Andre is determined to bring the cycle of destruction in the Lyon family to an end. But it won't be easy as long as he's struggling with one of God's commandments: thou shalt not covet thy father's wife.
"Lucious calls himself going to get Cookie back from Malcolm," Andre clarified.
"Who's Malcolm?" Anika asked.
"The man my mother should've stayed with," Andre said grimly. "You might remember him. He was head of Empire's security for a little while. The one who redesigned the entire building's security system."
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Anika remembered Malcolm, all right. She had no idea that Malcolm had reported her putting drops in Elle Dallas's tea until after it happened, and the looks he would give Anika from time to time could freeze ice. "Didn't Lucious fire him because he had sex with Cookie over some weekend up in the mountains?"
"Actually, Lucious fired Cookie," Andre corrected. "He kept Malcolm, but Malcolm quit when he found out what Lucious did to Cookie." Andre smirked, still remembering his father curled up on the floor, courtesy of Malcolm's fist to Lucious's stomach. "I bet when the news about Hakeem and Laura got out, Malcolm called Cookie to make sure she was okay, and Cookie went over to see him at the Sheraton. Doesn't mean that they're sleeping together, but you know Lucious. It's the principle of the thing."
"Aren't you afraid Lucious is going to hurt your mother?" Anika might have despised Cookie, but that didn't mean she wanted to see Cookie harmed, especially not at Lucious's hands. If Lucious had threatened to kill the mother of his grandson, the possibilities of what he would do to Cookie were endless.
Andre gestured for Anika to turn around, then began to massage her shoulders, neck and lower back. "Lucious isn't on some 'if-I-can't-have-her-nobody-can' kind of thing. If Lucious kills Cookie, she'll be gone, so he loses. And if Lucious kills Malcolm, Cookie will never forgive him. So he still loses."
"Maybe we'll get lucky and Lucious will kill himself." Anika wondered what Leah would think about Andre's hands all over her body while she sat before him in nothing but her slip. Just hours ago, her mother-in-law stroked Anika's hair as she curled up on the window bench with her head in Leah's lap, crying so hard that she couldn't breathe. "Forgive yourself as God has forgiven you, Anika," Leah said soothingly. "And give this all some time and some space. He'll come around, sweet girl."
Leah had been spot-on with her prediction, but she wasn't talking about Lucious. "Anika..." Andre said hesitantly. "I told Rhonda about us."
Anika tensed up. "About us?" The good news was coming in waves on this glorious wedding day. "There is no us, Andre."
When Andre came by to check up on her the first time Cookie fired her, Anika had thought nothing of it. How many nights had the two of them burned the midnight oil together without even as much as a quickened heartbeat between them? It was hard to believe, but Anika looked at Andre like a brother, while Rhonda had been one of her closest friends for years. There was nothing unusual about him stopping by to see her, though he'd never done so since she moved out of Lucious's home.
