Interesting Times - Chapter 30

July 27th, 2173

20:46

Illium, Tasale-System

Nos Astra, Seyola-Restaurant

I decided to wait until they finished with their main course. Anything else would have been rude, in my opinion. And it definitely had nothing to do with the piece of cake I ordered as dessert, even if that cake was one of the specialties of the restaurant.

Furthermore, it gave me time to think about my plan once again, adjust certain aspects, and cover possible scenarios. I didn't want to appear too forceful and flaunt my power. That was something that had become my go-to response in the last few years and was something I tried to change about myself.

During my time on the Citadel, someone pointed out to me that I focused too much value on raw power than I ever did before, and I cursed myself for not noticing it.

Years ago, I scolded others for thinking like that, and now I was doing it myself.

How embarrassing.

Yet, now that the problem, and it was a problem, got pointed out to me, I was trying to correct my thinking.

Perhaps, I got used to the power I wielded at my fingertips. There's nothing more addictive than to know that a single word of yours can change the life of another person and that a single order can affect thousands of people.

I took a deep breath to center myself. Searching for a reason could wait for a bit longer. I was here to further my agenda, not to reflect on the changes that happened to me over the years.

Besides, if started with that, I would have to send out more than a few orders to my associates and tell them about a few changes that would happen in the coming months.

My eyes found the table where the person I wanted to speak with was, and I saw that a waiter was busy clearing the table of the leftovers from the main course. The Asari and the Turian browsed the menu the waiter gave them for dessert but didn't look like they were doing so enthusiastically.

It seemed like their dinner didn't go well, and they were just keeping up airs for those around them.

That was good and bad for me, depending on their individual moods.

My target would probably be annoyed but grateful for my sudden appearance. Probably thankful for the surprising distraction. Nobody liked to continue with a dinner date when it became awkward or stilted.

The appendage could react in two different ways. On the one hand, the appendage could react the same way as my target and use the situation to politely leave. That was the outcome I favored.

Yet, from what I knew, the second outcome was much more likely than the first. A rising temper, antagonism, insults about my species, and some empty threats to see me dead.

Essentially, the loud barking of a dog with no bite.

Still, just because I knew what was probably going to happen and was prepared for it didn't mean I was going to like having to deal with it.

Well, no time like the present. And I had to leave my table at some point, right? I was sure there were already people waiting for it. The food was, after all, amazing.

I waved a waiter over to pay my check and, after paying, stood up to make my way over to my target's table. A casual smile appeared on my face. It was important to seem relaxed when one went into a situation that could escalate. Staying calm, even when someone started to threaten you, made it seem like you had absolute control of the situation. And that was necessary when dealing with someone losing their temper, or else they could act on their impulses and make everything worse than it had to be. Making shortsighted decisions while angry was sadly not a trait confined to humans.

As I walked over, I had to stop a snort from coming out when I thought about my initial plan of seemingly trying to leave the restaurant just to 'coincidentally' walk past their table. That I even had the idea to make it look like pure happenstance that I met them was enough to make me cringe inwardly. It would have looked so staged that it could've happened in a low-budget soap opera that runs around midday. Especially if I had to reveal some of my preparations if the add-on got uppity. After all, why should I prepare anything if it was a coincidence meeting them in the first place?

When I got close to the table, I made sure to appear in the field of vision of my target first.

Her eyes widened a fraction when she saw me, but any indication of surprise faded from her face moments later and was replaced by a calm but inviting smile.

"Ms. De'Tiyovi, it's nice to see you again," I greeted, focusing on her while ignoring her company.

"Mr. Denebren, how wonderful to meet you here. But I can't help but ask for your reason for being here," she responded kindly.

I wasn't taken in by her false tone. The true meaning behind her words was a lot closer to simply asking me what I wanted than anything, but since we were in a public setting, she had to follow common courtesy and ask politely.

"I saw you entering the restaurant earlier, and thought it would be polite to say hello. And since you, just like I, finished with the main course, I thought it was the right time to do so."

"That is very kind of you, Mr. Denebren," De'Tiyovi said while her eyes looked into mine, searching for the real reason I approached her in this setting.

But before I could say anything leading in that direction, the Turian, who was her company for the evening, didn't want to stay silent any longer and interrupted our conversation rudely.

"I would prefer you go on your way now that you said hello. We were having a nice dinner until you appeared."

