NOBODY SPENDS A MILLION FOR NOTHING
1005 Words
CHAPTER FIVE
The bidding started like a joke.
Two hundred dollars. Shouted from somewhere in the back by a man who clearly thought he was being generous. The crowd laughed. Someone else matched it immediately. Then topped it.
Three hundred dollars
Another one shouted four hundred dollars
I stood on that stage in that tiny outfit and watched it happen like I was watching something occur to someone else entirely.
Like my brain had quietly stepped outside of my body and was observing from a safe distance while the rest of me stood frozen under the lights with nowhere to go and absolutely no idea how I had ended up here.
Five hundred dollars.
The crowd erupted.
The man who said it stood up…broad…heavyset. The particular confidence of someone who had bought things in this room before and expected the transaction to go smoothly.
He was already moving toward the stage before anyone had confirmed anything. Moving toward me with his hand extended and his eyes doing something that made my skin crawl from the inside out.
He reached for my arm.
I stepped back instinctively.
He stepped forward.
And then…between one heartbeat and the next…someone else was there.
I felt him before I saw him.
The same way I had felt him across a bar three weeks ago…that shift in the atmosphere and that particular weight.
Daniel stepped in front of me so smoothly it looked choreographed. One moment the heavyset man's hand was reaching for my arm. The next moment there was a wall of charcoal suit between us and the man's hand was finding nothing but air.
The room went slightly quieter.
Daniel didn't look at the man immediately.
He looked at me.
Just for a second. Just long enough for me to see something in his eyes that I had no name for and no time to examine.
Then he turned.
Reached into his jacket.
And placed something on the stage in front of the heavyset man with the unhurried calm of someone making a point rather than a payment.
One million dollars…Cash.
The silence that followed was the kind that had physical weight.
The heavyset man looked at the money. Looked at Daniel.
Something moved across his face…not defeat exactly.
Something darker than that. A promise wrapped in a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
I will find you later, that smile said.
Daniel held his gaze without expression.
The manager appeared from nowhere. A signal was exchanged without words. The music cut mid beat. Lights shifted. A voice announced smoothly that the evening's entertainment had concluded and drinks were complimentary at the bar.
The crowd dispersed with the particular ease of people whose disappointment had been compensated for.
The heavyset man picked up the money slowly. Straightened his jacket. Looked at Daniel one final time with that dark loaded smile.
Then he left.
The room was almost empty now.
Daniel turned back to me.
He shrugged off his jacket in one smooth motion and held it out without a word. Like the sight of me standing on that stage in that outfit was something he had decided he was personally done with.
I looked at the jacket…looked at him then dropped it on the floor and turned toward the backstage exit.
His guard was already there.
Standing in the doorway with his hands clasped in front of him and the particular blankness of a man simply doing his job and feeling no complicated emotions about it whatsoever.
I turned the other way.
Another guard.
I turned again.
Lily was there…my sweet terrified Lily who had been rooted to the same spot since Daniel had dropped a million dollars on a stage and rearranged the entire evening. She came to me immediately, grabbed both my hands, looked at my face with those frightened eyes.
"Sylvia…"
"It's okay." I squeezed her hands. Kept my voice steady. Even. The voice I used when things were the opposite of okay and someone needed to believe otherwise. "I'm okay. Don't worry about me."
"Sylvia you don't have to…"
"Lily." I looked at her. Really looked. "I'll be fine. I promise."
Daniel's voice came from behind me. Quiet. To his guard. "Take her to the car."
Lily's hands tightened on mine for one moment.
Then the guard stepped forward gently and I squeezed her fingers one last time and let go.
They walked me out like I was something valuable and dangerous simultaneously.
One guard in front. One behind. Through the club and out into the cool Florence night that felt nothing like freedom despite being outside.
The car was black Of course it was.
I got in.
Sat at the far end of the back seat with my arms crossed and my chin up and my heart doing something completely unreasonable in my chest that I was actively ignoring.
Daniel got in a moment later.
Two guards in the front. One on the side seat. The door closed and the car pulled smoothly into the street and Florence slid past the windows dark and glittering and indifferent.
Nobody spoke.
Then Daniel shifted beside me.
Reached across.
His hand moved toward me and my brain did something completely humiliating…stopped. Just stopped. Every coherent thought I had evaporated completely as his face came slightly closer and his arm reached past me and I genuinely, embarrassingly forgot what words were for approximately three seconds.
He clicked my seatbelt into place.
Pulled back.
Eyes forward.
Like nothing had happened.
Like I hadn't just sat there thinking…The car stopped…not a traffic stop or a light. A full sudden stop that pushed everyone slightly forward.
Daniel's entire body changed. Subtle but immediate. The relaxed posture gone. Something sharp and alert replacing it instantly.
"Who is that?" His voice was quiet. Controlled.
The guard in the front seat looked up from the blocked road ahead. At the car that had positioned itself across their path. At the figure standing beside it in the dark.
"The man from the bar, sir.”
- Writer
