Nareli was not surprised to find Helga's brothel unchanged. The bitch was not budging. The complete opposite was happening, the woman was digging her nails harder into the place.
Nareli arched an eyebrow when she walked in and found the place in full swing this early in the afternoon. Helga usually opened up for business when the sun went down.
"Good day, good sir," a sweet feminine voice greeted to her left and Nareli got an eyeful of cleavage when she got approached by one of Helga's many working girls.
Josephine was her name if she remembered correctly.
To save the girl some embarrassment, Nareli took off her cap and fluffed out her long locks. As she anticipated, the cleavage show was quickly pulled under wraps when recognition blossomed in the girl's young brown eyes.
"Nareli," Josephine mouthed in surprise and Nareli quickly held a finger to her lips to silence the girl before she could make a scene.
"Where's your boss?" Nareli quietly demanded and Josephine answered without words. The forced sultry look vanished in her eyes and she glanced at the stairs.
There, Helga stood observing everything that happened below by the railing. Then it was like the old bitch sensed her out. Helga frowned when her dark eyes landed on her and Nareli gladly returned the frown.
Then to just fuck with the old bitch, she leaned in close to Josephine and slipped her a few pounds.
"If you want to get off your back quicker, go to the Dolphin Tavern and ask for Nicu. Tell him I send you and he will sort you out with better work. Feel free to spread the word," she quickly whispered and made her way to the stairs before Josephine could say anything else.
Nicu will follow through; he had a thing for putting prostitutes in better circumstances.
"You have some balls showing your face around here," Helga spat when she reached the stairs and Nareli powered up them without retorting back. Good, the bitch took her disappearing act as a sign that they no longer worked together.
Instead, she took in her lay of the land and she was pleased to discover that Helga was alone near the railing and she went to work.
"True but my balls are a lot smarter than yours, Helga. Ignoring a Delaney's demands to leave?" Nareli tsked.
"We have an arrangement, Mr Delaney and I," Helga folded her arms and Nareli rolled her eyes.
"Killing him won't solve your problems, you old foolish bitch."
Helga's nostrils flared at the insult and she stormed over until she stood nose to nose with Nareli.
"Get out, you half-bred bastard or…
"Or, you'll what?" Nareli snapped with sarcasm.
"Or, you'll be next!" Helga warned with deadly promise. "And how the hell do you know about my arrangements?!"
Instead of backing away with fear, Nareli chuckled at the threat before she flipped her own deadly switch.
One dirty gloved hand yanked Helga's head back by her hair and the other quickly pulled out a knife from her coat.
She rested the blade underneath Helga's right eye and the madam was at a serious disadvantage when Nareli used her body to trap Helga against the railing. She might appear to be curvy in form but underneath all that brown skin of hers was a lot more muscle and strength than Helga had.
Helga quickly learned that when she couldn't break her hold on her and Nareli hushed her struggle by adding pressure to the knife she had at her eyelid.
"I never raise a weapon with false intent, Helga. If I have too, I will use this and I won't lose any sleep over it because in the long run, Winter is better off without you and your establishment," Nareli warned with unflinching eyes and Helga believed her every word. She gulped a little against the blade and a trickle of blood slipped down her cheek.
"You broke our arrangement… what more do you want from me?" Helga forced out.
"Call off your hit on Delaney and do what he says," Nareli ordered.
"And if I don't?" Helga had the guts to ask and she hissed when Nareli tightened the hold she had on her hair while simultaneously dragging her blade down her cheekbone.
She made a nice shallow slice and Helga got another fright to add to her never-ending list. She froze when Nareli quickly moved her bloodied knife to her jugular while she leaned over to lick the blood off her cheek.
"Hmmm…" Nareli hummed and rested her lips near Helga's ear.
"Delaney is not the only beast to haunt this part of London, Helga. But unlike him, I won't just stop with destroying your life here in London. Once I am done with tearing you and your livelihood apart piece by piece, I will follow you into hell after I bleed you dry."
To drive her point home, she forced her tongue down Helga's throat and force-fed her the metallic taste of her blood.
When she eventually eased her hold on the old bitch, Helga shoved her back with a disgusted look on her face and she was compliant in her dark eyes. Nareli barely stumbled while she released another dark chuckle. Sometimes it was fun to play the villain and she got a kick out of it.
"I'm only going to warn you once, Helga but either way, I will have my fun with you. Seeing Delaney boss you around will be amusing," Nareli muttered and Helga spat at her feet.
"Never fuck with a gyspy unless you want too, Helga," Nareli riled her up further with a wink and wiped her knife clean of blood.
Helga growled something else but she didn't pay her any attention while she stormed down the corridor, further into the old shipping offices. Her job was done here. She will use the back exit.
James Delaney did not return to the old Chamber House after the sun went down and as she initially anticipated, Nareli did waste her best suit on the beast.
She gave the grumpy lord of the house a few hours before she gave up on the idea that she will be accompanying him to the Molly House that evening.
So, she settled in and helped her father with preparing dinner. It was a much-relaxed event without James's rough energy and he was not mentioned. Then after a nightcap of whiskey, Nareli went to bath upstairs while her father retired to his room.
The warm bath did wonders to her tense body and was much needed after the last intense twenty four hours she had. She was ready to retire to the living room to sleep in no time and start again.
She kept her time upstairs brief and did not dare to dabble with the spirits and old energy polluting the old Chamber House. Her still bruised throat told her otherwise. Not that she wouldn't dabble with the spirits and energy trapped in the house again, she needed a few weeks to regroup, heal and plan out her next approach. Strategize in a spiritual sense.
