Epilogue: The other side

Anna’s POV

Tomorrow wasn’t only my wedding, tomorrow I would be officially taking over the Lyst group as the new CEO and I was currently discussing the last details with mom.

“As you see, I kept my word, and the arms factory is no longer part of the Lyst group.” Mom said. Claire had been adamant about that. She did not want me to be the CEO of an organization that sold weapons.

“Those are semantics. I know Claire is not going to be happy about this and you knew that too when you did it. Why do you always have to make things so complicated?”

“I had to give that man something to be sure he wouldn’t be harassing the two of you after your marriage. Hasn’t it been enough already during the last ten years? Now he is happy, and he will be out of your hair once and for all.”

I seriously had my doubts about that. Mom had given the stocks for the arms factory to my father as some sort of divorce settlement. So that meant that the arms factory wasn’t part of the Lyst group anymore like mom had promised, but I was still the sole heir to it. That fact was even mentioned specifically in the arrangement, so my half-brother and sister, that dad had gotten in his new marriage with Edith Thorial, would never be able to get any stocks from the factory. I would still be the sole heir to that part of his inheritance.

In the end, mom had found a way to keep her precious factory in the Lyst family. There was always a catch with her and even if she did not get her way, in the long run, she would always win.

I sighed.

“Just deal with it when it becomes a problem. You got years ahead of you before you will have anything to do with it. And it is not like you have any say in the matter.”

“I guess. Still, I am pretty sure Claire won’t be happy.”

I would just have to tell her how it happened. She knows how mom can get. I’m sure she will understand, but I think it will result again in one of her extreme cooking sessions, the moment I tell her.

“As of tomorrow, Claire will be a Lyst too, so she will have to make some concessions to be part of the family. In any case, I kept my part of the bargain. Tomorrow I am retiring, and things will be up to you. I am still amazed at how much you’ve grown over the years. Even without the arms department, thanks to yours and Claire’s efforts the Lyst group has never been as big as it is now.”

“That reminds me, you still haven’t told me what you are going to do?” Mom got a faint smile on her face and said, “Cath is retiring too. We were planning on traveling together. There is a huge Yaoi exhibition in Osaka next month, so we are starting with that.”

“So, you are finally giving in and becoming one of us.”

Mom ignored that last line and just continued our chat like I hadn’t said it. I let out an inner laugh at that. She would rather die than admit to something that could hurt her pride, but I knew she had been visiting Ms. Odes in the lab late at night to “check on the latest progress” a lot during the last years.

While we were going over a few more points, one of mom’s secretaries came to notify us that our guests were arriving and that they had been led to the ballroom.

“Well dear, it’s your last night as a bachelorette, so off you go!” Mom had said

I looked forward to this. Even though Claire and I had kept in contact with everyone, it had been a long time since so many of us got together at the same time, and to think tomorrow all of us would be reunited for the first time in many years.

The first ones to greet me were Tina and Eve. They were also the ones that we got to see the least. It was good to see that they were doing so well. Eve was really rocking her tomboy look like always and I could spot immediately that she had gotten quite a bit more toned since back in the day. If Eve was more the sporty type, Tina had really become the tough chic type and she was wearing a red and black checkered flannel shirt to accentuate her trademark purple hair. All the girls of Yuri Blooms had become internationally renowned stars. I remember the day that their song with Claire became viral and Claire was forced to do several guest performances on their shows. Both Elsa and Claire had been furious about that, but when you are in showbiz, you got to give the crowd what they want. Luckily the attention on Claire as an idol died down quite a bit when their new hit songs took off and Elsa had become an anchor in the industry as the center of Yuri Blooms.

We chatted for a short while, when my best woman for tomorrow, Thea, and her wife, Narcy walked up to me. “My best friend through the ages, I can’t believe tomorrow is finally the day you all get married. Trixy sure did a number on you all.”

She sure did. When Claire told me later that she had told her she was planning to steal me from her, I had become really furious. But we hadn’t really seen Trixy again in the last ten years, so my guess was she had just been teasing Claire.

“I was so glad the two of you could make it. I was prepared for the worst with how your schedules have gotten lately. How long has it been now?”

Thea looked at me a little guilty, but as usual, Narcy immediately defended her spouse “You take part of the blame for that. The last time we had scheduled to meet, Claire ended up cooking for just the three of us, and you never showed up.” Narcy could not stand if anyone but her bullied Thea. It was actually pretty cute to see.

