thick. “Just… stop. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to have your epiphany and use me as the fucking catalyst. I’m not your damn redemption arc, Jason.”
“I know that. I’m not asking for that. I’m just… apologizing. To you. To the version of me that was in your car. That version deserved you. This one doesn’t. I know that.”
Another long pause. He could hear city sounds behind her—a horn, distant voices. She was somewhere outside.
“What are you going to do?” she finally asked, the fight gone, replaced by a weary curiosity.
“Meet Ariadne tonight. See how this works. And then… I don’t know. Try to build something that isn’t a monument to my own insecurity. Something that might actually help someone, without destroying them.”
“You’ll fail,” she said, but it wasn’t malicious. It sounded like a prediction, maybe even a concern.
“Probably. But I have to try. Otherwise, last night… you… it was all for nothing. Just a sad guy’s expensive crash course in being an asshole.” Jason said, with a sad tone.
A faint, almost imperceptible sound—maybe the ghost of a smile. “You were always an asshole. You were just a sweet one.”
The line crackled with everything unsaid. He wanted to beg her to meet him. He wanted to tell her to run and never look back. He did neither.
“I have to go,” she said softly.
“Nikki… thank you. For the pizza. For the masterpiece. For seeing something that wasn’t fully there.”
“Bye, Jason.”
The call died. He held the phone to his ear for a long time, listening to the hollow silence. It was over. Truly over. A clean, surgical cut. It hurt way more than the chaotic wound of last night.
The pain was a catalyst. It burned away the paralysis. He stood, walked to the laptop Coco had left, and entered the first encryption key from Ariadne’s email.
The screen bloomed with data. It was vast, very meticulous, and very chilling. Client profiles with coded ratings. Financial streams routed through shell companies. Dossiers on women—not just the ones he knew, but dozens more. Photographs, preferences, psychological notes, payment schedules. It was a library of human longing, catalogued and monetized.
He read for hours, nauseated and fascinated. He saw Marcus’s profile, noted as “Graduated - Stable Marriage.” He saw his own early profile: “Subject J: High empathy, zero frame, virgin. High-potential long-term asset.” He was a stock, a pet project. He scanned the profiles of the women he knew. Next to Ella’s name: “Nurturer archetype. Ideal for first sexual contact and emotional grounding.” Next to Sky: “Novelty-seeker. Low attachment likelihood. Useful for variety.”
He slammed the laptop shut. His hands were shaking. This was the reality now. This was the machine. His idealism curdled, replaced by a cold, clarifying rage. Ariadne had played him, shaped him, from the very first click he made.
The coordinates led to an old warehouse in the industrial docks. The taxi dropped him off in a landscape of shadows and sodium vapor lights. A single door stood ajar, a slash of yellow light bleeding onto the cracked asphalt.
He stepped inside. The space was cavernous, mostly empty. In the center, under a single hanging work lamp, stood Ariadne. She was dressed in simple black trousers and a sweater, her hair tied back. She looked like a project manager. Beside her was a tall, severe-looking woman with a tablet. And behind them, arranged on a worn leather sofa, were three new faces.
“Jason. You’re punctual.” Ariadne’s voice held no warmth, no seduction. This was business.
“This is the inventory?” he asked, his voice harder than he intended.
“These are associates,” she corrected, a flicker of warning in her eyes. “The operational core. Maya handles logistics and security.” The woman gave a curt nod.
“And these three are your new baseline. You’ve met the others. These represent unmet… appetites.”
He looked at the women on the sofa. One was a stunning Latina, her gaze confident and assessing—Ashley. Another was a blonde, muscular yet soft, with hungry eyes—Amanda. The third was a tall, voluptuous black woman who stared at him with an unnerving intensity—Angela.
“We’re not here for a social call,” Ashley said, crossing her legs. “Ariadne said you’re taking over. We’re here to understand the new management.”
“And to see what you’re made of,” Angela added, her voice a low purr.
“The transition requires a… consolidation ritual,” Ariadne said smoothly. “A physical affirmation of the new hierarchy. For them. For you.”
Jason understood. This was another test. A primal one. He wasn’t being asked. He was being told. The cold rage in his gut found a purpose. If this was the language they spoke, he would answer it.
“I understand.” He said, shrugging off his jacket. “But we do it my way.”
He walked to the center of the light pool. He pointed at Angela. “You. You’re first.”