I saw De'Tiyovi rolling her eyes at the comment, and I also raised an eyebrow at it. Either he was delusional if he called their dinner nice, or it was a nice dinner for him. If the latter one was true, then I didn't want to know what he considered a catastrophic dinner.

Perhaps if his dinner date tried to kill him?

Slowly I turned my head to him, my smile fixed on my face, and looked at the Turians face, trying to ascertain his mood.

Turian faces were always harder to read, their physiology too different from those of humans, so my experience in reading people's faces wouldn't be able to help me as much as it did with Asari and Salarians. Those two species showed their moods a lot more like humans, and if one knew what to look for, one could find traces of them in their faces.

Still, one didn't have to be an expert in reading Turian faces to realize the Turian in front of me wasn't in the best of moods. Narrowed eyes, his mandibles pressed together. If that Turian wasn't annoyed and angry, then I would donate my whole fortune to Cerberus.

Any notion that he would just politely leave now that he had an out disappeared from my mind.

He was looking for a confrontation to give his frustrations an outlet. Perhaps he wasn't as ignorant as I first thought. Rather, he knew how well their dinner went and now tried to make himself feel better by confronting me. That I was a human made the situation even better in his mind. He wasn't the most open-minded person on Illium in regards to newcomers on the galactic stage, or better said, any species not on the Council.

I had hoped that the public setting would stop him from his usual tendencies. Especially when his date for the evening was the Asari running some of the most popular news companies on Illium. If she wanted she could destroy his reputation in a single week.

Yet, a quick glance to the side showed me that she had no intention of involving herself. It was more likely that she wanted to enjoy the coming show if I interpreted the small smile she tried to hide by taking a sip of her wine correctly.

"Ah, Mr. Vertorios," I said, "a pleasure to meet you as well."

Staying polite in the face of animosity was always a good idea, especially in a public setting. It took your opposite off-guard because most expect you to respond with hostility. Furthermore, unless your opposite was set on their path, they would tone down their aggression so they wouldn't feel like an idiot by continuing with it. The public setting helped in this regard because nobody liked to appear lesser than the other person when dozens of eyes were directed at them. And starting a fight for the heck of it was definitely something the public looked down upon.

As long as the public wasn't consisting of only Krogans.

Yet, from Vertorios narrowing eyes, I knew that he had no intention of calming down to have a polite conversation.

"And how do you know my name?" he asked grindingly.

"I make it a habit to know the names, occupations, and associates of the players here on Illium," I answered, skirting somewhat around the truth.

While my words could be interpreted as a compliment, calling Vertorios a player, it wasn't what I wanted to say.

Well, Vertorios was a player. His shipping company may be small, and mostly used to ferry goods for his underworld partners, but he had enough money and influence to be called one.

However, the league he was playing in was far beneath mine and De'Tiyovi's. So far beneath ours that I initially asked myself why she even agreed to this dinner.

Finding out that it was a donation to one of her charities and that she was obligated to invite him to dinner as thanks were enough to assuage my worries that I could annoy her by preventing one of her plans from coming to fruition.

The only reason Vertorios appeared on my radar was this dinner invitation, else I wouldn't have looked up his name in the first place. And damn, it didn't take my analysts even two days to find enough to threaten him into obedience, and only the fact that he was a small fish kept him from Illium's prisons.

He wasn't even important enough in the grand picture that the most corrupt officials would take his bribes. Their equally corrupt rivals would pounce on it without hesitation to further their goals.

Bribes were quite an interesting topic on Illium. As long as you were one of the big players and were discrete, the topic would never appear in the eye of the public or in any court of law. Revealing that an official took bribes also meant revealing from whom they took them and that was a big no-no for most.

After all, you had to be prepared to go against a billion credit company just to oust a rival. There were a dozen easier ways to do so than antagonize someone much more powerful than you.

The only time this happens was when two companies were going against each other, and while that wasn't unusual, they liked to keep it between them.

All in all, nobody was willing to stick out their neck for a small-time player like Vertorios when there were bribes available without consequences.

Sadly, he wasn't the kind of person who understood this.

"As you should, human," he smirked.

Did I mention that he looked down on humans? So much that he probably didn't even know who I was. Really, talk about not having any sense of danger.

I felt how my lips pressed together for a moment before my relaxed smile returned. Even if his arrogant attitude got on my nerves, I couldn't allow myself to be swept up by his flow. Right now wasn't the time to take shots at his ego.

Besides, Vertorios would lose much more if he continued with his actions than the illusion of superiority.

