“I don’t deserve that. I didn’t abuse my husband.”

“Did you fuck your last husband to death? His kids seem to think so.”

“My last husband died of cancer. Cancer I nursed him through. We didn’t have sex once the last year of his life—he was too sick.”

“Maybe if you didn’t marry a rich man thirty-five years older than you, you would have gotten a little more sympathy from his kids—his kids who are older than you, I noticed.”

“His children are vultures who hated him for divorcing their poor sainted mother. They only wanted his money. I was his wife, his lover, his nurse and his domme. Of course he changed his will to give me everything when he died.”

“That’s a very sweet, sad story. Should I call the Orange County Sheriff’s Department now and tell them where you’re living so the process server can finally deliver that subpoena you’ve been hiding from? Your late husband’s children would like their day in court over the will.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

“You might win the case. Sounds like it’s a stalemate right now. The estate’s in limbo until you turn up.”

“I won’t win. Doesn’t matter that I was his wife, that I took care of him while he was dying. We met at a kink club. I was his dominatrix. I will be laughed out of that courtroom and you know it. True, I can’t get his money while I’m hiding, but neither can his kids, and that’s good enough for me.”

“I could tell them where you are.”

“Are you going to?”

“You have Thorny’s phone so I’m willing to make a trade. My silence for his secrets? And my secrets. And my priest’s secrets.”

“I don’t even know your priest’s real name. You have me at a disadvantage.”

“It wouldn’t take long to find out the real name of the one and only six-foot-four blond priest in the area. There aren’t that many priests to go around anymore. His personal life’s never been exposed because Kingsley protects him, I protect him and our community protects him. We keep each other’s secrets out of respect for each other. You have no respect for our community.”

“I have to take care of myself. I have to take care of my grandmother. There’s no one else to do it for me. And when my best customer leaves me for you, I have to take care of business.”

“Talel has every right to see who he wants to see. If his father found out he was a submissive who paid women to dominate him, he’d be cut off and exiled. You think a domme who regularly blackmails her clients is the right domme for someone in that position?”

“I have to take care of me.”

“Then it’s your decision. I leave it up to you. You ruin Thorny’s life or mine or my priest’s, and I ruin yours. Or you can give me back Thorny’s phone and shut down your fear factory. We all walk away with our secrets still safe. Fair enough?”

Milady rubbed her temple with two fingers. In her vanilla clothes in this vanilla setting she looked nothing like the fierce whip master Nora had seen that night at the Body House. She looked weary and scared, human. Nora almost pitied her.

“You have it so easy,” Milady said, dropping her hands to her sides. “You have no idea how hard I had to work to get where I was. And you show up out of nowhere with the King of the Underground at your side. You punch a man in the nose like a fucking brute and suddenly you’re the queen? I spent two years learning how to work whips in tandem. I apprenticed at a dungeon cleaning cum stains off carpet and blood off needles to learn my trade and you just waltz right in and take it all. You’re not even a domme. You’re a switch. A spoiled switch. Your priest sold his hair to buy you a gift. What have you ever sold for anyone?”

“I certainly never sold my clients’ secrets to save my own ass.”

Milady gave her a threatening look. She took a step forward but Nora didn’t step back. She held her ground. She hoped and prayed this wouldn’t turn into a fight. But if it did...well, it was a good thing Nora kept those brass knuckles on her. She might need them.

“Wait,” Milady said, raising her hand. Nora waited.

Milady walked back into her house and came back out with a padded envelope. She passed it to Nora.

“Thorny’s phone. I will forget everything I know about him, you and your priest, as long as you conveniently forget everything you know about me. The minute a process server shows up at my door, I’m making phone calls. Deal?”

“Deal,” Nora said taking the envelope from her. “Have a lovely day. I’d say I’ll see you around but you’re banned from King’s clubs.”

“Your ‘king’ can go fuck himself.”

“He probably would if he could figure out how. You could try being a little nicer. You know, not blackmailing your clients. I like my clients even when I’m beating them and calling them pathetic little boys. I respect them, and they respect me.”

“I loved my husband. I respected him. Every other man is just a paycheck.”

“Now you know.”

“Now I know what?”

“Now you know why your clients keep coming to me. They’re not paychecks. They’re people.”

“I might believe you if you didn’t charge two thousand dollars an hour. Go top somebody for free and then lecture me about treating clients like people.”

“I did top somebody for free,” Nora said with a grin. “Today even.”

“Who?”

“You,” Nora said. “Now behave. I wouldn’t want to have to punish you. But I will if I have to. Say ‘Yes, Mistress’ if you understand.”

Milady’s entire small frame vibrated with barely concealed fury.

“Yes, Mistress,” she said.

“Good girl.” Nora winked. Then she turned and started toward her car.

“What’s it like?” Milady called out after her. Nora turned around.

“What is what like?”

“Being loved like you are.”

“I told you. I take care of my clients and they—”

“Not your fucking clients. Him. Your priest. He sold his hair to me to buy you a gift. My husband had a fetish, and I was the embodiment of it. But he didn’t really love me. He respected me, cared about me. But it wasn’t love. What’s it like being loved like that?”

Nora answered in a word.

“Exhausting.”

Once in her car, Nora called Juliette and had her dig up Thorny’s address. She arrived a little after nine and prayed he was home and not out on a job with a client. She tried not to think about how much it hurt knowing he’d fucked her solely to blackmail her. He’d used her and Nora wasn’t a fan of getting used. Not like this anyway. She did the using, not the other way around. It wouldn’t have hurt nearly so much except she’d enjoyed it, enjoyed having a boyfriend for a day, enjoyed waking up with someone in her bed and cooking breakfast together and changing the sheets and watching TV on the couch. It had all been an act, but it had been a good act and maybe she was just angry at herself for wanting something she couldn’t have so much she’d fallen for the act.

She knocked on the door to Thorny’s apartment and waited. He opened it and she saw the fear on his face when he looked at her.

“Crisis averted,” she said, and handed him his phone.

“Oh, thank fuck.” He kissed his phone and shoved it into his pocket. “Thank you.”

“Take this, too,” she said. “It’s Milady’s driver’s license. It’s expired but that’s still her address. Don’t use it to hurt her. She’s agreed to back off all of us. But it’s insurance.”

“You’re a goddess, Mistress.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I’m leaving? That’s something you don’t know.”

“Leaving?”

“I told Nadia what happened. She was freaked out but not angry. She said that the big hospital out in Seattle offered her a job a while back. They still want her. She’s going to take it so we’re moving out there. Fresh start where nobody knows who I am.”

“Good idea. Seattle’s beautiful. Just watch out for volcanoes.”

“I already have this waiting to erupt in my head,” he said, tapping his temple. “What’s one more volcano?”