She rose, a smile playing on her lips. She sauntered over, her hips swinging. “You wanna be in charge, baby? Show me.”
He didn’t touch her. “Get on your knees. Take my cock out. And look at me while you do it.”
Her eyes widened, then darkened with arousal. She knelt, her fingers deftly undoing his jeans. She freed his erection, already thick and heavy from a mix of adrenaline, hurt, and fury. She took him into her mouth with a slow, theatrical reverence, her eyes locked on his.
“Suck it. Suck it like you mean it. Like your next breath depends on it,” He commanded, his voice flat.
She obeyed, her head bobbing with desperate, deep strokes. He watched dispassionately, his hands at his sides. This wasn’t pleasure. This was a pure demonstration or an audition. After a minute, he fisted her brunette hair and pulled her off with a wet pop.
“Enough. Stand up. Turn around. Let me see that ass. Bend over. ”
She was panting, her lips swollen. She assumed the position, her dress hiked up, exposing her bare ass. He didn’t bother with foreplay. He spat onto his hand, slicked himself, and drove into her in one brutal thrust.
She screamed, a raw sound of exquisite shock. “FUCK! YES! GOD, IT’S SO DEEP!”
He fucked her furiously, as if he was punishing the world, each slam of his hips a rejection of Ariadne’s files, of Nikki’s pain, of his own naivete. He gripped her hair, yanking her head back, arching her spine. “You like this? You like being used like a slut?” He said, spanking her ass cheeks.
“YES! HARDER! I’M YOUR SLUT! YES!” she roared back, pushing against him.
He saw Amanda watching, her hand rubbing frantically over her own jeans. Ashley’s cool composure had cracked, her lips parted. Ariadne watched, an analyst noting data.
He came inside Angela with a grunt, pumping his pent up aggression and frustration into her. He pulled out, glistening and spent. He turned to Amanda. “You. Amanda. Your turn. Come here. Clean me off.”
Amanda rushed forward, dropping to her knees. She lapped at his softening cock, licking his and Angela’s combined fluids from his skin with a frantic, worshipful hunger. The degradation was the point. It was power, stripped of all pretense of care.
When she was done, he was hard again. He looked at Ashley. “You like control?”
“I do,” she said, standing.
“Then take it. Show me.” He said simply.
A flicker of surprise, then respect, crossed her features. She approached, pushing him firmly back onto a threadbare armchair. She straddled him, still fully clothed, grinding her denim-clad pussy against his naked cock. She leaned close, her breath in his ear.
“You learn fast. Now watch.” She peeled off her tight jeans, then her damp black panties, and sank onto him, taking full control, setting a relentless, demanding pace. She used him like a tool, her orgasm a silent, shuddering event that made her nails bite into his shoulders.
When she finished, she dismounted, dressed, and stepped back into the shadows, her point abundantly made.
Jason sat in the chair, exposed, used, and in charge. The three women stared at him, their energies subdued, rearranged. The ritual was complete.
Ariadne stepped forward.
“The transfer is done, Jason. The assets, digital and physical, are yours. The obligations are now yours. The women in the network will be notified of the change in management. Some will leave. Most will stay, out of curiosity or out of habit. What you build from here is your legacy.”
She handed him a simple metal key. “The safe house. The central location. It’s yours. Maya will remain as a consultant for two weeks, then she is mine again.”
Jason took the key. It was cold. “Why? Why give this to me?”
For the first time, something like genuine emotion touched Ariadne’s face. It looked like exhaustion. “Because even machines need to be retired. And because you might be the only one who’s ever asked ‘why’ before saying ‘yes.’ Don’t let the machine swallow that question.”
She and Maya turned and walked into the darkness, leaving him alone with the three women and the echoing emptiness of the warehouse.
Ashley was the first to speak. “So,” she said, adjusting her shirt. “What’s your first order of business, boss?”
Jason looked at the key in his hand, then at the women. He thought of Nikki’s voice on the phone, weary and final. He thought of the cold data on the laptop. He thought of Coco’s lesson—the power in focus, in giving.
“We’re going to the safe house,” he said, standing. “And we’re burning the files. All of them. We start from zero. You stay if you want. On new terms.”
Angela, still flushed and breathing heavily, laughed. “What terms?”
“Real ones,” Jason said, pulling on his clothes. His body ached, his mind was scraped raw, but for the first time, his path felt clear, even if it led through darkness. “But…We’ll figure them out on the way.”