“I just wanted to say goodbye,” Ravu said softly.
Surprise made Valerie look up at him.
“Oh,” she murmured.
Ravu gave her a small smile and a small shrug. “She was always good to me. I would like to say goodbye before…”
Valerie thought of Celine’s melancholy at the dinner the night before, how she’d stared across her blooming night garden with a semblance of pride but also sadness.
“I see,” Valerie said, feeling her throat suddenly tighten. “Well, all right. If you’re sure, I won’t cancel the visit.”
Ravu nodded, his eyes straying back to Dravka.
“Thank you.”
Silence descended around the Cluster. It felt strained and Valerie wasn’t quite certain what had caused it.
“I’ll go then,” she said quietly, glancing back up at Dravka. Then her cheeks flushed when he pressed a kiss to her lips, in front of Tavak and Ravu.
“Come back tonight,” he murmured in her ear. “Pax?”
Valerie made a small sound in the back of her throat. She might’ve nodded, she wasn’t entirely certain. Regardless, she scurried from the Cluster quickly, pressing the backs of her cool hands to her warm cheeks once she made it to the staircase.
She descended quickly, knowing she needed to dress and make herself presentable before meeting with the transport rep. After this day, more credits would be placed into her account and it would be another weight off her shoulders.
Valerie was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Madame Allegria sitting at the reception desk on the main floor of the lobby.
“Don’t you look…” Madame Allegria started, peering at her over the Nu device in her grip, “chipperthis morning.”
Valerie swallowed, feeling the happiness from that morning turn icy and hard in her belly. Immediately, she felt herself withdraw a little, before she reminded herself that her aunt no longer had power over her. At least not in the way she did before.
“I found my little collection downstairs,” Madame Allegria said. Valerie remembered. The burned whips and ropes she’d left for her to find. Her aunt quirked a brow, her expression even, but Valerie saw the fire in her eyes, the burning embers of fury. “Your doing, I imagine?”
Valerie said, “When we came to that deal, you didn’t need them anymore.”
Madame Allegria’s ruby-red lips pressed together before she released them with a loudpop. Her blue eyes—altered in color—ran over Valerie’s form again. She wished that she was standing in anything other than a silky, short dress, but regardless, she kept her aunt’s hardened gaze.
“Dipping a toe in my Krave pool?” Madame Allegria asked, a small smirk coming over her lips though Valerie still sensed her barely leashed fury underneath the careful words. “Did Dravka make it good for you, at least? I suppose I could charge you. Then again, you’re family. So you get the family discount.”
Valerie stiffened, her breath leaving her in a loudwhoosh.
Suddenly, and strangely enough, Valerie looked at her aunt for the first time and felt…pity.
How did someone become so…somonstrous?
Valerie looked around the lobby of her aunt’s opulent little brothel as silence stretched between them. She heard the tapping of Madame Allegria’s long nails on the Nu device screen, no doubt going over the accounting, something she did quite regularly. She would see that Valerie had been canceling clients ever since they struck their deal.
“What happened to you?” Valerie asked quietly.
Suddenly, the tapping stopped.
When she turned her gaze back to her aunt, she was staring at her, her eyes narrowed, the blue of them flashing.
“Excuse me?” Madame Allegria asked. Her tone was deceivingly pleasant and calm.
“What happened to you?” Valerie repeated. “What happened to you to make you like this? So unnecessarily cruel? So ruthless and uncaring? Sospiteful?”
Madame Allegria’s expression morphed then.
