#Saelya Eltheris

[asteriaspirit]

A Royal Flush

                Caolain’s pulse thundered in his ears. He preferred it there, rushing behind his eardrums rather than winding swiftly down through his body and settling in his pelvis. There was only so many times he could shift in his seat and attempt to cover up the bulge pressing against the seam of his slacks. And this hand would win him no fucking favors—

                “Mmm, I’m thinkin this is a good one too, sweetheart,” Saelya purred while laying her cards on the table between them. He couldn’t help but groan as he spied the royal flush staring back at him. His pulse jumped when his gaze tracked up from the cards to Saelya’s leaning back in her chair, smirking at him like a cat that captured a canary.

                “Yeah, not winning with a three of a kind,” he whispered while laying down his cards as well.

                She tsked, the soft clicks of her tongue sending a potent jolt of desire through him. Lust shot through his veins, hotter and sharper than any black-market whiskey he’d ever tasted. He could almost feel the high at the edge of his awareness, the sweet taste of something forbidden just out of his reach, held there by the siren across the table, shuffling cards.

                “That’s another piece you’re gonna give me,” she murmured, her voice a soft caress that he swore he could feel dance along the back of his neck. Caolain swallowed, his adam’s apple jumping, as goosebumps made the short hairs up and down his bare arms stand up. It was the agreement they had come to, every hand she won divested him of a piece of clothing while every hand he won—

                “You know baby, I can see better if you stood up,” Sae added with a curious tilt of her head, her long red locks falling over her shoulder, the natural curl at the bottom dragging Caolain’s eyes to the swell of her breasts.

                “Stand up?” he parroted while giving himself a small shake, as if that would help him think straight. The only thing he could think about was how soft her skin probably felt against his—

                “Mhm. Right in the middle of the room,” she explained while gesturing with an arch of her eyebrows. “Stand right there, face me, and take off that tie real slow like.”

                A haze of confusion swirled through him and his lips parted in query, but the drumming of Sae’s well-manicured fingernails against the table silenced him. He stood slowly and ambled awkwardly to the middle of the room.

                He was stiff as he turned around, putting the light from the singular lamp in the corner at his back. His shadow stretched across the door, an intangible guard playing sentry to this game between them while his attention centered back onto Saelya. His lifted his hands from his sides, his fingers tugging at the black tie around his neck, yanking it until it unspooled and lay draped across his shoulders.

                “You need a bit of teaching, baby,” Sae chuckled as she leaned across the table and swiped up his gun.

                “Sae, whaddya doing?” Caolain asked as all that warm, buzzing lust inside of him slowly began to ice into fear.

                She looked the gun over with a dispassionate glance, barely noticing the beautiful filigree on the handle. With practiced ease, her thumb found the release and, with a sharp click that echoed through the room, the magazine slid free, heavy with bullets.

                 “Sweetheart, you really think I’d use this on you?” she asked, her brow knitting in mock offense. She set the magazine on the table before pulling back the slide and ejecting the chambered round.

                “I’d like to say no,” he admitted, eyes still pinned to the weapon in her delicate hands. And when she turned it on him, his hands went up, his eyes widening.

                “Is that all you’d like, Mister Leamhan?” she inquired as she stood up, the gun held in her right hand, her left lifting to undo the second and then the third button on her jacket. It opened easily and the silk shirt beneath it stretched alluringly across her chest.

                “I…uh…”

                A blush as red as Sae’s lipstick crawled across his chest and up his throat while his gaze bounced around the room, looking everywhere but at her. Yet he had no choice other than to look at her as she approached, the carpet muffling the sound of her heels, her gaze hooded.

                “I always took you as somebody who knew what they wanted,” she continued softly, his ears straining to hear her, forcing him to lean slightly forward, into the space she occupied right in front of him. He could smell her perfume when she was this close, something light and mouthwatering, and, holy fuck, were her eyelashes always that long—

                “I do,” Caolain answered, but he couldn’t recall what he was agreeing to. Was he answering a question?

                “Oh?” Sae queried, her mouth forming a perfect O that made Caolain’s breath hitch. “Me first.”

                His head jerked in a nod before stopping completely, the muzzle of the gun pressed against the soft underside of his jaw. He froze, his head swimming, a dizzying mix of desire and terror clawing at his ribcage.

