42. Santiago
SANTIAGO
“Ari, hey,” I said, a smile taking over my lips at the sweet sight of him.
“What did I say about calling me that at work?” he asked, stepping out of the elevator with a sour look on his face.
“We’re all alone.”
“It doesn’t matter, we’re still at work.” He stopped before me, one hand placed on his waist. “Now, then, please answer my question. Why are you here?”
I pointed at the suite’s door with my thumb. “The girls at the front desk were swamped with work, so I helped them out with the luggage.”
His eyes moved from me to the suitcase placed between us. “Seems like you’ve missed one.”
“Oh, yeah.” Grabbing it, I hoisted it up. “I think someone made a mistake with the floor number.” I showed him the note.
“Let me see.” He reached for the suitcase and took it from me. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem caught off guard by its weight.
“It does look like a mistake was made,” he hummed, then lowered the bag. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You sure? I can do it for you.”
He smiled, checking me out from head to toe. “Seems like you’ve already worked yourself up enough for one day.”
Brushing a hand through my damp hair, I grinned. “Yeah… I sweated a bit. But seriously, let me help you with the bag.”
I reached to take it from him when he held his hand between us. “No need. I’ll go over the security cameras later and see who checked this in.” He then looked at his watch. “It’s past lunchtime. Have you eaten already? If not, mind joining me?”
At last, this day was starting to get better.
“Fuck yes.”
He raised one brow at me, clearly not pleased with my choice of words.
“I’ll let it slide this once. Now, let’s go—”
“Oh, there was this other thing.”
Ariyan stopped and turned to frown at me, eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
“I know I’ll sound crazy, but could it be that there’s someone upstairs?”
“Upstairs?” His brows drew even closer, a crease forming between them.
“Yeah. The floor upstairs.”
“This is the last floor.”
“I know, but I swear to God I heard voices coming from there. Seriously, right before you showed up.”
Looking at the ceiling, he then glanced at me, the look in his eyes telling me he thought I’d gone nuts.
“Those noises were probably some birds on the rooftop, nothing to worry about. Now, if we can please go, I’m very hungry—”
“Can we check?” Before he could answer, I’d already walked toward the staircase door. “There’s a door there leading to the roof; it’s just locked. But I bet you have the keys—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Santiago, you’re giving me a headache.”
With my hand clenching the door’s handle, I turned to face him, a grin on my lips.
“What?” he snarled, irritated, after I continued to stare.
“You said my name.”
“Pardon?”
Letting go of the handle, I walked back to him. “When you got angry just now, you used my name.”
Trying to avoid my eyes, he looked away. “I always say your name.”
“Nah.”
I nudged his shoe with mine, making him look back up. Once he did, I smiled. “This was the second time.”
Shock crossed his pretty face a moment before he visibly swallowed. “You… you’re pathetic.”
That made me scoff because he was mostly right. “True.”
Holding my stare, Ariyan went silent while I continued smiling from ear to ear. What could I say? Him saying my name gave me fucking butterflies, and I wasn’t about to hide it. At last, he sighed, then rolled his eyes, but I was still giddy as fuck.
“Can we please go down for lunch? I wasn’t joking when I said I’m hungry.”
“After you, boss.”
He tsked before passing me on his way to the elevator, and I dawdled another second behind to stare at his ass until he scolded me to hurry up.
Guess my fox really is hungry.
Back in his office, we had food sent over. And now, sitting at his desk, Ari was picking through his boring lunch—a Caesar salad—while I enjoyed a burger.
“So you said the hotel was packed?” I asked, bringing up the last thing we talked about before he went silent just now.
He nodded, took a bite, and only spoke after swallowing. “It is. We’re fully booked throughout the weekend.”
No wonder the reception girls were having trouble.
Looking back at my burger, a grin spread on my lips. “Remember when you slapped me with one of these?” I said, flapping the bun in the air, then took a bite.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“Don’t speak with your mouth full.”
Ready to answer him, my phone buzzed, and I took it out of my pocket to check it. It was Nacio, finally responding to my many texts asking where he was.
Nacio
Crashing at Tess’s.
The little shit. I’d expected this much; still, it didn’t stop me from clenching my jaw and clicking my tongue.
