Fair Trade

Sei again experienced the true nature of the man standing in front of her.

“… I want to go back to my room. This place reeks of blood.”

When she lightly pushed him away, Giulio graciously stepped back, emptied the remaining wine in his glass, and then lifted his hand to his men, who were standing outside with their eyes focused on him. Then Lorenzo came in and held out her belongings. Lorenzo gave Giulio a look, saying he had disposed of everything that had blood on it.

Sei took the taser and lipstick. Then she picked up the earrings and tucked them into her pocket. She also put her original room key in it.

She left Giulio’s room in a bathrobe. Giulio didn’t say anything when he saw her open the door without wearing slippers. He just stared at her and poured the newly opened whiskey into a glass.

“Giulio is not a person you should wrong. Rather than react in this way, shouldn’t you be thanking him? If it wasn’t for him, you would have been beaten to a pulp by that white bastard.” Lorenzo, who followed her out, beamed at her and said.

“Then thank you very much.” 

“Do you think that bastard was just going to hit you? Who do you think he was going to use the heroin and ecstasy in his pocket on? If it wasn’t for Giulio, you would have been a corpse long ago. So don’t whine like a stupid kid.” 

Fuck, so?!

She knew it too. What Lorenzo said was indeed true. She also knew that Giulio was not a man who really cared about what happened to others.

However, she didn’t like what was going on. Putting her gratitude aside, the thought of Michael Dylan’s blood on her skin was making her feel sick all over again.

“Okay then… let’s not bother anymore about what might have happened to a pea-brained, obnoxious little bitch.”

“What? Ha!” 

Baffled, Sei took a step forward leaving Lorenzo behind. But she soon came to a stop. All the hair on her body stood up at the smoky, woody scent of the man standing before her.

A man with black hair and grayish-blue eyes tapped the earpiece in his ears and said with a smirk, “I’ll lead the way from here. It seems the members in the women’s room on the 16th floor got into a fight over some drugs…” 

“What? These fuckers!” 

The 16th floor was used by Giulio’s men and the call girls. Lorenzo swore harshly and ran to the other side.

The members just so happened to be fighting violently over drugs.

However, what baffled her was not the members who caused the fight, but this madman, Yuri Petrov, who swaggered into the enemy’s camp without any protection.

Why does she keep getting herself into such horrible situations? If Lorenzo had been a little smarter, Yuri Petrov’s body would have already been riddled with dozens of bullet holes.

He glanced up and down at her as she stood there with a puzzled expression, then dropped the smile as if it had never been there before, and grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder. She was startled and tried to struggle, but it was all in vain. Yuri entered the emergency exit and then strode down the stairs.

Sei’s world turned upside down. Her wet hair was scattered and dangled upside down all over his back.

“I’m doing this because I don’t want your feet to get dirty. I don’t want you dirtying my bed.”

“I hate the smell of blood. Put me down! I’m not going to your room!”

“Don’t worry. It won’t smell like blood.”

“The one who shot from the other side, it was you… I heard the sound of the trigger and that silencer.”

“You have sharp ears.”

After all, this guy was also a mafia member. She did not know why but this fact kept slipping from her mind.

She grabbed Yuri’s jacket and relaxed her body. Then he slowed down, stared at the door on the 14th floor, and began to descend further.

“Let’s go to your room today. You look too emotional right now.”

She didn’t struggle anymore.

When they arrived in the room on the 7th floor, he hugged her right away and nodded. Sei meekly opened the door with the room key that she had in her pocket.

After carefully laying her down on the bed, he ruffled her wet hair and took off his jacket. Her mouth went dry again when she saw the pistol hanging from the leather holster across his wide chest. She felt like vomiting.

“That’s quite unexpected. Since you’ve worked with Giulio Parenti for two years, I thought you would have gotten used to the bloodshed by now.”

“If one gets used to killing people, doesn’t that make them a psychopath?”

With the gun pulled out, he turned his head and smiled faintly. The man’s physique seen from a closer view was stronger than she thought. Also maybe it was even bigger and stronger than Giulio’s…

She scowled at him and said bluntly, while drawing her knees together, “Also take this.”

She rummaged through her pocket and held out the diamond earrings he had given her before entering the game room.

“I don’t know what was filmed on it, but I know it’s nothing good. Please take it.”

Yuri took the blood-stained earrings. Then he sat on the bed and loosened the buckle of the holster.

“Who was that guy from earlier?”

“The client I swindled recently.”

“How much?”

“$500,000.”

“Ha, such a meager amount.”

“Meager?”

Yuri snorted and grasped Sei’s chin lightly.

“Yes, meager. But what happened because of it?”

“I almost lost my life over that $500,000.”

His eyes slowly darkened as he took in the marks on her neck and arms. The man’s hand caressed her wounds soothingly. She felt goosebumps wherever the man touched her. She gently grabbed Yuri’s hand and pulled it away from her.

“Do you remember what you told me last time? That you’ll pay for my father’s bail and my mom’s hospital bills. I realized now that that is not enough. Please change the conditions.”

“What should I change it to?”

“$1.5 million for hospital bills. Also, I need money to hide in a safe place. For at least 10 years… So, give me another $5 million. Betraying Giulio means I’ll have to put my life on the line.”

Biting her lips, she plucked up her courage and pulled the man towards her. His face got closer in an instant. The man’s face was just too hard to read. She wasn’t sure whether he would agree or decline, or get angry or actually show any interest in her offer. This man…  she really couldn’t figure him out.

She continued, still staring at Yuri, “So… Will you give me whatever I ask for? For the price of my life.”

“If you’re putting your life on the line, I agree you should ask for a bigger price. Though it would have been amazing if you had asked for everything I had.”

“… Would you really give me what I ask for?”

Embarrassingly, her voice cracked. As she coughed in embarrassment, she felt the man’s breath tickle her face. He then said in a playful voice, “I’ll give you three times more. I accept all your other requirements.”

The corners of the man’s lips curled up in an arc. But she was dead serious.

After learning that she was exceptionally sensitive to blood, Sei could predict that Giulio will behave even more brutally in front of her. He was the sort of person who enjoyed the suffering of others.

The only way to get out of the monster’s maw was to use a stronger monster to open its mouth.

Maybe this was her chance to go all in or maybe it might turn out to be just another one of God’s twisted tricks.

The beautiful monster with blue eyes was smiling in front of her.

“Deal.”