Chapter - 12

"What is our relationship?" Sofia asked as the pair entered the club, Mateo and Juvi tailing them, the pulsing bass reminding her of the club she had worked at back home, except there were no poles for women to dance in there.

Vincenzo grabbed her hand and entangled their fingers together just as Dante joined them, too. "You're my date. And act like you don't understand french. Only english."

Sofia nodded. That much she had already figured. Vincenzo lead her away from all the tables to the private booths at the back before stopping in front of a rather large one with guards posted outside.

He nodded at the guards and they nodded back, letting him pass with ease. The inside of the booth was much larger than she had anticipated, several tables spread out in the closed space.

Vincenzo lead them to a table in the middle. "Louis," he greeted a middle aged man with a slight paunch who stood up with a laugh.

"Don Vincenzo! It's good to see you," he said with a heavy french accent, shaking Vincenzo's hand and gesturing for him, Sofia and Dante to sit.

As the three of them took their seats, Louis motioned at someone over their shoulder to bring them drinks.

Moments later, two other men took their seats on either side of Louis. "These are my amis, Bastian and Hugo," Louis introduced his friends, who each shook hands with Vincenzo and Dante and nodded at Sofia in acknowledgement.

"You've got yourself a nice establishment here, Louis," Vincenzo remarked, showing his appreciation as drinks were placed in front of them.

"Ah, yes, it is. Too bad I have to part with it so soon," Louis replied, looking around the place almost fondly.

"It's okay, Louis. Don Vincenzo here will pay handsomely for it," Bastian said, though his eyes were trained on Vincenzo as he said so.

"Damn right he will. Why is the girl here, though? Thinks he can distract us?" Hugo said in french, shooting Bastian a smirk.

Bastian laughed. "She seems like a good little lap dog to play around with when bored. Maybe we can keep her in exchange."

Though it was hard, Sofia managed not to react at their crudely spoken words. Vincenzo placed a hand on her thigh, squeezing in reassurance. Even though he did not understand what was being said, he was intuitive enough to know it wasn't something particularly good.

"Drink, gattina?" Vincenzo murmured, picking up a glass and holding it out to her.

She nodded, giving him a smile to tell him she was alright as she grabbed the glass and took a sip.

Turning to the others with his own drink, Vincenzo began the negotiations. The shift to work mode was subtle, but it was there. He sat tall in his seat, his stance confident, not a single emotion showing on his face even when things got a little frustrating at some points with Louis getting visibly riled up and his friends calming him down in french.

From what Sofia had understood so far, the club was one of the places both Louis and Vincenzo used as a place for money laundering and supplying drugs. Since Vincenzo was going to be buying the place off of Louis, he wanted to reduce Louis' share in both the money laundering and drug supply, probably to assert his dominance, but Louis wasn't happy with the numbers Vincenzo was proposing. The pair had spent the better part of the last hour talking about who would get control over what. There had been a few words thrown in in french, mostly between Louis and Bastian, but nothing contradictory had been said so far.

That was until Hugo cut in. "Say, he's not going to be here always. Why don't we agree to what he says now and then do whatever we want later?" He spoke in french.

Sofia quietly picked up the fruity mocktail she had switched to after the first drink, having needed her head clear if she was going to listen to everything they were saying, and took a slow sip. This was not looking good.

"That is not how business works, Hugo. You're new. Watch and keep your mouth shut while I work," Louis replied, also in french, instantly shooting the idea down.

Sofia relaxed in her seat. It was good to know the older man clearly had some morals when it came to business.

"Besides, he is not someone you want to mess with," Louis added in his native tongue.

And fear, too, it seemed.

She hid her smile behind her glass, taking another sip. She was slowly understanding why it was important to instill fear into your associates in Vincenzo's line of work. Why he had the reputation of being cold and ruthless. Clearly, it was the survival of the fittest in here and Vincenzo knew that well.

Hugo seemed frustrated at having been shut down so easily but did not say anything after that as the negotiations went on.

A while later, they had finally come to an understanding. Or more like, Vincenzo had gotten what he wanted and Louis had, albeit begrudgingly, accepted it.

"Now that it is done, let us celebrate, oui?" Louis announced, motioning with two fingers to one of the servers who quickly brought over two trays with lines of coke neatly lined over it and a glass straw.

Sofia raised a brow as the three frenchmen quickly snorted up a line each, passing the tray between them.

Dante did the same with the tray kept on their side of the large table. Sofia frowned a little when Vincenzo didn't do the same. "You don't do drugs?" Sofia asked him.