After putting on the same nightgown James ordered she should throw out, Nareli collected another blanket to use downstairs.
She wrapped the dark material around herself while she descended the stairs and that was when she caught whiff of a particular odor… fish and seawater?
Perplexed, she went to quickly investigate where the stench was coming from and she found her answer in the living room.
The fireplace was lit and the bulky hunched over shadow did nothing to hide James Delaney sitting by the fire. The more she moved closer, the stronger the stench of fish and seawater got. She had to hold the blanket over her mouth when James finally glanced her way.
He was in nothing but his grey shirt again and he was soaking wet.
"Next time you feel like going swimming, let me know so I can freshen up the house with lavender," Nareli couldn't help but scold him like a naughty child.
James just glared in reply. "And next time you feel like taking my horse gypsy, give the mare red apples. He doesn't eat the core from green ones."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Mr Delaney," Nareli tried to act aloof and she cautiously watched James's strong jaw tighten like he was grinding down on his back molars.
"You are more trouble than you're worth gypsy."
Nareli fought back a smirk at that accurate observation.
"Why do you look like the harbor just spat you out, James?" She asked instead and James went back to glaring at the fire, humming low in reply.
"Acting stupid is not your strong suit, gypsy."
"Neither is yours, Mr Delaney," Nareli quickly replied on reflex but deep inside, she was reeling. She just could not fool this man it seems and it was bruising her pride.
But little did she know but James was starting to feel the same way about his reluctant houseguest.
"Go sleep upstairs, gyspy and let me be," James retorted.
"That I can't do."
"Gypsy," James hissed in warning and against her better judgement, Nareli ignored the dark beast she was provoking with her stubbornness and resumed what she initially doing, which was going to sleep.
James raised his eyebrows when he watched Nareli walk out of the living room and he resumed his staring match with the fireplace. That was easy, he thought.
Or, so he thought when he suddenly heard the shuffle of Nareli's feet walk back into the living room and he tiredly rubbed his temples.
She was his manservant's daughter. He did not want to force her obedience.
"As much as I enjoy playing this little battle of wills game with you, Mr Delaney, I think it will get neither of us anywhere. Nor will it get us closer to what we want."
Nareli's voice droned on through James's ears and he bit back hard on his back molars. He heard the telltale sound of a tray being placed down and he glanced at the contraption out of curiosity.
She brought him a glass of whiskey and a cup of hot lemon tea. Beside the two beverages, he spotted a large container of salt and that was when his resolve started to break.
"Now, may I suggest that you get off your high horse and brood after you tell me why you are soaking wet?" Nareli muttered and held out the cup of hot lemon tea for James to take.
James's icy blue eyes glanced at the cup briefly before they resettled on her form with a darkened expression.
"You did not buy a new nightgown," he hissed and Nareli quickly noticed how the blanket around her shoulders slipped to reveal the top of her barely there nightgown.
A slight smirk traced her lips but quickly fell away she noticed James start to rise out of the chair. Then she acted on pure instinct when James launched for her throat.
She tossed the hot tea on him with a surprised yell and James barely flinched when he tackled her onto the couch but the fight was long from over.
James yelped when Nareli managed to knee him in the groin but he didn't let up like she expected him too. It was like trying to punch a hole through iron.
"Get off me!" She shrieked in hopes of alerting her father when James managed to get a firm hold around her waist and throw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"Father!" Nareli shouted when she couldn't shake James's hold on her and she punched his back repeatedly when he started to move.
James merely grimaced at her hard hits while he carried her towards the stairs.
"James?! What on earth are you doing?!" Brace exclaimed from the top of the stairs when he spotted them, looking half asleep in his nightclothes.
"Tell him to unhand me, father!" Nareli relented angrily and James just heaved her even more over his shoulder while he climbed up the stairs.
"Get the salt, Brace and get a few of my mother's old nightgowns," James thundered with a crazy look in his icy blue eyes.
Not wanting to upset his master, Brace immediately obeyed with a fearful look in his eyes. As soon as Nareli saw this, her fight against James's hold faltered extremely.
Even her old man feared the ground James Delaney walked on, she realised with horror.
The next thing she realised was that she was bouncing on a bed, the same bed she tried to sleep on last night.
James just threw her whole body weight onto the mattress like she weighed nothing.
"Now," James growled and threw the ends of the bed's quilt over her form.
"Take that fucking nightgown off before I do!"
To anyone else, that thunderous shout would spike fear but not with Nareli. Instead… she damned herself for feeling a tad turned on by James's aggressiveness. There was power there and it could all be hers to ride if she chose too. Nareli gulped.
"Well?" James barked with impatience and since she already felt mildly embarrassed by her attraction to James Delaney, she surrendered.
With quick hands, Nareli yanked off her nightgown and used the quilt for cover. James snatched the barely there nightgown and ripped the fabric to shreds.
"You will sleep here and do as your fucking told gyspy!" James growled and he moved to storm out of the room with her shredded nightgown but he didn't get very far.
"I told Helga to stop her assassination attempt on you and since she didn't, she will now pay!" Nareli shouted at his back and James paused mid-step but he didn't turn around.
"She already has, gypsy," James muttered. "Be ready for the Molly House tomorrow evening… I hear they are in need of a painting."
"What the hell are you after James Delaney?!" Nareli demanded in frustration and James finally glanced her way.
"Obey and prove you are worth telling, gypsy."