                The gun wasn’t loaded. He knew that. He watched her take the bullets out—

                “I know I’d never turn this, or any weapon, on you,” Saelya whispered, her breath warm against his lips. “Not unless you asked real polite like first. And even then, we don’t play with bullets. Right Caolain?”

                “Right,” he answered immediately, the corded muscles in his arms relaxing as he uncurled his fists at his sides. He had to stop himself from reaching out, from allowing his calloused palms to caress over every delicious curve—

                “Right,” Saelya repeated with a smile, her green eyes catching the light and glinting as the corners crinkled. They were beautiful, like jade stones that all those rich types wore in their ears or on their fingers. Vibrant and so deep that he could get lost in them for days—

                “Now, Caolain, are you gonna tell me what it is that you want?”

                Steeling himself, his right hand reached up slowly, his fingertips brushing against her forearm until he reached the back of her hand. Gently, his larger hand closed around hers and he pried the gun from her grip before tossing it onto the bed. Saelya’s gaze followed it and then snapped back to him, a self-satisfied smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.

                “You.”

[asteriaspirit]

Other People's Kids

Not for the first time, Saelya realized, as the painful screaming-whine of one of Heather's children jolted her from sleep, that she didn't want children. Don would roll over in his grave if those words ever actually left her lips, but she had been around them enough to know that, perhaps, they just weren't for her. Marty and Ricky had been cute as children, but living with them day in and day out as their primary caretaker—

“Perhaps this is the wrong time to be asking about this,” Saelya whispered while rolling over in the queen-sized bed, her hooded jade eyes staring intently at Lucius's cheek, “but you aren't interested in a big ol carriage of kids, are ya?”

Lucius grunted a reply, one that Sae couldn't discern the answer of. She frowned, her full lower lip poking out just enough to signal her discontent.

And her fiancé, as his family knew them as, peeked open an eye to look at her before heaving a deep, theatrical sigh.

“Ain't thought about it,” he said, his voice gruff with sleep. “We've kinda had a lot going on recently.”

“Oh, don't I know it,” Saelya muttered, more to herself than him. “But, we only gotta come back on birthdays and holidays. Granted, if all your nieces and nephews got too many lined up, we can just come with gifts on one day—”

“Sae,” Lucius sighed while pinching the bridge of his nose. “It's like seven in the morning—”

“—And if we went about having kids, we'd have to be up so much earlier than even that! Gotta wash em, and feed em—”

“—We'll be going home soon, Sae. I promise.”

[asteriaspirit]

On Love & Dancing

Saelya yanks open the door of Belial's red pickup truck, climbs up into the cab of the vehicle, and slams it closed.

“You don't have to do that!” Belial yells as he rounds the car to the driver's side. “You don't have to slam the fucking doors! I can't pay if the fucking hinges crap out again!”

But, of course, he yanks open his own door, hauls himself into the cab next to his girlfriend, and then slams it closed with a wince. When he glances at her in the passenger seat, she's calmly chewing gum and lifting a well-manicured eyebrow.

“That wasn't on purpose,” he says, sheepishly.

“Why do you do this?” Saelya asks him with a shake of her head. “Why do you put yourself through this shit? I can't keep coming out here because you decide to—”

“I'm making sure you're okay! I hate that you're fucking working here—”

“Well what else am I gonna do Belial? It ain't like they're itching to hire girls without a high school education to make six figures a year.”

“You don't even make six figures a year, Sae.”

“Whatever!” she huffs while throwing her hands into the air. “You know what I mean! You bring your scrawny ass down here—”

“—I'm not fucking scrawny, what are you talking about—“

“—And you get mad when you see me on stage, doing my job!”

“You can get another job where you aren't shaking your ass or your tits in stranger's faces!”

“Not if I wanna make six figures a year!”

“You don't!!!”

Instead of replying, Saelya blows a spearmint bubble with her gum, lets it pop, and then continues chewing. The green of her eyes seems almost catlike with the reflection from the streetlamp and Belial can't help the way his attention wanders over her.

She was barely wearing anything; some sea-shell bra thing that was too small for the bounty that was her bosom and a grass skirt with one of those barely there g-string/thong things beneath it. Her skin shimmered due to the body lotion and spray that all the girls were wearing and her luscious crimson locks were artfully messed with that 'just got out of bed' vibe that was trending.

And Belial hated it. All of it. Even if it was delicious to look at, it left him feeling...hollow.

