Chapter 299: To Deflower a Cage
A total silence fell over the room. The thirteen women present remained motionless, their eyes fixed on the phone, as if they expected Harlan’s voice to come out again and scream about betrayal.
They couldn’t believe that the Red Zone boss had swallowed such a huge lie, that he had capitulated so easily to the giant’s words.
Nash, unfazed, simply crossed his massive arms over his chest, speaking with disconcerting normality.
"His own paranoia is his worst enemy," Nash began in a calm voice. "Now he’s completely dependent on me. The guy thinks he’s leading the dance, but he just put a rope around his own neck."
All the girls, both the main Baby-Boom and the substitutes, were gradually understanding just how much of a master manipulator the giant standing in front of them was, a sharp strategist capable of twisting the mind of a hardened criminal by simply using his own vices against him.
But the biggest upheaval was happening at the front. Victoria, sitting on the edge of the couch, could no longer stay in denial. All her barriers and doubts had just collapsed. She had just watched Nash manipulate Harlan live, building before her eyes a surgically precise plan to give her her very first real, and truly effective, weapon against her twisted half-brother.
She had never been this close to being both free and capable of landing a fatal blow on Hector. And all of it was happening while she had doubted him, a legitimate doubt given her personal history, but the results were there, carved into the documents lying on the table.
Victoria slowly lowered her eyes, biting her lower lip in silence. A deep feeling of liberation began to grow inside her, mixed with an increasingly heavy fascination for Nash.
The Baby-Boom girls, for their part, were far too used to the radical workings of Apex corporations and the dark side of the Upperworld to relax so quickly.
"Nash... please, tell us what’s going to happen now," Kai asked in a hesitant voice. "What’s our fate? Where are we going?"
"Are we really safe here?" another sub added. "What will Madame Monique do if we don’t go back to the hotel?"
Nash let a slight smile filter through his black cloth.
"Relax. Apex no longer has any legal control over you. Your licenses have changed hands. But to avoid a bloody backlash, you’re going to have to stay hidden in this villa. Your job is to destroy everything on the court and create an indestructible media shield through your popularity. As long as the league’s spotlights are on you, no one will be able to touch you without triggering a scandal. Until then..."
He paused for a second, thinking silently, before deciding not to say anything more. He figured he had already paid too high a price in the past for explaining his plans too early. This time, the rest of the operation would stay underwater.
"Anyway. Just follow my instructions to the letter and blindly trust me. The rest is my business."
Emotion then overwhelmed the group. The girls showed an almost divine regard for the giant, their hands clenched and their faces wet. Several subs rushed toward him, openly crying against his massive chest to release years of terror.
Miko covered her mouth with a trembling hand, her wide eyes filled with tears. Kai, for her part, was shaking all over.
"But what are you even talking about...?" Kai cracked, her voice broken by the sobs she could no longer hold back. "You come out of nowhere, and you just say it’s over like that? That they can’t do anything to us anymore? How is that even possible? Just how... Ah, you’re pissing me off!"
She angrily wiped her tears with the back of her hand, staring at Nash with a mixture of frustration and immense gratitude, almost complaining against a miracle that was too big for her.
Beside her, Hina cried more delicately, letting the tears run down her cheeks without hiding her face. She slowly approached Nash, her hands clasped together.
"Thank you, Nash..." Hina murmured, her lips trembling, before adding in a whisper, "...I’m still sorry for taking the opportunity when you were drunk to fuck you the other day..."
At these words, Zayela, who had been moved by the scene, suddenly straightened up, her eyebrows furrowed.
"’S’cuse me, what???" she, waiting for an explanation that Nash dodged by avoiding eye contact.
Surrounded on all sides by the subs and players crying with relief, Nash caught sight of Aiko standing back. The small idol was crying softly too. When their eyes met, she gave him a gentle smile, the kind that belonged to her dere side.
Nash smiled back at her, a silent exchange in the middle of the chaos. It was then that Rei stepped forward. The captain, the proud ice queen of Baby-Boom, took a heavy step onto the carpet.
