I even show him my soft underbelly despite the little voice that warns me he’ll learn how weak I really am. I say how, even today, I still act out because I feel so unremarkable in the face of my siblings’ achievements. Whit and his billions and his bank, Brin and El working for him, buying fancy apartments and driving fancy cars. Dan has traveled the world and even found someone to love. Primrose is excelling at uni and wants to be a psychologist. Sure, it’s essentially because she’s as nosy as all get-out, but I also find her direction really admirable. Even Heather, in all her neurodivergent awkwardness, found love and a soft place to fall. She’s thriving at work and killing it as a wife and a mother.
“You’re anything but unremarkable.” Raif’s expression isn’t exactly soft. Maybe more exacerbated? “You own an art gallery, and you’re not even a quarter of a century old.”
“Eew! Twenty-five looms,” I mutter unhappily because compliments sometimes feel icky.
“For some of us, twenty-five is a distant memory.”
“What were you doing at that age?”
He shrugs. “Trying to stay out of jail.”
“Hashtag goals,” I say weakly as I make a ridiculous gesture, crossing two fingers over two others. “Did you manage?”
“I did. I worked construction during the day and in a casino at night. I made enough money to buy a piece of land. I built a house and sold it for a profit. Did it a couple more times, then I built a strip mall, bought a nightclub, and another. Inherited some money, bought more bars, nightclubs …”
“And the rest is history?”
“No, then my father died and left me a bucket of money, so I diversified.”
“Into art and money laundering? Oops!” I slap my hand to my mouth, eyes dancing anyway.
Another forkful is pushed my way, though I hold up my hand as, with the other, I rub my full tum.
“I have my fingers in many pies, and not all of them are strictly lawful. I run unlicensed gambling houses.”
“In Chelsea.” Where it all began.
“And some other places. The stakes are high, and the clientele requires anonymity.”
“Because it wouldn’t do for people of their standing to be seen in casinos or snorting coke off some girl’s backside?”
“You didn’t see that,” he asserts.
“Why, have you?” I almost squeak. It was just something I plucked from my imagination.
“The night we met in Chelsea was a different kind of night. No one of note there, and the poker stakes weren’t so high.”
“Three hundred thousand!” I protest.
“There are different levels of play, but my regulars gamble much deeper than that.”
“Then they’ve got problems.”
“We’ve all got problems.” A tiny smile plays on his lips. “And we all want to hide those problems from the world. They want privacy to play, in all sense of the word.”
My stomach sinks. “You’re talking about prostitution, aren’t you?” But Raif is already shaking his head.
“I don’t run drugs or girls. They’re on offer, sure. The girls are freelance but absolutely not trafficked. And the drugs, well, let’s just say I don’t smuggle, and I don’t deal. They’re just a perk. And all this is just a small portion of my empire, if you like.”
Multiple streams of income,my mind offers cynically.
“Why do you do it, then? If you’re making more money in other business, why bother?”
“Influence. Leverage. Call it what you will.”
“Blackmail?”
But he just smiles an enigmatic-looking smile.