“If you don't calm down, that vein in your forehead is gonna pop,” Sae tells him with a bored look. “But maybe you dying would be a good thing. Then you wouldn't be around to get all worked up.”

“I wouldn't be around to protect you either. You really want that?” Belial asks while turning forward and placing his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. He grips the worn leather and it squeaks beneath the pressure.

“No, but at least you wouldn't be getting all worked up like you are right now,” Sae whispers and her right hand reaches out to rest on the bulging muscle of his bicep. He exhales at the feel of her warm palm against his bare skin, but the anger still swirled like day old milk in his stomach.

“Baby, lookit you,” she continues while tsking in displeasure. “I hate seeing you like this.”

“I just want you to get a new job Sae, that's all. This isn't safe.”

“Safer than those cement trucks and forklifts and jackhammers you're around all day. There was somebody on the news the other day that was putting up windows in one of those downtown office buildings? The cable snapped and they fell to their death.”

Belial blinks and glances at her, his brows lifting in shock. “Really? I hadn't heard about that.”

“Well, you don't watch the news so I'm not surprised.”

“The only thing I need from the news is to know what type of jacket I need to take with me to work. Everything else is bullshit,” he snorts.

“That is so obviously not true, but whatever,” Sae mutters with an amused shake of her head. “Listen baby, I know you think that you being here is the reason some lunatic ain't carted me off and made a rug outta my skin, but we do have security.”

“I don't think that old guy—”

“—Harvey ain't old! He just hit fifty and he's a retired police man!”

“That now works in a strip club, watching girls shake their shit for free,” Belial grumbles loudly. “So he's an old perv, basically.

Sae smacks her lips together and heaves a long, exhausted sigh. “Baby, you gotta stop coming up here and causing problems. I'm serious. You're gonna get me fired.”

“Good!” Belial nearly bellows, to which Saelya merely blinks and stares at him sans any expression whatsoever. Her hand does, however, drop away from his arm to instead rest with its twin in her lap.

“I'm sorry,” he says with a wince. “I'm not yelling at you, I'm yelling at the situation. Sae, please, I know we've talked about this before—”

“We're making rent and we're even putting up a little bit every month,” Sae interrupts, her voice climbing as well. “Why do we gotta go and try fixing something that isn't broken?”

“It is broken!” Belial immediately refutes while the muscle in his jaw ticks with ire. “I'm not happy about this! I hate it!”

“Belial baby, you hated the last place and the place before that too. There ain't a single club in the city you'd be happy with me dancing at.”

Belial opens his mouth to refute her again, but his brain quickly runs through the many, many clubs he knows only to scratch them off his list. His teeth click together as he closes his mouth.

“See?” Saeyla hums, knowingly. “And don't you say that I ain't been looking for something else because you know I have been.”

Whatever fight had been inside Belial at that moment wheezes out of him like air from a balloon and he shrinks a little in his seat.

“They didn't call you back? That office job?”

“Nope,” she replies, her voice popping the p. She turns in her seat so she's facing forward and her left leg cross over her right knee, the long blades of her grass skirt parting to show creamy french-vanilla skin. Belial drags his gaze up to her face only to realize that she's looking out the window.

“I'm sorry Sae,” he whispers, his hand moving from the steering wheel to the one of the many locks hanging around her head. He tucks it carefully behind her ear. “Something will come through, I'm sure of it.”

“Yeah,” she says, but there's no emotion in her voice. Just a sorrowful resignation that tugs at Belial's stomach.

He opens his mouth to say something more, but Saelya turns around and her hands lift to cup his cheeks, her gaze locking with his.

“That's why I gotta keep dancing baby.”

More of Belial's anger seeps out of him and his eyes flutter closed with a soft sigh. He leans into her touch even as his hands reach out to rest on Sae's narrow waist and gently tug her closer.

“I hate it,” he whispers.

“I know,” she whispers in return.

With ease, Belial drags Saelya across the cab of his truck until she sits in his lap, straddling him. Her hands whisper down the sides of his neck before resting on his thick shoulders. She gives him a gentle squeeze while smiling down at him.

“What I gotta do to stop you from putting yourself through hell when I'm working?” she whispers while leaning forward, her forehead touching his, the mint scent of her gum invading his nostrils.

