95. Leo

I chuckled without clear humor when Lade wrote me a cheque. "When have I even taken a goddamn cheque from you?" I had to ask him.

"I want her," gave me a serious look which I only ignored and decided to pour myself a drink.

"And you can have her," I let the taste of the whiskey settle in after I took a gulp of it."One week from now, fifty million in cash and she's yours. If shit goes past this week, I'll sell her to the next person that is willing to buy her."

I stared back at him with a smile as his own stare gradually turned into a glare. I would laugh at how angry I was making him if I didn't have other things messing with the little good mood I woke up with today.

"If you fucking sell her..."

"Don't make a threat, I'll gladly sell her to someone else before the end of the night. Don't make me angry." I cut him midway through his words, irritated by his audacity.

He let his glare last for a while more before seizing the cheque back and squeezing it to show me that he was angry, after that, he stood and left, Jay, his aide following suit.

I drank more from my glass after he left, the corner of my eyes catching Mae's fingers fidgeting against each other.

"Miss Yrote," I called her name and she immediately paused every movement of her body."Any verbal message from Jerry before he left?" I asked Pete who just shook his head.

"Just his boss's greetings," Pete answered. I had asked him to come down here with Mae to take care of Jerry whose boss let me know I'd be receiving a package.

"Where is it?" Pete got on his feet after I asked him to get me the suitcase that was delivered to him earlier before I arrived.

While he was gone, I still drank my whiskey but let my eyes constantly visit where Mae sat on the far end of the comfortable sofa we shared.

"Get up," I finally stopped glancing and gave her my full attention. She looked at me shortly and although I couldn't see her expressions through the half mask she wore, I could depict that she was just drawn out of her own thoughts.

She uncrossed her legs and got on her feet."Come here," I ordered and started to pour another half glass for myself.

Hesitantly, she dragged my legs to where I sat and stood waiting to know what next I would say to her.

"Sit your small ass down," this time, I was so sure that she had raised a brow to oppose my statement that her ass was small. But she could only do that because she had a mask on.

When she sat, I turned to her and raised the mask off of her face, leaving it hanging on her forehead and exposing her reddened face. She was disoriented, proving my guess right.

"Why is he willing to buy me for that amount? Why the fuck does he want me? For f-fifty... fifty..." She stopped to breathe when she couldn't complete her words.

"Why wouldn't he want you?"I asked her a countering question. "You're a fucking gem, you know?"

"I've seen your whores, they're prettier than I am," she pointed out, and though, I want to chastise her for comparing herself, I couldn't help but smile from getting to know that asking Bee to wait up in my room did get to her as I planned.

It was fucking hilarious to find out how petty this woman was making me be when it came to her.

"None of them are Daniel Yrote's daughter."I cleared it to her."Lade once made the mistake of telling me how he had been looking for you. It's going to be a pleasure to him if he could continue in ending the Yrote bloodline after his father; not everyone knew you were adopted and not really his blood."

"So Daniel Yrote doesn't have anyone with his gene roaming this world? And then your FRIEND wants to buy me just so he could kill me even if I'm not really Daniel's bloodline?" She strained on the friend part of her words to draw a reaction from me but I had none to give. "Why not just tell him I'm not? What if he kills me?" She asked with a shaky voice.

"He won't, not if you kill him first," I told her while my eyes followed Pete returning to the table to present me with the suitcase he had in hand. I wasn't ready to tell her that I was Daniel Yrote's biological son.

"..." She opened her mouth to speak but shut it back when Pete opened the case for me to see its content.

Disbelief first, and then anger slowly crept up as I glared at the opened suitcase. There were two hands and a blood-soaked ponytail. I looked up and Pete and he shrugged. Now I knew why he didn't want to tell me what he saw through our earlier conversation before I came to meet Lade. I couldn't have faced Lade if I had known about this earlier.

"There's an accompanying recording in the case, sir," Pete's voice brought me out of the darkness that surrounded me after seeing the suitcase's contents.

Mae seemed to sense the gloom that came over me because she stood from where she sat beside me and went and took the position Lade sat in before he left.

Pete took the recorder out of the box and shut it before leaving with it again. I sighed out a bit of hot air through my nostrils before playing the recorder to listen to it.

"Leo!" I heard Rico's voice, "My man," he laughed after. Rico was one of the men Lade worked with to bring young girls for him from around the world solely because the customers buy them like the girls diverse. I had recently asked him not to sell the girls to Lade but to me; for that to happen, I had to buy them for a double price. But he seemed to have changed his mind by sending me these hands, hands that I was sure belonged to one of the girls.

"Lade found out about our deal though he doesn't know it's you specifically... it's not like I'm scared of him, and I'm not scared of you either, which is why I'm ending the deal... I'll keep killing them and cutting off their hands till either one of you bastards die and I'm sure I can sell the others to either of you without the other one wanting to find me and cut my fucking head for it."

"I've never had to do this but now I've gotta, Lade's willing to pay triple the price for the girls but I know you're just going to offer to pay more. I'll send this message to Lade too, and if the men I sent to deliver this to you are following my orders accurately, you might die a few minutes after listening to this, if you don't, I hope Lade dies then."