Fair Trade

White foam flowed down her smooth arms. Sei glanced at the label on the bath soap indifferently.

“What is written here… ugh cryptic Arabic.”

The bath soap with the words ‘organic’ and ‘damask rose’ emphasized had a pretty good scent. But her body still reeked of blood.

She didn’t want to smell the blood, so she dived into the water again and again. Fortunately, she couldn’t breathe underwater, so the smells were neutralized while she was in the water. Sei held her breath for a long time.

The horrifying feeling of a man’s blood splattering all over her was like a nightmare she never wanted to experience again.

“Ha!”

As she held her head underwater, holding her breath to the limit, Giulio, who had brought her some wine, sat across the edge of her bathtub and said, “Drink”.

“Give me the white one.”

Sei frowned at the red wine he offered her.

Smiling at her irritated tone, he snapped his finger to call someone. Then one of his men brought the cold white bottle of wine.

Did he deliberately offer her red wine even though he had prepared the white one from the beginning?

“You’re mean.”

Enraged, she took the bottle of wine and poured it into the bathtub. The sweet scent of alcohol mixed in with the subtle rose scent. The wine bottle that should have cost millions of won quickly became empty. Sei glared at Giulio and raised her body.

A piercing gaze glided over her snow-white naked body. Giulio’s throat moved slowly as he swallowed the wine. Even though she knew his eyes were on her, she picked up a towel and went into the shower booth.

It was already her fifth shower. While the stream of water poured over her head, she hoped the smell of blood would go away this time. She really wanted it to disappear.

This was not the first time she had seen someone die in front of her eyes. Since she met Giulio, there were times when she was called in to do some dangerous work – jobs where gunfire and shootings would be a commonplace occurrence.

However, it was the first time that her body was covered from head to toe with blood. That a person died in such close proximity to her.

She rubbed her skin with a lathered sponge until it became raw. Her body was already covered in scratches. In the end, she sat on the floor screaming, annoyed by the unbearable sting.

Then, she heard Giulio’s voice from beyond the steam-filled shower booth.

“Shouldn’t you be used to it by now?”

To what? Killing people? Or your nasty perverseness?

“There are few things in the world that I can never get used to, and that is suppressing my natural urges and contemplating someone’s death. No matter how much I try to get used to it, death is always hard to deal with.”

“Then would you rather be raped?”

“You didn’t have to kill him! There are so many vulnerable points in a person’s body. Why?! Why did you have to shoot him in the head?”

“That way it would be a neat kill.”

Flustered, she let out a sigh. Her patience was wearing thin. Sei came out and put on a bathrobe.

The bathrobe was not properly fastened and her pearl-like milky white breasts, slender waist, and the thin pubic hair under her belly button were revealed. The eyes of those guarding outside the bathroom inadvertently turned towards her.

Just then, she heard the wine bottle break with a loud crack, and its fragments were scattered on the tile. Giulio approached her and grabbed her shoulders, then turned to his men who were guarding outside.

“Avert your eyes.”

Sei couldn’t take a step further. Giulio, who spun her roughly, tied her bathrobe and grabbed her face with such strong force that she was on her tiptoes. 

She felt an excruciating pain in her jaw. Sei hit his chest hard and struggled in his arms, but it was useless. He didn’t let her go.

“Let me go!”

“If you don’t like people dying, you shouldn’t be walking around looking like that.”

“Do you take me for a bitch? Why? Do you also go into a rut just seeing me like this? Don’t forget that you’re a mafia member. Others treat me no better than a bug, so why me? I’ve never been loyal to you!”

She revealed her true feelings to the extent her voice became gloomy. It seemed she had gone slightly insane. While screaming, she didn’t even know what exactly was coming out of her mouth.

But her fear exceeded her dread. Before the shock dousing her flesh and brain could disappear, she was struck with terror when she saw Giulio’s face gradually become cold.

Shit… this guy’s really angry. Should I just plead for my life and say everything was a lie?

But it was too late for that.

Licking the corners of her tear-filled eyes, he untied the knot of her robe, pushing her thin body against the wall. Thankfully, the soles of her feet touched the ground but that didn’t mean that her body was any freer.

The man’s eyes narrowed as he gripped her breast tightly. He had the look of assessing her intentions on his face. The hand kneading her breast slowly descended, caressing the back of her waist, and grabbed her soft derriere. Sei couldn’t breathe and tried to clamp her trembling thighs close.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t need a woman’s loyalty. Let’s just say I find you interesting. For me, you’re still as entertaining as before. To the point, I think it would be a waste to gobble you up rashly.”

Giulio’s gaze swept across her forehead, nose, and red lips.

Soon after, his lips covered hers lightly, and he whispered, “So, don’t take liberties with me recklessly. If I lose interest in you, then I’ll have no choice but to say goodbye to you.”

In other words, it meant that once she became useless to him, he would kill her.

Sei knew he meant it. He was a sadist psychopath. A cruel mafia who wouldn’t blink an eye even if someone’s skin was being peeled off right in front of him.