“Besides find a new job?” he asks while dragging his calloused palms over the curve of her ass, beneath the grass skirt.

“Yes,” she hisses good-naturedly. “Besides that.”

“Can we do this every night?”

“Don't we already do this every night? Without all the...barriers?”

This time, Belial blushes and an easy, confident smirk pressed against his full lips.

“Not what I meant, but I'm not complaining,” he tells her while dragging her hips forward, forcing her against him.

“Yeah, no complaints from you right now, hm?”

“None whatsoever.”

“So you want me to agree to you coming here, making yourself angry, and taking up my lunch brake with these...fun...activities?”

“Sounds pretty selfish when you put it that way though,” he replies with a small frown.

But Saelya giggles and presses her mouth against his, their lips meeting in a familiar, age-old dance. He tastes like the shots of Bourbon he was downing at the bar and the mint from her gum dances across his tongue like fireworks through the sky. She winds one of her hands into the short hairs at the back of his head and one of his massive palms brush against the underside of her sea-shell bra.

“Can't,” she whispers against his lips while tugging his head back. “I gotta get back on stage.”

“Ten minutes?” Belial whispers in reply, his voice a needy whine that matches the sudden thrust of his hips up into hers.

She gasps and her pupils dilate at the same time her low lip fits between her teeth.

“It's never just ten minutes,” she tells him with a sigh. “You don't understand the meaning of a quickie.”

“I never thought I'd hear someone complain about that,” Belial replies with a droll stare.

“Who said I was complaining?” Sae chuckles.

“So...ten minutes?” he implores, his lower lip sticking out in an over-dramatic pout.

“No,” Sae whispers with a shake of her head. “I'm already in hot water because of that shit you pulled earlier. I can't be late getting back.”

Of course, Belial only continues to pout and it isn't until Sae playfully slaps his shoulder that his expression morphs into something more puckish.

“If you can promise that you can be here without being a little ball of rage and swear-words—”

“—I'm not little—”

“—Then I'll agree to sharing my lunch breaks with you.” And to emphasize her point, Sae allows more of her weight to sink down on his lap and she rolls her hips against the tent in his pants.

Belial groans, but he's already nodding his head as the sound leaps from his voice box.

“Okay, deal.”

“Wait, that's it?” Sae asks, the octave of her voice hiking up in surprise. “That's all it takes?!”

“I just want your attention Sae,” Belial tells her and the vulnerability in his words, in his gaze, immediately lessens the humor of the moment. Her hands return to cupping his cheeks and his hands rest over her lower back, the heat of their sudden interlude simmering.

“You have it baby, I promise you,” she tells him before delivering a soft kiss to his forehead. “For as long as you want it.”

“I just—Those guys—”

“I told you before that it'll be a cold day in hell before I end what we have to go chasing after some client. Even if they offer me a thousand dollars.”

“...What about a million?”

“Uh...a million is a lot of money,” Sae says with a playful smirk.

“Our love isn't worth a million dollars?!” Belial gasps, affronted.

“Now who's putting words in whose mouth?”

“It's not just words I wanna put in your mouth, Sae.”

Belial's words immediately catch her off guard and a strawberry blushes pushes against her cheeks. She glances away from him, out the window and her eyes linger on the modernized, two-story gentleman's club across the parking lot. Her job.

“Next time, we won't spend my lunch break squawking at each other and, instead, you can feed me.” She turns back to him with a coquettish smile. “You know I love vanilla milkshakes.”

“Okay, deal. Again.”

Saelya laughs, the first real one she's had all night, and she wraps her arms around his shoulders in what she believes is a bear hug, squeezing him tightly while her breasts press against his chest. Belial doesn't hug her back as tightly, but he does return her affections as a calm settles inside him.

“I love you, Sae,” he whispers into her hair.

“I love you too baby boy,” she whispers against his ear.

[asteriaspirit]

Performance Night

The lights come up.

A spotlight wreaths her in golden light and she sits center stage on a old, wooden chair. Her hair is askew, her makeup smudged, and her eyes are bloodshot from crying. Saelya lifts a hand and drags her palm over the tip of her nose before she sniffles, biting back more tears, stuffing the pain of what happened down.

Because it did happen. Marty had taken his knife and cut her from her hairline, down across the bridge of her nose, to the right corner of her mouth. He had maimed her, the woman who he would eat ice cream with as a child and who helped him wrap birthday and Christmas presents for his mother.