I remembered that occurrence. Fien had called me in for a CYA emergency, so I really did not have a choice back then. Claire knew these things happened, she had been part of the CYA long enough. I thought it was a shame when she told me she wanted to leave the CYA and focus 100% on her cooking, but then again, she was like a wizard in the kitchen. It would be a shame to keep her away from that dream too. I still consulted her for advice whenever I felt we were getting stuck in a case and we discussed most of the cases at the dinner table. She always had the right answer at the ready. She was really amazing talented when it concerned yuri.

“That only means we will have to make up for the lost time this weekend!” I said to divert to conversation away from blaming each other. Today would need to be a happy time.

“We sure will, but now I have to leave you to talk with my head of marketing. I still have some business to discuss with her.”

She was of course talking about Elodie. Elodie and Gazette had been the first ones to leave the CYA. Thea had bought out their contracts from the Lyst group to have them full-time at her place. They were living a glamourous life in the fashion world, and both had become quite known in the sector as prodigies. Elodie’s brainchild “Thea magazine” had become such a big staple in the fashion world, and Thea had climbed to the highest level of the industry because of that, and she knew she had to thank Gazette and Elodie for it.

Narcy on the other hand had stopped teaching and was mostly directing plays nowadays. She was still well known in the theater world, but I think she was more known as Thea’s wife than anything else.

Their marriage seemed to be going really well if the choker Thea always wore so proudly was anything to go by.

Next to arrive was my beautiful niece, Maura, who had become quite the established financial expert for a girl her age. She had become a tall dark beauty, but I knew it really bugged her that Fien was still taller than her. She was accompanied by the recently appointed Lyst group’s head of security, Valerie, who wasn’t wearing the black suit she wore on the job but was wearing a very beautiful evening gown that brought out her femininity in a stylish way. She still kept true to her promise to be a princess for Mia. I was always surprised by the gap of how Valerie, the cool and tough security guard at the job turned into a beautiful femme when she clocked out to go home to Mia.

They were talking like they were best friends, and from what I heard, they really were. Maura, Fien, Valerie, and Mia often got together to go on double dates. Maura was so glad when Valerie finally became the head of the service since that would put them at the same level as each other in the group. Maura didn’t like to be superior in rank to her friends, but that was a privilege that came with the Lyst name, so she would have to learn to deal with it.

“Maura dear, and Valerie, the both of you look as charming as ever.”

The two of them gave me a very warm greeting. I was worried they would act a little different toward me when they found out I would become their boss at the Lyst group, but I was glad that those fears were unfounded. Well, I had been their boss at the CYA for years, so I guess it was not much different than that.

“Mom should be arriving soon, she told me she was bringing a few special guests,” Maura said.

True to those words a little while later Maxima arrived with two troublesome guests. Trixy and someone I had never seen before.

Trixy looked at me with a big smile and said “Annya, it’s so good to finally see you again. I am so glad all of you made it through my little test. Tomorrow is finally the big day”

The woman next to her was measuring me up. Dissecting me with her eyes was a better description really.

“Oh, that is right, the two of you don’t each other, do you. This is princess Emilia of The Netherlands. We got engaged recently, but it is still all quite hush-hush. We still need to think of a way to convince her parents. We are hoping my actions tomorrow will create enough momentum to get through to them”

“Congratulations! I am really happy for the both of you.” I took out my phone and immediately put this matter as a Y-file into the system and sent it to Bernie for her eyes only. This was important enough to get the secret service of the yuripean union involved. These were important yuri seeds we could not let go to waste at any cost. It was my last day as the director of the CYA and I wasn’t about to drop the ball now.

Emilia looked at Trixy like she just spilled a secret of national importance, but Trixy immediately said to her “We can trust Annya and Claire. I consider them my closest allies.”

Big words for someone who almost caused a disaster for our relationship, but in the end, she had just been true to her feelings, and when asked to clean up the mess she had made, she did step up to the plate to help us. I can only imagine how much effort that must have taken right after my rejection. She had always been like a big sister to me, and I was glad to see she finally found her own happiness. She was right that I would never betray her trust, and I am quite sure the same went for Claire or anyone in this room.

When I asked her later in the evening why she had taunted Claire all those years ago, she answered “Back then I seriously considered trying to steal you away, but when I received pictures and reports of how the both of you were doing, I realized I would never stand a chance. The two of you looked way too cute together for me to interfere, so I decided to watch over the two of you from afar like a good big sister.”