In seconds, my good mood was gone, and I placed the phone on the desk.
I thought of reaching for my burger, but that kid made me lose my fucking appetite.
Slumping back in my chair, I stretched my legs forward and tilted my head back with a deep grunt.
“What’s wrong?” Ariyan asked.
“My brother.”
“What happened?”
“We fought.”
“Why?”
I closed my eyes. “’Cause the idiot’s ruining his life, and he’s too stupid to know it.”
Ariyan snorted a laugh, and the sound made me jerk up, a frown on my face.
“The fuck?”
“I’m laughing at the irony,” he said, a small smile on his lips. “I mean, aren’t you doing the same thing by fighting for me?”
“Oh, fuck off.” I straightened in the chair and crossed my arms. “I’m fully aware that what I’m doing is dangerous, okay? While he—” I gritted my teeth. “—he’s tossing his life away for some dumb whore.”
Ariyan’s smile dropped, his expression turning colder as his lips set in a hard line. Picking up his fork, he went back to his salad.
“I don’t appreciate it when people use the word ‘whore’ as a slur,” he said as he stuck his fork into the lettuce.
I scratched my chin. “Well, she’s an actual prostitute.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, ‘and’?” I glared at him. “Isn’t that bad enough?”
He cleaned his lips with a napkin before finally looking up from the salad bowl.
“Just because someone is a sex worker doesn’t mean they’re bad people. It’s an unfair stigma that paints the victims of this horrible industry as deviants, while completely disregarding the root cause of the issue.”
I shifted in my chair, feeling shit for being disrespectful, apparently.
“And the root cause is?”
“Men.”
The conversation took a completely different turn, and unsure of what to say, I grabbed my half-eaten burger.
“Well, I respect what you’re saying, but that whor—I mean, Tess, she’s a bad apple through and through.
” I took a big bite. “It’d be one thing if she loved him, but she doesn’t give a flying fuck about him.
” Just thinking about it made me furious, and I tossed the burger back on the plate.
“And him? He’s a good fucking kid, okay?
He has some real potential, and seeing him tossing it all away for that bitch… ”
With a sigh, I buried my face in my palms.
“I know I’m the furthest thing from being a role model or a responsible adult… Like, fuck. Just now, I insulted a whole industry without even knowing it.” I huffed and lifted my head to meet his golden stare. “I just want to be there for him, you know? To stop him from making mistakes.”
Still not saying anything, Ariyan continued to hold my stare, and the look in his eyes was fucking cold.
“Mistakes are unavoidable, Mr. Rivas.”
I snorted. “Of course you’d say something like that.”
Grabbing my burger, I finished it off and chewed as he continued looking at me.
“Would you rather I showed empathy?”
“Maybe?” I was about to clean my greasy fingers over my pants when he handed me a napkin.
“Empathy is useless.”
I scowled. “Huh?”
“The same goes for sympathy. Two sentiments you’re better off without.”
Collecting the remains of his lunch into his empty salad bowl, he put it all in the brown paper bag we got the food in.
“How can you say something like that?” I asked, adding my empty plate and used napkins into the bag.
“Never in my life have I witnessed either of those ideas helping. Instead, they offer an illusion that someone else’s understanding of your struggle can change reality.
” He used a wipe to clean his desk. “But it’s all false.
” He sprayed the desk with some cleaning shit.
“No one can ever understand what you’ve gone through.
And if they don’t understand—” Another spray. “—they can never help.”
Done wiping his desk, he pulled something out of his drawer.
“Give me your hands.”
“What?”
He grabbed them forcefully before squeezing a bit of hand sanitizer into them.
“And about your brother.”
I looked up at him.
“Sometimes the stick is better than the carrot.”
His words, as harsh as they might be, made sense. Too much sense. And at the same time, it left me curious to know what had led him to develop such a strict philosophy.
Sometimes the stick is better than the carrot.
I guessed he had a point, as after all, I often went for the stick.
Only to me, it came instinctively. Since I was a kid, force was my first and usually only answer.
But Ariyan, well, even if he’d chosen the carrot, it was likely poisoned, so I was still uncertain which option was better in his case.
“I have some free time tonight,” he said, snapping me out of my thoughts. Once I locked eyes with him, he went on. “How about you come over?”