An end table appears next to her, a small silver hand mirror laying there face down. Her hazel eyes dart toward it, narrow, and then glance away, preferring to look out into the audience that is bathed in black and submerged in shadows. She can’t see their faces, how many people are in the chairs tonight, or even if they’re real. She doesn’t care, not really.

“Is this for…a performance?” a disembodied voice asks, the words echoing and rebounding around her.

Sae grits her teeth, the muscle in her jaw standing pronounced against the rat’s nest of her red hair. Her face hurts and the subtle pulse of pain that marches alongside her heartbeat gives her pause.

“It always is,” she whispers while her fingers curl into fists at her sides and her ankles cross right over left in front of her. “All the world’s a stage, and all the folks merely players.”

Fog rolls in from the right side of the stage, an ethereal mist that curls around Sae’s feet and slowly climbs up the legs of the end table. It spills across the top and scampers off toward the left of the stage, wrapping everything in vague, blurred outlines. But Sae’s voice pierces through, even as the mist consumes her.

“God forbid you don’t know your lines,” she says. “How can you perform if you don’t know what to say? How can people bounce off of you, make something interesting, if you’re standing up there, stupid and silent, gawking straight ahead like you’re waiting on god himself to come save you.”

She snorts and there’s the faintest glimpse of her red hair shaking back and forth.

“You can’t. A performance ain’t shit when you got no lines.”

The mist begins to twist and spiral upward, transforming from something translucent to an opaque curtain which hangs between the actress and the audience, neither being able to make out the other.

“Improvise, you may be thinking, right? Say something. Something’s gotta be better than nothing. But if it’s the wrong something, well, that’s just as bad as saying nothing.”

A high-pitched scream suddenly erupts from backstage, but Saelya continues speaking, her voice louder than the wailing, crying, howling feminine voice.

“A truth, you say? The audience loves it when they’re told a truth. But if you’ve only listened to lies your entire life, the taste of a truth is as foreign as oranges to Wood Elves. And some ain’t good enough actors to know what to do with a truth.”

The scream cuts off abruptly into pained whimpering and gasping sobs. Marty’s voice echoes disembodied through the theater—

“Take her home. I’m through with her.”

The roiling, pulsing, shifting curtain of dense mist suddenly drops, showing that the stage has changed entirely. It waterfalls off the stage and into the audience which emits an audible gasp when they realize that Saelya no longer sits center stage, alone.

Instead, a long, formal dining room table sits center stage, the smell of roasted meats, garlic bread, and pasta immediately perfuming the air. Flutes of champagne decorate the table along with a large double chocolate cake and a massive bowl of Caesar salad. All the chairs at the table are empty sans two.

At the head of the table sits Marty Consiglio in his Sunday’s finest. His white suit is pressed, his hair is slicked back, and a lone cigarette sits between his lips, the end of it smoking faintly. And his eyes are narrowed at the lone figure across from him—

A beautiful woman in a dark black pantsuit, a shimmering alabaster shirt, the collar spilling out over the coat. Her luscious red locks are pulled back into a tight ponytail of which ringlets fall down to her shoulders, gently kissing her collarbone. Her left hand holds a cigarette between her index and middle finger while her right arm is extended out in front of her, that hand’s fingers curled around the handle of a beautiful, albeit familiar, gun.

And Saelya’s hazel eyes glow faintly with unsuppressed power. And rage.

“What’s the next line, Martin?”

[asteriaspirit]

Ego Death

Stupid girl.

Saelya’s eyes flutter open to the dim shadows that still clog her room. The curtains are drawn, a sliver a sunlight barely peeking through and warming the wooden floor of her bedroom. She stares straight ahead, her red locks askew on her pillow, her eyes red and puffy from a night of crying.

Her face aches. Her head throbs. Her wrists and forearms hum with agony. She drags her knees up to her chest and curls tighter into a protective ball.

There’s a part of her that wants to believe that last night as was a dream, a horrible nightmare that now she can wake up from. But as she shifts slightly beneath the weight of her comforter, her delicate fingers lifting to her hairline, she can feel the beginning of the wound there. And she traces it down, across her forehead, over the bridge of her nose, around her right nostril and then down to the corner of her mouth.

Not a dream. Not even a nightmare. It was real; what Ricky Consiglio did to her, a boy she had watched grow up into a man, was not the product of a fever dream or a night trying out cocaine with her boys.