I looked him into his eyes a moment longer before turning back to De'Tiyovi and saying:" I just wanted to ask if it would be possible to arrange a meeting in the coming days. My time away from Illium was quite productive, and while I was on the Citadel, I came across an opportunity that should be of some interest to you."

De'Tiyovi looked at me cautiously yet with a glint of interest in her eyes. Her caution was understandable. Circle meetings were the only time we interacted with each other, and even then, those meetings were less of a social gathering than a business meeting. Not to mention, they happened only irregularly, so there wasn't often an opportunity to talk in the first place. Furthermore, my rise to the top of the business world here on Illium had been quite fast and brutal for anyone in my way. While such stellar ascents were unusual in human society, they were nothing extraordinary.

The same couldn't be said for a society of beings that lived for a thousand years. No Asari had ever accomplished something like that before their first century. They were used to slow and steady ascents through the ranks and looked at everyone who seemingly rushed to the top with suspicion.

Nevertheless, my position as a member of the Circle awarded me with some measure of trust. The same amount of trust, one would give a business partner that would think about his own profit first and foremost. Enough to get to the table, but not enough to not be looked at without suspicion.

De'Tiyovi opened her mouth to reply, but before she could get any word out, Vertorios interrupted once again, angrier than before.

"Did you just try to dismiss me, human?" Vertorios growled. With the tone he spat out the word human, he nearly convinced me that it wasn't the term for my species but an insult that had been a candidate for most offensive word of the year.

"I didn't dismiss you, Mr. Vertorios. It's just that I have some matters that I would like to discuss with Ms. De'Tiyovi. I saw no reason to delay telling her this. After all, I'm sure she would like to proceed with the dinner," I said, my head turning only slightly into Vertorios' direction so I could see him. "The cake they offer is truly exquisite." Those last words were directed at De'Tiyovi, and an amused smile flitted over her face.

She knew what I was doing, and she thought it funny. I was glad that I didn't misjudge her personality, or this could have blown up in my face.

After all, she was someone who liked tearing down others or watching it happen in front of her.

"I'm not someone you should ignore," said Vertorios, his tone dropping down to a threatening growl. "I can make your life very difficult if I want to. There are enough people who owe me a favor and would gladly take the opportunity to get in my good graces."

I couldn't help the amused smile that appeared on my face as he said those words. The smile stayed on my face as I turned back to him, angering him even more when he saw it, believing that I was mocking him.

Well, in my defense, I wasn't truly mocking him, at least not at that moment. I was more amused by his threat than anything. Some of the people he spoke about would jump to do him a favor, but most of them would probably sever any connection between them. They were smart enough to know that by making a move against me, Vertorios would become a sinking ship.

"I find that hard to believe," I replied, and my amusement bled into my tone. "If it comes to the point where you have to call in favors, it won't be because you want them to work against me, but because you will need every shred of help you can get."

I don't know if it was my words or the absolute calm I delivered them with that pushed him over the edge, but the next moment Vertorios' chair hit the floor with a resounding bang, and his face was only a few centimeters apart from mine.

"I won't be threatened by some lowly human," he spat, and some spittle flew from his mouth and hit my face. "If you don't fuck off now, I'll beat you to death right here, right now."

Really? I knew that he had a short temper, but I hadn't expected him to lose control in a public setting like this. Either his recent dry streak in his business and private life had corroded his already short fuse even further, or I had massively overestimated his ability to read the situation.

It was like Andrew once told me, it's easier to predict an intelligent and cunning adversary than the actions of a fool.

And it was a fool that stood in front of at the moment.

I took a step back from Vertorios, which he saw as my surrender if I interpreted the victorious glint in his glaring eyes correctly.

There were various reasons why I took a step back from him, but the one he assumed to be the one wasn't among them.

I just didn't like to have people right in my face.

Besides, staying too close to him would prevent my guards from having a clear field of fire.

Raising my right hand to my face, I wiped off the spit on my face while giving the signal to stand down. One of my guards would see it and communicate it to the others. The situation wasn't so dire that I was willing to cause a bloodbath in the middle of a well-attended restaurant.

Furthermore, it would deny me the chance to see how he reacted when he realized that he signed his own death warrant just this very moment.

I had been willing to let him be if he left without making too much of a fuss, but I wasn't anymore. Not after he attracted so much attention to us.

