“Um… what will happen after regarding payment?” he asks, gingerly.
I look him up and down, wondering if I should answer that question. It’s been a fucking long day and I hate flying, I hate long haul flights and I hate shit. All of which happened today.
He wants to know about payment. This isn’t standard family business trouble. It’s shit, simple as that.
“We’ll talk about that when I’m done.”
He grits his teeth and I chuckle.
“Come on Dante. I just want an idea. Last time you wanted a hundred grand,” he scoffs.
“You lost an import of cars worth five million. Be grateful I didn’t take a car or two.”
He’s into cars and women. I’m into property. The reason why I didn’t take the fleet of cars was that since I took over the business, I’m always flying from one corner of the globe to another running the Marchesi empire.
“Dante, just give me a clue man,” he prods.
I mull over what I think will be reasonable in this situation. As I do I look at the girl as she walks up to the glass and pretends to pick something up from the floor.
She’s behind the sofa so no one can see her. Nobody but us in here. Nobody but me right now as tears cascade down her cheeks.
In her eyes is grief, despair, pain.
What hell must she be going through here? I don’t tend to get involved. The people who owe Lucca owe serious money. Their daughters suffer for it and pay the price.
This woman, however, compels me to stare and lures me to explore the curiosity I feel from just looking at her.
She wipes away tears with the heel of her hand and straightens up, gathering her composure. She’s still broken though.
I look back to Lucca who is now watching me watching her. He tenses and I smile.
I can’t stand him and he knows it. I don’t know what I’ll charge him yet but for tonight I want her. He can stew in worry over the end payment.
I’ll consider the raven-haired beauty payment enough for tonight’s visit and the fact that he dragged me out to see him.
“Like I said, Lucca… we’ll talk about the end payment when I’m done. For messing with my plans tonight I want her.”
He bites down hard on his back teeth, swallowing his words. Fighting them back because he knows not to argue about with me.
“Must it be her?” he has the audacity to ask.
I lean forward and glare at him. The notion enough to tell him to watch himself. I explain myself to no one and he can fuck off if he thinks I owe him any form of explanation.
“I’ll send her up to the suite,” he says instead.
“How much are you making from her?” I ask, curious to know.
“A minimum of two g’s a night,” he answers.
Two g’s a night, minimum over three months is roughly a hundred and eighty grand.
“Who owed the debt?” I ask and he looks back at me with narrowed slits. I’ve never asked this many questions about a girl.
“Her father.”
“She pay off that debt yet?” I challenge knowing she would have paid that fucking debts several times over in her stay here.
“You know that’s not how it works. Value is not comparable.”