She hadn’t stopped him. She hadn’t moved or even voiced a complaint, a denial, because she thought she meant something to him. Marty had always said she was family, even after the bullshit with their father, and Saelya had believed—had mistakenly believed that Marty’s love for her extended to his brother. Even now.

Stupid, stupid girl.

She can hear footsteps alongside the hushed, masculine voices of her boys just beyond her bedroom door. However, she doesn’t move. She doesn’t attempt to remove herself from this cocoon of blankets and self-loathing that has wrapped her so snuggly. Instead of calling out to them, her lips press together, tightly, only for the scar to tug uncomfortably and a hiss to worm its way out nonetheless.

Her memory circles back to the last night, to the warehouse and the fire and Ricky’s dagger. Up until the moment he pressed the tip of the blade to her skin, she didn’t think he’d do it. And when he had, when it sliced open her flesh like freshly baked bread, she had screamed at him, cried, pleaded even. And it hadn’t mattered. He hadn’t stopped.

The Don would be proud.

And then—

A knock sounds on her door.

“Sae?” Lucius calls out, the words slightly muffled.

In response, Saelya’s long eyelashes flutter and she blinks as if coming back to herself. But she doesn’t open her mouth, doesn’t attempt to stretch out her limbs, shake the lethargy from her svelte body, and go to the door. The mere thought of opening it, of having them see her, of anyone seeing her…

Her stomach churns and she convulsively swallows. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t—allow anyone to—

“We, ah, got you a…cinnamon raisin—”

“Are you sure that’s what she even likes?” Collin’s words cut in and she can hear the way he exhales them along with the smoke from his cigarette.

“She got it the last time we were there.”

It was cruel, to not answer or acknowledge them, but Saelya simply didn’t have the energy.

“It’s…we’ll put the bag in the kitchen for you,” Lucius tells her through the door.

More footsteps, this time leading away.

More hushed anxious voices drifting beneath her bedroom door.

More tears wet the silk pillow beneath her cheek as she closes her eyes and drifts back to sleep.

[asteriaspirit]

Identity

The morning had started so beautifully.

Saelya had awoken just as the audio mystery drama she enjoyed listening to was starting and instead of getting up and getting dressed and making herself something to eat, she lounged in the bed and listened to the actors coming through her tiny radio. She grinned and laughed and gasped at all the appropriate moments and when the studio applause rang through her apartment, an hour had passed and she was no closer to getting up and getting her day started than when she awoke.

But she felt amazing.

Last night had been difficult, as it tended to be whenever she was with Mister Stilwell and Caolain, but they had done something...good in the end. At least, that was what Mister Stilwell would like her to believe. There was a part of Sae's brain that was sure that things could've been settled via some form of communication or a deal, perhaps even a little bribery, but when you're outgunned two-to-one, you just fall in line, smile, and clean up the blood.

There would be consequences for their actions last night, but the morning was too beautiful to think about them right now.

As Saelya gets dressed for the day, she does well not thinking about what is to come other than going down to The Big Shot that evening and seeing Marty and Ricky and explaining to them how much she was not involved in their business anymore. She couldn't be involved in their business anymore. And while it would make sense to talk to the Don personally, she did hope that the brothers might pass along her message and, come Sunday's family dinner, everyone would be laughing at her paltry attempts at navigating “mob business”.

...She wouldn't call it mob business.

And things would go back to normal!

The kitchen is cozy. It's clean, everything neatly placed away, cups in the cupboard, plates next to them, the sink spotless and shining in the morning sunlight. A piece of paper sits innocently atop the island counter, the slightly yellowed parchment a stark difference from the white mica.

Saelya frowns and pauses in the doorway. Two nights ago, she sat at this very counter and looked over the exceedingly intimidating package for employment at the Hannover Building, but that was now shoved away in the top dresser of her room. It was unlike her to leave anything out in her apartment when she finally turned in for bed. Goosebumps flit up and down her exposed arms and she chances a glance around, as if the culprit of whoever came into her home last night was still around.

They weren't, obviously.

Her heels click against the linoleum flooring as she slowly makes her way toward the counter. She hesitates behind the bar stools and her upper body leans forward, eyes drawn down to the tiny, neat print in familiar handwriting.

