Lorenzo POV I did not come here to relieve stress.
Just got to the country, barely visiting the Moretti empire, the main branch here in Italy.
I was informed that Mr Victor had already fixed the location for our meeting.
How dare he fix a meeting without my approval, but I will let this insult go, because his foolishness would be useful in the future.
The moment he stopped being useful, he would stop being a problem I had to endure in person.
My assistant had informed me on the drive over.
“Mr.
Victor is already waiting, sir.
He chose the location himself.” I had said nothing, simply looked out the car window and watched the city and reminded myself that patience is power.
The club entrance parted the moment my car pulled up.
It always does.
Inside, the music changed as I walked through.
Not because I asked anyone to change it, they simply did.
The floor seemed to hold its breath.
Conversations slowly dropped.
Eyes found something else to look at, because looking directly was a risk most people in this city had already learned not to take.
I moved through it all without slowing down.
My men cleared the path ahead.
I reached the private section and sat.
Mr Victor was already waiting, he sat forward in his chair like a man who had practiced his speech all day.
He dressed too well, like a man who uses expensive clothes to look important.
His proposal folder sat on the table between us, the edges perfectly aligned.
He began talking but I stopped listening almost immediately.
Not because I had not expected it, I had.
Victor’s proposal was not really about business.
It never was.
Men like him did not come to the Moretti table with genuine offers.
They came to stand near it, to be seen near it, to go home and tell people they had sat across a Moretti and survived.
The proposal was the excuse.
The closeness was the goal.
I had already decided I would have my assistant collect his written submission and let it sit on a desk somewhere for two weeks before sending a short refusal.
I reached for the wine and drank from the glass.
The familiar burn settled in my chest.
I took another.
Then I saw her.
She was sitting at the bar, looking so out of place and was looking at her glass, so interestingly.
Her hair was looking like it had been dragged sometimes.
She looked like someone who had come from a different kind of night.The kind of night that changes a person’s life.
I watched her carefully.
Something felt wrong with her, no visible injuries or bruises.
But I knew that expression, and had seen it before.
The quiet emptiness that comes after someone has cried until there are no tears left, the anger gone but the pain was still there.
I glanced around to check if she came with anybody but it seemed like she was alone.
No companion, no friend watching from the dance floor.
No one who seemed to belong to her.
She looked so beautiful like a fallen angel even though she looked messy.
Mr Victor was still talking.
His mouth kept moving and the words kept coming and I had no interest in any of them.
I watched the bar attendant, tap her, maybe to look away from me and I watched her ignore it.
Then she slowly turned and looked directly at me.
Most people look away immediately when they meet my eyes.
It has turned into a tradition.
The city has trained itself to do it without thinking.
She did not look away, instead she looked at me like someone who had already survived the worst day of their life and no longer cared what happened next.
I felt something shift inside me with no name.
Mr Victor’s voice interrupted my thoughts, “Mr.
Moretti, what do you think?” I turned to look at him slowly, “What was that?” For a second, irritation flashed across his face, then it disappeared.
At least he was smart enough to remember where he was.
I gave him that.
“The proposal,” he said carefully.
“”I was asking what you think about the terms.” I stared at him long enough to make him uncomfortable.
Then I looked back toward the bar.
She was still there.
“Submit your thoughts to my assistant in writing,” I said, and waved my hand once to signal the waiter.
“I will review it later.
Don’t disturb me again tonight.” Victor smiled.
Not the smile of a man who had been dismissed, but the smile of a man who had just gotten something he wanted.
I noticed it but decided not to dwell in it.
The waiter brought another wine and a new glass.
I drank it faster than the first, which was not something I typically did.
I do not drink for pleasure.
I drink to stay still inside the noise of rooms like this one.
I drank because it helped me tolerate rooms like this.
The second glass burned differently.
Something was wrong.
I placed the glass down and looked at it.
My thought went back to Victor’s face and it bothers me, then l looked at him.
He still looked like a man who had won something I hadn’t noticed yet.
Too satisfied for a man I had just dismissed.
Too comfortable for a man who had just been told he would not be getting a direct answer tonight.
I looked at the glass again.
Then I heard something from the direction of the bar.
A stool scraping back.
I looked up.
She was barely standing steady on her feet.
One hand gripped the bar counter for support.
The glass she had been holding was gone, she must have set it down.She had drunk more than she could handle.
I could see it in the careful way she moved, one step then another.
Like she was teaching herself how to walk again.
She stepped away from the bar, and walked directly toward me.
Not toward the exit, dance floor or the rest room like a normal drunk person would do.
The room noticed immediately.
My men became alert.
One of them slowly stood up from his chair around the corner.
People nearby watched with concern.
Everyone knew approaching me without permission was dangerous.
But she kept coming.
Her eyes fearlessly fixed on me.
The kind that comes when someone has already lost everything.
She stopped in front of the private section, not less than two meters away.
One of my men stepped forward, with his hand inside his jacket.
“Let her.” The words came out of my mouth before I could conclude my thoughts.
My man froze, looked at me but I did not look back at him.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
Her chest rose and fell.
Her hair was still messy.
There was a faint red mark on her left hand where a ring had been sitting until recently, I could see the indent from here.
Someone had hurt her tonight.
Badly enough that she had ended up alone in a club, drinking something she was not used to, and was now standing in front of the most dangerous man in the room with absolutely nothing on her face that resembled self-preservation.
And she said, with a voice that came out softer than I think she intended: “You’re staring.” The table went completely silent.
My assistant stopped typing.
Mr Victor stopped breathing.
My man’s hand was still inside his jacket.
In fifteen years, no woman has ever had a direct interaction with me.
Everybody knows that I hate women touching me or even coming closer, which is why all companies I work with, don’t send a female representative to me and like it that way.
That was how I was able to build this Moretti empire, people admire within the country and far wide.