She who had been the most virulent, the most suspicious, and the most insulting toward him since their first meeting, was now trembling in every limb. Her tall mannequin-like frame seemed to have shrunk under the weight of guilt.
Her ice-blue eyes, usually so cold they could freeze a man on the spot, were now flooded with tears.
All her past in the Underground, her hatred of men, and her fear of seeing her girls end up in the Spires brothels had just shattered against the reality of what Nash had accomplished. She bowed with dignity, a reverence that was almost humiliating for her elite player pride, breaking her armor in front of everyone.
"Nash... I treated you like a monster. I insulted your worth and doubted your intentions," Rei began, her voice trembling. "And despite that, you put your life and career on the line to tear us away from Monique and the hell of Apex. We owe you a lifetime debt. A sacred debt. I offer you my life, my body, my freedom... Do whatever you want with me. I belong to you."
Nash frowned, a deep look of boredom, almost disgust, twisting his lips.
"Like seriously... You have a serious problem, Rei," Nash cut in sharply. "I’m genuinely starting to believe you’re the cause of all your problems, always wanting to be chained or indebted to someone. I didn’t get you out of Harlan’s cage to build you another prison here. I don’t need slaves and I refuse your offer. It disgusts me."
Rei remained frozen, eyes wide, her pride wounded by a refusal that had actually given her dignity back.
"But Nash, you don’t understand!" Rei insisted, her eyes showing her distress as she half-stood to plead. "We can’t just accept this without giving anything in return! It’s impossible in the Underground! Please, take what we have, take me if you have to, but let us buy back our freedom! We can’t live with the weight of such a gift!"
Nash refused with a wave of his hand, turning his head in annoyance.
Victoria, observing the scene from her corner, felt a heavy discomfort facing this raw emancipation. She realized that Nash was building something that neither the Upperworld nor the Underground knew how to handle: a pure loyalty based on mutual interest and respect for strength, rather than submission contracts or fear.
She remembered herself, several days earlier, who had desperately wanted to find something to give back to Nash, because her mind, poisoned by the Upperworld, kept telling her it was impossible to receive without giving something in return.
Looking at Rei crying on the floor, Victoria only saw a mirror.
"Let it go, Kimura..." Victoria said, her sapphire eyes fixed on the papers on the desk. "You’re wasting your time. This man doesn’t operate by our rules. He just gave you back your lives, and the only way to pay this debt... is to stay standing, and keep moving forward. And besides, it’s tiring and humiliating to beg for bars for your own cage, don’t you think? We try to buy ourselves a condition because freedom scares us, but sometimes... you just have to accept the simplest solutions."
Nash let out a long sigh. Faced with all this heavy devotion, he made the effort to understand their distress and decided to finally clarify his way of thinking. He planted his green eyes into Rei’s.
"I don’t want you to have the slightest debt toward me," Nash began. "And don’t think I’m saying this out of pure kindness or because I’m some kind of saint. I’ve been in the position of the one who was neck-deep in debt before. I know what it feels like to have a chain around your neck and have to crawl to survive."
He glanced briefly toward Zayela. The brunette took a deep breath, remembering the dark time when she had nearly had to give her own body to loan sharks to pay their subsistence debts, before Nash had settled the situation. She gave him an encouraging smile, full of understanding. Nash turned his eyes back to the roster.
"I refuse to inflict this rot on anyone," he continued. "I’m not a good person, stop imagining movies. I’m a guy who does things that suit him, and I’ve already done plenty of horrors to get here. Like..."
He swept his gaze across the room, looking at the girls one by one before returning to Zayela.
"Like having so many relationships in the same place. There’s nothing glorious or heroic about that. It’s the most selfish and unfair thing toward them. So stop seeing me as a saint. It pisses me off."
At these words, Aiko instantly became embarrassed. Her cheeks flushed bright pink and she abruptly looked away, pretending to nervously twirl one of her red twintails around her index finger.
"It doesn’t bother me at all..." she murmured.
But it was Hina, who hadn’t even had any official romance with Nash, who intervened with monumental confidence, breaking the gravity of the room.