“Even though I didn’t win any fights today?”
His expression remained nonchalant.
“I don’t recall you winning any fights last night either.” He pursed his lips. “Nor did you the night before.”
My lips pulled into a self-satisfied smirk.
“Well, some would call the way I pinned you down a win—”
Just then, Ariyan’s phone tinged, and he looked down at the lit screen.
“As delightful as this lunch was, my next meeting is about to be here.”
Getting the message clear, I got up, grabbing the paper bag full of our leftover lunch with me.
“I’ll be out of your hair, boss.”
I walked over to the door, where Ariyan joined me.
“By the way, you smell real good, boss.”
He rolled his eyes. “Please, what you’re smelling is your greasy burger.”
Leaning closer to him, I ducked my head down and held still. “Nah,” I whispered, my breath hot on his neck. “All you, boss.”
“I need to muzzle that mouth of yours,” he hissed when I pulled back.
“Be my guest.”
He opened the door, and we both stopped when a man stood in the doorway. I took a second to check him out when Ariyan spoke.
“Oh, Chief, I was just about to go out and meet you.”
Chief?
I glanced back at the tall man who seemed familiar for some reason, but not enough for me to linger.
“See you later, boss,” I told Ariyan, then went on my way, already counting the minutes until I’d see him tonight.
ARIYAN
“It’s all there, sir,” I said, eyeing the chief of police as he counted the gold bars in the suitcase. “I counted them myself.”
He looked up, his thick brows furrowing. “That’s why I’m counting.”
I huffed. “I’m offended.”
He didn’t bother replying and instead took one bar out and tossed it from one hand to the other.
Unlike the old chief of police, this one was much easier to buy.
However, his price was significantly higher.
But that was a small price for a man like Eduardo Flores to pay in exchange for running his business in Miami like it was his own playground.
He put the bar back inside the black suitcase and looked at me.
“Satisfied?” I asked.
He gave me a half nod. “Tell your boss everything is set for Saturday night. None of my men will be in his way.”
A big, fake smile spread on my lips. “Perfect.”
He pointed at the suitcase placed on the desk. “You’ll have it sent to me?”
“Of course.”
“You’re sure it’s safe?”
Pulling the suitcase closer to me, I zipped it back.
“I assure you, Chief, that no one will ever be able to track this gold. Not to me, and most certainly not to you.”
At last, he turned around to leave, and the second he did, I wiped the smile off my face, my jaw hurting. I was fed up with sucking up to the likes of him, who sold their morals to the highest bidder. For some men, it was sex, for others, money, but in the end, everyone had a price.
Once Mr. Policeman was out of my office, I sat back in my chair and opened the desk drawer.
Taking out the phone I kept there, I dialed Eduardo’s number.
While waiting for him to pick up, my eyes went over the other things I kept there: my gun, my lip balm, a flash drive I needed to put in my safe, and—
I hovered my fingers over the cheap fox keychain I’d kept there ever since Christmas Eve. It was so silly, but somehow, it brought a smile to my lips, one that hardly even hurt.
“Hello?”
“It’s done,” I said, grabbing the keychain and bringing it closer. “We’re all set for Saturday.”
Holding it by the silver chain, I watched the fox dangle from side to side.
“Good. Did the bastard ask for a raise?”
I shook my head, eyes still on the fox. “No. But I’m sure he will soon.”
Eduardo huffed. “We’ll just have to get rid of him once he does. Those greedy badge-wearing bastards… The higher the rank, the greedier they become.”
Like you’re one to talk.
“All the invites were sent, too. We’ll have some new faces this time around.”
“Good, that’s good… Our clients get bored if we keep handing them the same supply.”
Supply.
I clenched the keychain in my fist.
It’s human beings you’re talking about, you repulsive pig.
“Anyway, keep up the good work, Ariyan.”
I held my breath, trying not to scream.
“I’ll call you again before the party,” he said and hung up.
After the call ended, I placed the phone back in the drawer and was ready to put the keychain in there, too, but stopped before I did. Looking at it again, I thought of him.
Santiago Rivas.
Yes, I was fed up with men like the chief and Eduardo, but thanks to this useful moron, I’d soon be free of them all.