Chapter 442: Sinners

Halvern, Apex Records headquarters. Four days later.

Lorenzo Perez had already emptied half a bottle of wine when his son arrived at the exact time of the appointment. He heard him knock twice, sharply, on the door, didn’t answer, and kept leafing through the papers spread across his desk until Hector let himself in and stopped in front of him, all in gray, tie straight, chin raised.

"Father."

"Close the door."

Hector shut it behind him, then approached the desk.

"Sit down."

"I prefer to stay standing."

"I told you to sit."

Hector finally took the armchair, and Lorenzo used the moment to toss a cardboard folder at him. It slid across the wood and stopped against his sleeve.

"Open it."

Hector opened it. Registry photos, debt contracts signed in his hand, a list of names with dates beside them.

"This is what the girl has been sending me for a week," Lorenzo said, pouring himself another glass. "Every day at six o’clock. One day the contracts, one day a recording, today the client list. One of my administrators is on it. A guy who shook my hand yesterday morning while smiling at me, and whose name appears three times in the ’coke’ purchase contracts."

"She’s bluffing, Father."

"She’s not bluffing, she has documents. And that’s not even the worst of it."

He pulled out his phone, scrolled to an image, and set it in front of his son: the gates of the Jardins de Jade, ambulances parked outside, nurses guiding women in bathrobes inside.

"She turned the Jardins into a care center for the prostitutes. I can’t close them anymore, I can’t reopen them for my business, and I can’t even fire the staff because she threatens to leak everything if it stops running. The business has been shut down for three weeks and all my money is going into fattening these bitches. We’re losing twenty million a month."

"Twenty-two," Hector corrected.

"Of course you know the number. That’s the only thing you retained correctly in this whole story."

Lorenzo downed his wine, then stood and walked to the corner cabinet, where he grabbed a cigar he had no intention of lighting. He rolled it between his fingers as he paced behind the desk.

"So here’s how this is going to go. She set a condition, and you’re going to accept it. You prostrate yourself in front of her, naked, forehead to the ground, in front of your family. Your wife, your daughter, your friends, your dog, even a corpse if she wants, and she signs this fucking contract."

Hector straightened all at once.

"You’re joking."

"Do I look like I’m joking?"

"In front of my daughter? In front of my wife?" His voice rose, for the first time, and he stood as well. "You want me to throw myself flat on my stomach in front of an Underground rat, in public, with my family watching? Never!"

Lorenzo looked at him the way one looks at a kid who refuses to finish his plate.

"You think this amuses me? I don’t give a damn about your dignity. I want this over. She makes you crawl, she takes the head of Apex however she wants, and in the meantime she becomes responsible for everything. The Jardins, the contracts, the transfers. You understand what that means? Once she’s CEO, she’ll be in it up to her neck. She won’t be able to denounce anything without condemning herself along with us."

"She won’t let herself be handled."

"She’s ambitious, Hector. The ambitious always let themselves be handled, as long as you give them a chair."

He stopped pacing and stuck the cigar between his teeth, still unlit.

"As for the girls at the Jardins, I don’t care. They’re stock, they can be replaced. What can’t be replaced is the clients’ trust. It’ll take time, but we’ll restart the business, so use this to contact our best clients and warn them the market is on pause for a while."

Hector shook his head, fists clenched.

"You’re serious? You’re going to let this... this thing humiliate me, and put her at our head? Have you gone insane?! She’s your daughter, Father, not mine! Own up to your—"

He cut himself off, caught his breath, and pointed a finger at him.

"Your role is to protect me. I’m your son, your real son, and you stand there watching the bastard of a slave humiliate me in front of everyone!"

"My daughter?" Lorenzo burst out laughing. "That thing is the result of our usual business that I paid for out of my own pocket. She owes me her life, and I owe her nothing."

He took the cigar from his mouth and pointed it at Hector like a weapon.

"And what pisses me off the most is that an employee you treat correctly stays in her corner and works. We could’ve gotten rid of her so many times by now. But you, you bought her, you broke her for fun, and you had the brilliant idea of letting her escape with everything she knew. You manufactured your own nightmare, and I’m the one paying the bill."

He walked around the desk, slowly, until he was one step away from his son.