Vincenzo shook his head. "No. I don't do hard drugs. Would you like to try some, though?" He asked her, nodding towards the tray.

Sofia quickly shook her head. During her time as a stripper, she had seen first hand what a drug addiction could do to you, with more than one of the women she had worked with selling their souls to the devil for a quick fix. She had vowed never to touch any of that in her life.

"Now that that is out of the way, let's talk numbers," Louis said to Vincenzo, giving him an almost devilish grin before motioning to his two friends. "Why don't you show her and Dante around the club while we talk?"

Now that it was just him and Louis, he didn't need her. Still, she looked at Vincenzo questioningly, only to find him already looking at her. "Go with them, I'll be out soon. Be careful though," Vincenzo told her and she grabbed her clutch, feeling the weight of the small pistol in it. As long as she had it with her, she'd be just fine.

"That was boring, wasn't it?" Dante said to her as the four of them made their way out of the room and into the pulsing heat of the club, promptly walking towards the bar.

Sofia couldn't help but nod, her legs feeling stiff from having to sit for so long.

"You must be used to it by now, though. Your boss sure is," Sofia replied as Bastian flagged down the bartender and ordered shots for them all.

"That man was born for this," Dante replied, taking a seat on the bar stool next to her. "Not me, though, I'm all for having some fun."

"Fun, you say? We do have a new batch of women up there if you wanna see?" Bastian said to him with a grin.

Dante grinned back before looking at Sofia just as their shots arrived. "You don't mind if we go? Boss is going to be out soon. Besides, Hugo is here to keep you company, yes?" He said, looking at Hugo who nodded, holding up a shot to him.

"Go, have fun," Hugo said, handing him his shot.

Dante downed it in one go before looking at Sofia again.

Even though she didn't particularly like being close to Hugo, especially after what he had said inside, she didn't want to spoil Dante's fun so she nodded at him to go.

As Bastian and Dante left, Hugo slid a shot glass over to her before downing his and Bastian's in one go.

Flagging down the bartender, he ordered another round of shots for the pair.

"Oh no, I won't have more, thanks," Sofia declined politely.

"Why not? Does Vincenzo not allow his little whore to drink with other men?" Hugo taunted.

Sofia narrowed her eyes. With the way his pupils were dilated, the coke he had snorted was clearly showing it's effects. Not wanting to associate with him much, she stood up from her stool. "I am more than capable of making such decisions for myself. And I'd like to take your leave now."

Hugo grabbed her wrist in a painfully tight grip as she turned to leave. "Listen here, you bitch, I—"

He couldn't complete his sentence because then he was being pushed against the bar by Vincenzo himself. "What the fuck did you just call her?" Vincenzo spat at him, his voice dangerously low.

"The bitch that she clearly fucking is," Hugo replied, his eyes full of menace even though he could barely breathe because of Vincenzo's tight grip.

"Vincenzo, stop it! He's completely out of it! Leave him!" Sofia said, panicking that Vincenzo might actually kill the man.

Her pleas fell on deaf ears as Vincenzo punched Hugo, blood gushing out of his nose. "Call her that one more time and I'll fucking skin you alive," Vincenzo warned.

Sofia screamed at him to let the man go but Vincenzo wouldn't listen. Violence was not the answer for everything. When he didn't listen, continuing to choke Hugo, Sofia shook her head. "Fuck it, I'm leaving," she said, before storming out of the club through the emergency exit.

"Sofia, wait!" She heard Vincenzo call her from behind but she only quickened her pace until she was outside in what looked like the staff parking. Where the hell was the exit, dammit!

"Sofia, stop!" Vincenzo said, having reached her and spinning her around. "You can't go around roaming on your own!"

Sofia shrugged his hand off. "And you can't go around punching people just because they called me the B-word!" she exploded.

"Disrespecting you means disrespecting me, and I can't have that," Vincenzo explained, making Sofia scoff.

"Oh, so that was for your benefit, then? And here I thought you actually cared about me."

Vincenzo shook his head, getting frustrated. "It's not like that. You don't—" his words were cut off when the door they had just come out of opened with a bang and Hugo came out, wiping the blood off his nose, an almost maniacal look on his face.

The pair noticed the gun in his hand a second too late. "Fuck," Vincenzo cussed, his hand going to the back of his pants where he had kept his gun but it was too late.

Hugo fired a silent shot, and then everything seemed to slow down as the bullet hit Vincenzo in his right arm and he fell, the gun slipping from his fingers and sliding under a parked car.

No, no, no!

Before anyone could so much as react, Hugo fired another silent shot.

Fuck, no!