Page 84 of Evil Queen

Nathan

“Igotta say,” Alistair said, “this is not what I was expecting when I imagined this moment.”

All of the members of The Royal Court except for Brayden were sitting on the couches in the living room, watching as Kyle and Cherri sat in the middle of the floor, sobbing at one another while attempting to blubber out words. They’d been at it for about twenty minutes and were showing no signs of stopping.

“Yeah,” Avery said. Her arm was now wrapped, but that wasn’t stopping Alistair from holding her as gingerly as he could to keep from jostling it. “I’m the heartbroken best friend, and Colette got her ass kicked.”

“I’m sorry!” Cherri screeched.

“It’s okay,” Kyle whined back, and they hugged and continued sobbing.

“Why are they the ones?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Remember how we were talking about Kyle being the one who held it together and kept us all in line? Remember, we said he didn’t break down like the rest of us did?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Nathan responded.

I held a hand out toward Kyle. “This is what happens when you repress your emotions.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Colette said. She was sitting on Jaxon’s lap side-saddle with her head resting on the top of his head. He hadn’t let her go since the fight ended. “Cherri’s been repressing all of her emotions, too, so they’re just a superstorm right now.”

“Oh my god!” Sicily screamed from upstairs, his voice echoing through the house.

“I guess Sicily likes his bedroom,” Nikita joked.

“What’s in it?” Jaxon asked.

I leaned against Nikita, and she opened her arms so that I could lay back against her. One of her hands combed into my hair to scratch my head. “One wall is lined with computers, and I got him the best CPU I could find. It’s also all noise canceling in there because he has a fuck-ton of siblings, so I figure he’ll probably enjoy some peace and quiet from time to time.”

“That’s so considerate, Nathan,” Avery said. “I really wish those idiots hadn’t ruined everything.”

“Are you sure you can trust the people who you got to pick them up?” Alistair asked. “Aren’t you worried that your dad still has control over everyone you’ve worked with in the past?”

The people I’d called to come and take the goons who attacked us were a woman by the name of Anisa and a man by the name of Cobalt. They were former undercover agents for the FBI and were the same two people I called to help discreetly take care of my mom after her murder. Anisa specifically had hung around my family a lot since she was one of my dad’s cleaners, but she saw the way he treated me and hated him for it. As I got older, she would frequently tell me that if I ever needed her help with anything to let her know, and I often thought she was referring to just killing my dad for me.

“No, the people I called have no loyalty to him. In fact, they hate him,” I said.

“So why didn’t you just tell them about the guys following us as soon as we noticed it and let them deal with it?” Colette asked.

“Because they’re cleaners, not fighters. Until there was a mess to clean up, they weren’t of a whole lot of use to us,” I explained.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” Alistair said. “Is your dad a mafia don?”

I snickered. “What?”

“Well, you’re using fucking words like cleaners and fighters, and everyone in this goddamn town is terrified of him. Hell, by extension, they’re terrified of you and all of us. I mean, he uses his money to get what he wants, and when that doesn’t work, he resorts to violence, even killing people. He killed his own wife and was about to kill his own son,” Alistair explained. “Sounds pretty mobster to me.”

“Uh, I think we might be close cousins of the mobster. We are white-collar crooks,” I said, and everyone chuckled. “Yeah, my dad uses intimidation tactics, but he’s a coward. That’s why I haven’t seen his face. We’re learning how to fight back and defend ourselves, and he doesn’t know what to do. All that power my dad exercised over me came from his ability to terrify me into falling in line, but I’m not doing that anymore, and I have all of you guys with me, so he’s panicking. He’s upset that I picked a woman who knows how to swing a blade better than I do.”

“I’ll slice his fucking throat when I get the chance,” Nikita growled in response.

Cherri wiped her eyes, then wiped Kyle’s eyes, and she turned to face us. She seemed exhausted, but for the first time in months, as we looked at her, she seemed closer to her normal self. “Fuck, you guys, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. I’m such a shitty person. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make it up to you guys.”

“Oh my god,” Alistair moaned. “No. We just went through this with Nathan, and it took him like six months to get through it.” He looked over at Avery with legitimate concern on his face. “I don’t want to have another self-pitying friend. I can’t do it. I’m so tired.”

Avery burst out laughing as she wrapped an arm around Alistair’s head and gently patted it. “It’s okay, honey. Calm down.”

Colette started to laugh too. “Oh my god. We are so destroyed from this year. We all need therapy and lots and lots of sleep.”

---