“Water? Electricity? What—”

Her voice sounds small in the quiet of her kitchen and her heart picks up a quick staccato against her rib cage. She can feel her mouth begin to dry out the more she reads and the quicker she understands what this little innocent piece of paper was for.

The bill is not signed. There is no date by which to pay this amount and no individual listed that she can talk to about paying, well, anything. And though she has something close to this amount stashed away in a small box beneath her bed, the idea of using it to pay for this feels...abhorrent. She had never had to use her money from The Big Shot to pay anything. The boys had always bought her whatever she desired and she had never had to worry about paying rent for her apartment.

Honestly, she hadn't ever thought about it before this moment.

She slides onto the leather bar stool at the counter and her fingers gently pick up the piece of paper. Her eyes continue to roam up and down the little column, tracing every expense to the correct gold and silver amount. Tears prick the corners of her eyes and a small whimper makes her throat tighten.

But she was out! The Don had to know that she was out! She wasn't going to stick her nose where it didn't belong anymore. She told them, both Lucius and Caolain. She couldn't put herself at risk anymore—couldn't put her lifestyle in danger.

But, who was she if not this woman who lived in Little Olympia, with her nice apartment and clothes and food and friends who would come out to see her sing? The Consiglio's weren't her family, not by blood, but they had meant something to her and she had come to rely on them, perhaps more than smart. But without them, without this—what was she to do?

...Perhaps there would be no laughing at Sunday dinner.

“It's a mistake,” she whispers to herself. “Pops just doesn't know. That's—that's it. I'll go and tell him, tell the boys—we'll smooth all this out and it'll be one big ol' mistake.”

She dabs at the corners of her eyes, careful with her makeup, before standing up and turning around. She hadn't planned to go to the speakeasy so early, but it was mandatory now.

She had to get this entire thing cleared up, and quickly.

[asteriaspirit]

Leashed

TW for talk about physical violence against women. Saelya belongs to me, Belial belongs to a long-time cowriter friend.

The door snicks closed, and the cool shadows of the room press against her cheeks. Her shoulders lower, her fingers unclench from her sides, and she allows herself a breath, just one, before she turns around to face him. “Sae—” “I’m fine,” she says, her tone as sharp as the sword he could manifest in his prosthetic hand. His brow tenses and he takes a step forward, his hands lifting as if he’s prepared to placed them on her shoulders and shake some sense into her. But Saelya takes a step back and her hazel eyes narrow at him, the challenge there sparking deep within the iris. Belial grunts and points a finger at her, the anger he feels making the enclosed space of what used to be her office begin to heat. “You aren’t fine,” he growls. “I am if I say I am, sugar, and you ain’t gonna tell me no different.” “Sae, would you just let me help—” “Help me how, Belial?” He winces at the use of his name and his adam’s apple jumps with the force of his swallow. “Are ya helping as you watch me get passed around and beat by those goons you answer to? Are ya helping by agreeing to go wherever your new lady in charge tells you to?” Sae snorts and quickly shakes her head back and forth, the motion enough to push down the raw, ragged feelings of hurt that attempt to break from her ribcage. His hand shoves back through the short black hair atop his head and he pivots away from her for a moment, paces to the door, and then returns, the space between them eaten up by his long strides. “I’m doing this for you!” he tells her, his voice dropping to a rushed whisper that is filled with the crackle of his rage. “The only way I can get close—The only way I can take this whole fucking organization down is—” “So this is the lie you tell yourself at night,” Sae murmurs, cutting him off and leaning toward him so the tip of her nose can brush against his. Her voice drops as well, another feverishly quick rush of words. “And now you’re believing it.” “It ain’t a lie,” Belial snaps, the vein that crawls up the side of his throat bulging beneath his weathered skin. “I’m not leaving you, I’m not giving up, and I’ll see these fuckers out of your home if it’s the last thing I do.” Saelya doesn’t keep his gaze. She pulls back, steps back, and crosses her arms over her chest just as a knock comes from the door. “Cuz? We gotta head over to the Roost. There’s still some folks—” “I’ll be out when I’m good and gods damned ready!!” Belial roars over his shoulder. But he stands up all the same and when his attention returns to the redhead courtesan, she sneers at him. “Go,” Sae whispers, one hand lifting and shooing toward the door. “Your handler is calling. I ain’t the one holding your leash anymore. And, honestly, I probably never was.”