HIS GUILTY PLEASURE

CHAPTER THREE

My sister was doing fine for herself, maybe too fine because now she wasn’t under my father’s watchful eyes, she had a lot of me-time. That is, when she was not working her ass off at the company. You may be wondering just what kind of company Nicholas Moretti owned. Well, it was just one of the biggest companies in the city that swept over a billion dollars a day into its net.

Cartel, a company that had almost every kind of product to its name. It first started with cars, then phones and gadgets. They had collaborations with freaking furniture and clothing brands, you name it. Nico was the head of over two hundred branches across the world. He was killing it. No, he literally was.

You see at the time, I didn’t know this, but Cartel was the name of the sleekest gang in the city. They controlled the market, politics, policies, even taxes. Nico had all the string in those pale nimble fingers like a freaking puppet master. The stock and policies spoke in his name.

Nico walked into one of the thousand warehouses he owned. The place was dark, with only a search light hanging at the center of the tall room. He wasn’t alone though. He was escorted by his secretary into a room of men in black suits. Carrying no weapons whatsoever.

You see, when recruiting members for his criminal corporation, Nico didn’t hire just anyone. He hired people with skills and a story. A story he could one day use as a weakness. There was no room for betrayal in his circle.

One of them took a chair under the light, which Nico took and next they brought out a woman, hands cuffed to her back and blood all over her body. She breathed heavily as they dropped her in front of him.

‘I must say, you have my heart’, Nico began, ‘the level of fidelity is beyond phenomenal.’

The place was quiet, she breathed heavily, ‘I’d rather eat my hat’.

‘Don’t speak without any sense because I could make that happen’, he laughed, ‘have you ever heard of mock execution?’

She was silent.

He sat back and signaled his secretary. Kim handed his master a revolver.

‘I’m a man of words, I don’t hit a lady, I just take the simpler route’, he pointed the gun in her direction, just twenty feet away, enough for a ballistic impact. ‘Now here’s how this is going to work. This revolver has six chambers representing the five chances you have to talk’.

‘I've already told you what I have to say’, she said weakly, in the face of death.

‘Good’, he said as he pulled the trigger, and it went off with a loud bang. He turned the gun as if surprised, then chuckled, ‘Oh, this bad boy’s loaded’.

But Nico already knew that. That’s why he aimed at a quadrant on her abdomen, painful enough to make an impact but not fatal enough to kill. The hostage groaned in pain as she grasped onto the bleeding wound.

‘My bad’, he said, ‘let’s just say I owe you a million dollars for treatment. Let’s do this again’, he aimed the gun again, ‘whenever you’re ready’.

She panted, ‘there's nothing more I have to say’.

With that followed another shot, this time to the leg, just inches above the knee. She screamed, ‘kill me already!’.

‘Oh you wish’, Nico rolled his eyes, ‘as much as I wouldn’t like to keep the misses waiting, I insist on having you answer tonight. "It looks like you have four more shots in you’, he chuckled, ‘Kim, get her details, seems like I'm in a two-million-dollar debt to this poor woman’.

Kim moved closer to getting her details.

‘What are you playing at?’

‘I’ll give you some sort of compensation after your death. It only makes me feel better about myself’, he joked with a serious face.

She went silent, weighing her options. She heard rumors about this man. Anyone who was affected by the Cartel was never heard of- even their families. Could it be that he wasted them or made them rich enough to leave the country?

‘You’re saying that you’ll pay for this information?’

‘Information? 'I’m buying my conscience from you’, he chuckled, ‘but you can call it whatever you want’. He aimed his gun, ‘What’s it going to be’, he cloaked his gun.

‘I’ll tell you what you need to know, but first, I need a contract’.

‘Business is my forte’, he smiled, ‘Kim, draw up a contract’.

***

When Nico walked into his house, it was surprisingly calm and quiet. Camilla should have been screaming ‘daddy’ while running down the stairs.

‘Where’s Camilla?’, he asked the butler.

‘The young Miss is with the madam’, he answered.

‘Oh’, he said nervously, then walked to the stairs leading up to her side of the mansion, then stopped. He had to think long and hard about this. Nothing in the contract said he couldn’t do this. But then again, it's her private space, but it was his house, he argued with himself.

‘Do you need help with anything’, the butler finally asked after watching for two excruciating minutes.

‘Nothing’, he answered, ‘you’re dismissed’, he said as he took heavy steps up the stairs.

On the hallway to her room, he could hear the echo of their voices. He stopped in front of her door, quiet as a mouse.

‘And Humpty Dumpty had a great fall’, they read together, ‘see, see how he fell’. Camilla chuckled excitedly.

‘Oh he must have broken a leg’, Lee replied with a grimace which Camilla mirrored on her face. Nico smiled, not only at that, but at the leg he just broke at the warehouse. Then he wondered how he could even smile at that at that moment.

‘And all the kings and all the kingsmen could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again’, they said.

‘That’s sad’, Camilla pouted, ‘Why couldn’t they put him back?’

‘Well, because, in this life, somethings cannot be fixed’, Lee replied as she stroked Camilla's black curly hair.

‘Like what?’

‘Uhm, somethings like trust’

‘What is trust mommy’.

The word must have caught Nico by surprise as he made the wrong move and hit the door. s**t, he cursed under his breath. This was typically not how he spied on people, but did Camilla just call his contract wife mommy? He had his poker face on as he swung the door open.

‘Daddy’, Camilla screamed as she ran into his arms.

Nico picked her up with a smile, something Lee had never seen before and, truthfully, it made him handsome, from her angle.

‘What did you do today, my little viper?’

‘I played with my toys and mommy made my hair for me. See’, she said as she flaunted her two pigtails. Nico admitted how cute they were, but to himself, ‘then I read some stories’

‘You didn’t eat?’

‘She was waiting for you’, Lee eyed him, as though if he was a minute later, she would have sawed off his throat.

‘Yes, let’s have dinner together’, Camilla squeaked, ‘with mommy’.

With the amount of times Camilla had said" Mommy", Nico could never get used to it. Of all the women he knew, even those remotely close enough to meet Camilla, she never ever called any of them her mother. Camilla was really picky.

He looked over to Lee uncomfortably, as if caught off guard. Lee liked this side of him, he looked like a shy teenager asking his crush out to prom. She couldn’t believe this was the same guy she screamed her head off at that morning.

‘Sure’, Lee answered, ‘let’s go’.