While he was ignorant of who I was and my position in the pecking order in Illium's society, the same couldn't be said about the other guests of the restaurant. One or two definitely knew me, and if I let Vertorios walk away unscathed or even backed away myself, word would spread, and the reputation I carefully cultivated during my time on Illium would take a hit. A hit I could recover from, without question, but it would take me time and effort, never mind the resources I would have to reallocate to stop the idiots who would try to take advantage of my situation.

I slowly lifted my left arm and activated my Omni-tool, its appearance drawing a scoff from Vertorios.

"What are you going to do, human? Calling Illium Security? I did nothing wrong. Besides, I've got friends on the force, and they know better than to bother me."

"You don't have friends there," I countered coldly, while tipping on my Omni-tool. "At best, you know some people that look the other way if a pile of credits is in that direction. I, on the other hand, know the kind of people that can make your so-called friends deny you faster than a Krogan pulls his gun."

Vertorios was about to say something, but my cold stare and the sound of a sent message stopped him.

"And now, you should move fast if you want to save anything of your company and personal savings," I continued, still staring him dead in the eye.

His apparent confusion was enough to return my previous amusement.

"What are you talking about?" he hissed. "And why should I believe anything from you?"

A smile that some would call borderline cruel flashed over my face. Vertorios barely saw it for a second, but it was enough to make him apprehensive.

A quick glance to the side confirmed my assumption that De'Tiyovi was following the performance intently. She was eager to see what was going to happen, and I intended to show her something that would probably pander to her partialities.

"Illium Union Bank, account number A3DR3425, Volus Intersolar Bank, account number 9823VER213, Palaven First Bank, account number S32KL243PO4."

The first one took away any steam Vertorios may still have had in his system, and with every following account he got paler and paler.

Well, if a Turian could get pale in the first place.

"Citadel Central Bank, account number CC23422DF453F, Citadel Financial, ADE2342...."

"How, how do you know those accounts," stammered Vertrorios, all previous bravado lost.

"I believe I already told you. I like to know about the people I'm dealing with. And what can I say? The people working for me are rather thorough. For example, they also found some nice evidence linking you to no less than three criminal organizations. Involving yourself in drug and weapon smuggling and people trafficking, too? That's not what an upstanding citizen should do."

I shook my head as if I was truly disappointed in him, but the knife-sharp grin on my face told another story. I was enjoying this.

"And do you want to know what message I just sent?" I asked and took a step toward him.

Vertorios took a step back at the same time and stumbled when his leg hit the chair he had knocked over.

Sadly, he found his balance and stayed on his feet. It would have been funny if he fell on his ass.

"I just put all your account information up on the extranet. Every hacker and cracker on this side of the Skyllian Verge is probably trying to get into your account at the moment. If I were you, I would hurry to the Illium Union Bank. Maybe you can save some of your credits before they're all gone. But I would hurry. After all, my friends in law enforcement just got a very interesting mail with some very incriminating evidence about a certain person."

I saw the conflict in his eyes. On the one hand, he wanted nothing more than to bolt from the restaurant, grab the next shuttle, and try to save as many credits as he could before the law enforcement officers arrived and disappear from Illium as fast as he could. On the other hand, he probably wanted to kill me for putting him in this situation. The recital of his accounts left him with no doubt that I didn't bluff and that everything I said was true.

Thankfully, he chose the first option, and Vertorios ran out of the restaurant as fast as his legs could carry him.

His choice may or may not have had something to do with the grin on my face that promised him that if he took even one step in my direction, he would like the consequences even less than his current situation.

I watched as he disappeared from my view, making a note to have someone keep tabs on him. It wouldn't do to have someone with a grudge against me run around unsupervised. Vertorios wouldn't be able to do anything, but I detested loose ends.

The smile on my face became a relaxed one as I turned toward De'Tiyovi, and I bowed my head slightly in her direction.

"I'm sorry that I interrupted your dinner, and hope this was enough to earn some of your forgiveness."

An amused smile flashed over her face as she took a sip of her wine, the dark red, almost violet liquid staining her lips.

"How did you know that I prefer my dinner to be accompanied by a show?" she asked, her tone flirtatious.

"If you allow me to take a seat and perhaps share some dessert with you, I'll gladly tell you."

Her hand elegantly waved toward the fallen chair, and the inviting smile told me everything I needed to know.

My hand grabbed the chair to put it back at the table, and as I sat down, I thought that the real challenge only started.

Well, even if everything went downhill from here, I would at least get another slice of this heavenly cake.