"Oh, but there’s absolutely no problem, Nash!" Hina exclaimed, hands clasped and eyes shining. "You have my permission to have as many concubines and favorites as you want. It doesn’t bother me at all."
Kai immediately tried to correct her, muttering between her teeth.
"Hinaaaa... shut the fuck up..."
Hina let out a light "teehee," tilting her head mischievously to the side with a feigned innocent smile, two fingers placed in front of her mouth.
"What? It’s completely normal for the best male to attract all the females in the sector. Have you ever heard of gorillas?"
Kai rolled her eyes toward the ceiling with total exasperation.
"I hope he’ll fuck your ass really hard without lube next time."
"I wish..." Hina murmured, her eyes instantly becoming glassy as she imagined the scene, drooling with pure desire.
Nash pretended to ignore the player’s bad trip and immediately brought the discussion back onto professional tracks to finish convincing Rei.
"The Baby-Boom’s debt will no longer be toward me," he cut in. "From now on, your debt is toward the Blacklist. And you’re going to pay it by crushing your next two matches. You’re going to explode the hype on the circuit, draw all the league’s spotlights, and the money from major sponsors will cover the entire cost of your buyout. You don’t owe me anything at all, except your trust on the court. We’re doing business, not submission."
Victoria watched Nash close the discussion with that calm assurance. Around her, the Baby-Boom girls and the subs were finally relaxing, an immense respect and new fervor for the King of Blacklist shining in their eyes.
The director fully realized the political power of Nash. His true strength didn’t only lie in his brute force or his titan muscles; it was his spectacular ability to lead people, to align minds, and to push everyone to move in his favor, almost involuntarily. His hold over the psychology of anyone, given any circumstance, was phenomenal.
"Alright, get settled in your rooms," Nash concluded, glancing around. "I conveniently chose a villa with several bedrooms. Entirely without ulterior motives, of course. Everyone will find their place to close their eyes."
Zayela gave him a heavy, suggestive look and a mocking smile from the corner of the couch, but said nothing.
The villa slowly began to empty as the lights went out. The room arrangement was quickly decided: Nash and Zayela took their shared bedroom, Victoria settled alone in hers, while Dahlia and the rest of the Baby-Boom team and subs shared the last two large bedrooms.
The atmosphere inside the improvised dormitories quickly became electric. Discovering for the first time the luxury of a secured villa, the joys of discreet wealth, and this intoxicating sensation of total freedom, the girls let themselves go into a gentle madness.
A monumental pillow fight broke out between the subs, laughter and feathers flying through the room. Aiko, initially grumpy and avoiding the commotion, eventually got dragged in by force and joined the chaos, laughing out loud, finally rediscovering her street girl joy of living.
Meanwhile, Victoria had withdrawn into her private bedroom at the other end of the property. The director was sitting alone on her large bed, lost in thought in the darkness. The silence of the night brought back the ghosts of her past, Hector’s insults, her forced work as a maid during her youth, and all the hardships she had endured to build her armor.
But the sharpest pain struck her when she thought back to the horror of learning about her mother’s death through a simple cold and detached word from one of her father’s messengers, without ever having the slightest chance to see her grave or say goodbye, locked as she was in her golden Upperworld cage.
Victoria closed her eyes, shaking her head to chase away her demons, then stood up. She walked toward the coffee machine in the room, made a black coffee, and took her cup between her manicured hands.
She slowly walked toward the large window and looked at the dark reflections of the outdoor pool, then raised her eyes toward the eternal twilight, that artificial and brilliant dusk that characterized the heights of the Spires.
She was ruminating on her past, thinking about the pain of her entire life, remembering how she had spent years staring at the starry sky of the Upperworld while constantly being chained by Hector. It was a bitter irony: now that she had descended into the basements of the Underground, she felt more liberated than ever.
Knock, knock
Someone knocked discreetly on her bedroom door. A subtle smile formed on her lips. She didn’t need to see him to know it was him. She took a sip of her coffee, then turned toward the entrance.
"Come in," she said.
The door slowly opened on the silhouette of Nash.