"And the worst part is why you didn’t throw her out onto the street, Hector. Like anyone else would have. Me, a deranged one? I can hear that... but you..."

Hector didn’t answer.

"You kept her scrubbing your floors because you wanted her."

Hector’s face drained of all color.

"You thought I didn’t see it? My only son drooling after his own sister, a servant, a rat’s daughter. You looked at her the way a dog looks at a bone. And since you couldn’t touch her without losing everything, you broke her instead." Lorenzo smiled. "I’ve known since the first day. Does your wife know? Your daughter? I could mention it to them on Sunday, at dinner. They might appreciate seeing you on your knees even more."

Hector stayed motionless for a long moment. His hand rose to his tie, tightened it, and when he looked up again, the panic was gone, replaced by something cold and sinister.

"You want to talk about what we hide, Father?" he said in a low voice that trembled. "Fine. Let’s talk about it. You lecture me about Victoria, but you’re the one who made her like this. You’re right on one point: she owes you everything. Her life, her education... and also the hatred. It’s nice to have her as CEO to save your interests, but how do you think she’ll react when she discovers that her mother’s death wasn’t so... accidental?"

Lorenzo grabbed his glass from the desk and threw it at his face.

The glass exploded against Hector’s shoulder, wine splashed his collar and cheek, and a shard cut his neck. Before he could react, Lorenzo had seized him by the throat and slammed him against the bookshelf, so violently that the books shook on their shelves.

"Repeat that," he murmured in his ear. "Repeat it one more time, in front of anyone. Your wife, your daughter, a journalist, her. I’ll make you disappear, Hector. Your name, your accounts, your shares, your friends, everything. I’ll leave you your suit, so people can clearly see the state you end up in on the street. And your daughter will go join the whores downstairs and satisfy thousands of rats until she dies of exhaustion."

Hector was choking, but he didn’t blink. When Lorenzo loosened his grip, he tugged at his collar, wiped the blood on his neck, and looked at his red fingers.

"I didn’t say yes, Father," he said, voice hoarse. "Threaten me as much as you want. I will not get on my knees in front of her, and especially not in front of my family."

"Then you lose everything!"

"Then I lose everything!"

He picked up his jacket from the back of the armchair, put it on without taking his eyes off his father, and left, slamming the door so hard that the frame hanging on the wall slid crooked.

Lorenzo remained standing amid the shards of glass, breathing heavily. Then he threw the cigar onto the desk, called his assistant to tell her to clean up, and dropped into his chair while massaging his sinuses. He hated this situation. He hated that this girl had managed to corner him, that his son was stubborn enough to refuse, and above all he hated Hector’s last sentence.

"What did I do," he murmured, "to deserve children this annoying?"

He watched the wine slowly run down the wall.

Hundreds of kilometers from that office, Victoria was waking up in a much better mood. She stayed lying there for a moment listening to the house, where a pot had just fallen, where someone was swearing in Japanese while another person burst out laughing, and she caught herself smiling. She never would have believed that a villa full of noisy girls could please her.

She stretched one last time, slipped on a black robe, and went downstairs.

Downstairs, the kitchen was already a battlefield: Aiko and Hina were fighting over the last clean cup, Jaz was stealing a croissant from Rumi’s tray, Nia was half-asleep on her stool, and Alicia was reading her newspaper while ignoring everyone. The moment Victoria entered, several voices launched a "Good morning, ma’am!" a little too loud, a little too fast.

"Good morning. Carry on, I don’t bite before noon."

Dahlia was waiting for her near the big table with two coffees, and Victoria took hers while thanking her. Barely had the cup neared her lips when the smell turned her stomach.

"What is this horror?"

"Your usual coffee, Ma’am." Dahlia frowned, took the cup, sniffed it in turn, and smelled nothing abnormal. She still checked the box on the counter. "It might be expired. I’ll check the date."

"Forget it, it’s not the coffee." Victoria rubbed her temples, puzzled. "I just don’t feel like coffee this morning. Bring me a tea instead, please."

"Tea? You?"

Dahlia stared at her as if she’d just asked for a glass of milk, but she still went to put the water on.

Victoria looked at the coffee cup with real distrust.

"Ahr, everything feels so disgusting," she grumbled. "Maybe I’ll just skip breakfast."

