Page 35 of Fangs for the Memories
Even if I don’t want to end up even more indebted to this mafia boss than I already am.
Grace
“He’s through there,” Viktor says, gesturing to a doorway as I exit the bedroom.
My hair is still damp, hanging around my face as I have nothing to secure it with. I had a compact and some mascara in my bag, but it’s still at the cave entrance as far as I’m aware. So, I have no make up, wet hair, and I’ve borrowed one of Ferenc’s shirts which, with a little judicious tucking into my pants, I’ve sort of made to fit me.
I walk through into a huge room, filled with light and a view over the Danube to the parliament building. It’s snowed a lot through the night and the entire scene is blanketed with white.
The room itself is richly furnished with large comfortable couches and expensive Afghan rugs, along with great crystal chandeliers, four of them, hung in a line from one end of the room to the other. At the far end there is a great mahogany table, made to sit ten, but only Ferenc sits at it today, a plate in front of him and a sideboard behind groaning with food.
He’s reading a newspaper, with a pair of metal rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. When he sees me, he pulls them straight off and stands in an old-fashioned way, placing the paper next to him on the table.
He’s wearing another dark shirt with an open neck, and the pants I can already see are part of yet another beautifully cut suit.
“Come, kedves, eat some breakfast.” He waves his hand over the second place setting.
I am hungry, the goulash last night seeming a long time ago. So, I make my way across the huge room to the table and take a seat.
Ferenc places a basket of baked goods in front of me. I pick up one of the bread items, twisted into a loop, and break it up, popping the warm, soft bread into my mouth, attempting not to groan as it melts there perfectly.
“Coffee?” he asks, with a pot hovering over my cup. “Or do you prefer tea?”
“Coffee is fine,” I say, chewing rapidly. “I only drink tea at home. No offense, but outside of the UK, no one knows how to make a proper cup of tea.”
Ferenc gives me the full-fanged smile. “No offense taken. What other countries do with goulash soup should be illegal.”
“Says the mafia don.” I pour in some milk to the black coffee and watch the rolling cloud as it slowly mixes.
When I look up, Ferenc is watching me closely.
“My occupation bothers you more than my species?”
“I haven’t had much to do with the monsters,” I say truthfully, “but no, what you are doesn’t bother me.”
“We all have to make a living somehow.”
“My ex was an investor in tech start ups, a banker of sorts. I suspect your business is cleaner than his ever was,” I admit. “But I have to draw the line somewhere.”
“What if my business was cleaner than his?” Ferenc asks.
“How? You don’t deal in drugs or guns, do you?”
The way Ferenc looks at me, I can easily guess that is a yes, he does.
“All the things humans want,” he says in a matter of fact way. “I can supply them, so I do.”
He looks at me as he takes a sip of his coffee. I’ve gone from breakfasting with Mr. Werewolf and a world filled with vampires and wraith assassins to the cold hard mafia businessman.
It’s given me moral whiplash.
“It’s not drugs or guns, not anymore,” Ferenc says with a wicked glint in his eye. “I’m not saying some items I deal in are completely legal in all jurisdictions but these days we prefer to use computers.”
“Cyber attacks?”
“Far more sophisticated. Let’s just say your previous male”—he grits his teeth—“may have encountered us, but more likely not, as we’re good at covering our tracks in most banking systems.”
“You’re stealing from thebanks?”
