Fair Trade

There was a pearl section with the theme of Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Yuri approached her when she was standing in front of the portrait of Queen Mary.

“How are you feeling?”

She answered with her eyes still fixed on Queen Mary’s necklace, “I’m fine.”

“I know you left on purpose. Were you afraid that David might recognize me?”

“No. It was just… because I wanted to see the jewelry.”

She could hear his laughter close by. When she turned to face him, she noticed that his gray-blue eyes were a kaleidoscope of colors.

Like a sapphire containing foreign substances.

After taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth.

“Are you still mad at me?”

“I’m not angry with you. Even if I really was, so what?”

Yuri tucked her hair behind her ear and locked his gaze on her face.

“You look like an unprocessed gemstone to me: worn, polished, and increasingly luminous. So I was agitated unlike how I usually am. I’m afraid someone will find out what you’re worth and snatch you…”

After removing his laughter, he continued, staring into Sei’s eyes.

“I was anxious and impatient.”

People moving around suddenly seemed to be walking in slow motion.

Holding her clutch bag, her fingertips became white from her tight grip.

Sei turned her head away, avoiding his hypnotic gaze. She wanted to answer anything, but there was nothing she could say. Since she wasn’t immune to this kind of conversation, which was both embarrassing and ridiculously laughable at the same time, her mind became blank and she could only move her lips a little.

It was then that Stephen came up behind the two and said, “You two stand out so much. I’ve been instructed to follow you. Guilio and David just moved in.”

At Stefan’s words, the two turned their heads to where Guilio had been standing a while ago.

There, security guards armed with guns were watching Sei, blocking all access.

“Let’s go.”

With an awkward expression on her face, she first turned around and took a step.

As she passed the bodyguards and entered the high orange-colored door, David, who was pouring alcohol, turned to the two of them.

The new place seemed to have a different atmosphere.

Sei said in an impressed tone, smiling enviously and brightly to hide her nervousness, “I’ve never seen such a big diamond. That’s amazing. Perhaps there are one or two things that I don’t think I’ll be able to touch in this lifetime.”

Black hair, white skin. A woman with slim, tall, cool features was enough to attract attention just by wearing stylish clothes.

“I think you’re probably destined to get your hands on something even nicer.”

“Is that so? I really hope so.”

Sei sat down in an empty seat and secretly looked at the bag and box on the table.

There were dollar bills in the box and gold bars in the bag. But she had a feeling that that wasn’t all.

At that moment, she felt Yuri approaching the back of the sofa she was sitting on.

“Let’s start. 30,000 per kilogram. We’ll price it in euros.”

David’s bodyguards approached the table, took out the dollar in the box, and picked up the packed powder underneath. Judging by how the man pierced the package with a knife from his pocket and lightly inhaled an amount equal to his fingernail, it appeared that Guilio Parenti’s real gift was cocaine.

She tensed up in response to the unexpected turn of events. Meanwhile, the man shook his head with a hazy expression, smiled, and opened his eyes wide.

Next, the man did the same thing with the bag. After taking out all the gold bars, he stabbed the bottom of the cocaine package with a knife, inhaled it and tilted his head.

David handed Guilio the scotch he had just poured.

“I’ll decide on the deal after checking whether it’s of higher quality. Guilio, your stuff is always top-notch, but these days, a new client has appeared who handles the right stuff.”

The words spread a cruel smile on Guilio’s face.

“The coke is from Bolivia. As far as I know, there is no product with a higher purity than ours.”

David, who lit his cigar, replied, looking at the faces of Yuri, Romano, and Sei one after another. He pointed towards the bag. “The problem is that the one over there is also from Bolivia. Plus, it’s ether washed, a real deal.”

“We have a double contract…”

“We’re living in an era of free competition, so what’s the big deal?”

“Where is it?”

“That’s for later. I’ll let you know when your stuff is better.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the man who had inhaled the drugs brought two cups of bleach. Then he poured the same amount of bleach over the cocaine. Pure cocaine would dissolve as soon as soon as it touched the bleach.

Everyone focused on the two cups in a tense atmosphere. But Sei’s interest was elsewhere.

Her gaze was focused on a gold bar that was taken out of the bag. Staring at the embossed mark of purity, weight, and guarantee, she told the people who were anticipating the cocaine to not dissolve, “The gold bar looks weird.”

At her words, Yuri’s eyes narrowed and David turned his head. Sei, as if standing on a blade, pointed to the gold bar on the table.

“It seems… fake.”

David snorted as if the matter was absurd and asked, “Hey young lady, do you have any idea where these gold bars came from?”

From what Guilio said, it also came from the same place where the cocaine was from. As soon as the cocaine began to melt, David instructed to remove it, and then sat turning his attention toward Sei.

“Tell me, you… Do you think this is fake? Even after ensuring that the weight is correct and the drug test is complete? Who would dare to play a prank on David Meyer?”

“That…”

Sei, who quickly looked around, got up from her seat and took out all the water bottles in the refrigerator. David’s eyes were coolly lit as he silently ordered the bodyguard to stop her.

Guilio, who swallowed a sip of scotch, said, “Trust Rose. She’s the best in the industry.” His tone was full of trust. David’s expression looking at Sei changed at that.

“What, isn’t she just some ordinary girl?”

“You know I’m not interested in ordinary women.”

In the meantime, Sei, who opened the lid of the water bottle, turned over a bucket full of whiskey ice, threw away the ice, and filled it with water. Then, without hesitation, she dropped half of the gold bar into the water.

Gold and water.

All the men behind David sneered and watched her act on her own. However, Yuri’s expression sank darkly on the side.

About 30 seconds later, Sei asked for a scale. Someone ran to the bathroom and brought the scale over for her.

“If my hunch is correct, it must be gold on the outside. But there must be a 3cm-sized foreign object inside. It has the same mass or volume as gold and the same chemical symbol. So, its biggest advantage is that it cannot be detected by X-rays. However…”

Sei placed the gold bars one by one on the scales. David’s lips parted while watching the growing numbers carefully and a smile spread across Guilio’s lips. She continued her words after she lifted the last gold bar.

“The moment it comes into contact with water, its mass changes. Like this.”