When Dahlia returned with the tea, which smelled like nothing and was perfect, Victoria noticed someone was missing.

"Where’s the kiss-ass?"

"Who? Saya?" Dahlia avoided her gaze. "She had a doctor’s appointment. She told me last night."

"She told you." Victoria turned her cup between her fingers. "Great. Nobody asks my permission anymore. At the Midnight Rest, a waitress who wanted a day off would write me a three-page letter. There was respect."

"There still is... Just different."

"Oh? It would be interesting to apply that to the employees. There will always be some, but they can be different."

Dahlia rolled her eyes, then hesitated.

"About the Midnight Rest, aren’t you planning to take it back? You’re going to run Apex, you could reclaim the brothel. It would be good for your influence in the red zone."

"No."

"No?"

"Bad idea. If I take it back, with Nash’s ideas, it’ll end up as an orphanage: beds, classes, a cafeteria, and frescoes on the counter."

"That wouldn’t be so bad..."

"Do you hear yourself? I already have enough on my plate with that genius who wants to turn me into the messiah of the Underground. And then... Let’s leave the rats a few sins. Pastors need sinners to fill their plates, you want them to starve to death? Let people sin."

Dahlia rolled her eyes.

"You really are a great humanist."

"Thank you."

Dahlia smiled a little, then looked at her more gently.

"It’s nice to see you like this, anyway. In good shape."

"Why wouldn’t I be?" Victoria leaned back in her chair and counted on her fingers. "I’m in a relationship with a puppet who controls me, I maintain his harem, my enemies tremble when they read my morning messages, and my half-brother is about to get on his knees in front of me, completely naked in front of a million people. I have all the money I want, a house full of girls who fear me, and I didn’t even have to yell. Why wouldn’t I be fine?"

"I didn’t say you weren’t."

"You said ’in good shape’ with that voice."

"What voice?"

"The voice of someone hiding something."

Dahlia didn’t answer. Victoria had already been watching her for two minutes, ever since Saya’s name had landed on the table, and she noticed what Dahlia was holding in her hands.

"You fold napkins when you’re uncomfortable. You’re on the fourth one."

Dahlia looked down at the perfect little triangle she’d just formed, then sighed.

"I can’t hide anything from you, can I? It’s about Saya... I think we need to watch her."

"Why?"

"I don’t have anything specific, just an impression. For a few days she’s been different, calmer, but not a normal calm. She looks at people like she’s seeing them for the last time. Last night she didn’t eat, and she stayed an hour in front of the window with her hand on..."

Dahlia stopped and gestured toward her own stomach.

"I don’t know, ma’am. It might be nothing."

Victoria’s smile vanished.

"If it was nothing you wouldn’t be wasting my time with it. Elaborate," she said.

At the same moment. Somewhere in the Underground.

While Dahlia was searching for her words, Saya stood on the sidewalk across from a small gray clinic, wedged between a phone shop and a closed laundromat. She had her hands in the pockets of her coat and a scarf on her head, and she’d been staring at the door for ten minutes without daring to cross.

"Bravo," she said under her breath. "You found lower than the bottom."

She placed her hand on her stomach. There was nothing to feel, but she left it there anyway.

Because despite everything, there was someone.

At first, she had wanted to keep it. She didn’t know who the father was, but this baby was hers, and she had promised herself to give it a chance in this shitty world. For a few days she had believed it, even talking to it under the shower.

Then she had seen the villa, Nash’s girls laughing in the kitchen and fighting over a cup of coffee, who had a roof, people to protect them, and a man who looked at them as if they mattered. They had everything Saya had never had, and she had understood that she envied them, that she regretted everything, every choice, every night, every man, and that she was carrying the child of anyone.

She knew it was probably too late and that Nash might never look at her the same way again, but...

She wanted to become free again, to no longer carry the child of a rival and take her life back into her own hands.

She let out a short, ugly laugh.

"Look at you. You haven’t changed. Even for this... You couldn’t be honest with yourself."

Her throat tightened, and she ran her hand over her stomach.

"Sorry. I wanted to give you a life, but I don’t have one to give you. I’m a horrible, selfish person."

A scooter passed, a kid ran after a flat ball, and the Underground kept turning without asking her opinion. Saya wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, took a deep breath, and crossed the street.

The door chimed when she pushed it.