Mafia King's Contract Breeder
Chapter 8 Negotiation Tactics

Chapter 8: 8 Negotiation Tactics

"I want more money than this." I sounded bolder than I felt.

The contract hit the desk with a flat crack when I slapped it down — a satisfying sound that I had practised in my head approximately forty times on the bus over.

I was running on zero sleep and too much coffee. Instead of making any money, so far since I had been presented with this contract, I had blown 18 dollars on expensive frappes with too much syrup.

A sugar and caffeine high that had filled me with negotiation bravado.

My mysterious client pinned me with a critical gaze. He was sitting in Rob’s usual chair, and Rob was nowhere to be found. The only sounds were the distant hum of a vacuum cleaner somewhere above us and the faint ticking of a pipe in the wall behind the filing cabinet.

"How much?"

The bravado started to shrink like a pierced balloon, but I was nothing if not persistent.

"Double it. And I want half of it up front."

I kept my chin level and my voice flat.

Here’s my recommendation for bartering for price: always start with ridiculous numbers. Don’t worry that they will be offended. If they really want to make the deal, they would come back to a middle ground with you. That’s what I learned on the shady street markets in East Windlem.

He looked at me for a moment. The office held its breath.

I already had my argument ready if he tried to lowball me: try asking any other girl if they would agree to this! I don’t even know who you are. Of course the money must be up front, to prove that you are not lying.

"Fine," he said.

He withdrew a black card from his suit pocket and put it down on the desk between us.

"Here is an advance. You can take this tonight."

"Wait, really?"

I should have asked for more! Rookie mistake.

I pressed my lips together, internally kicking myself.

Before I could change my mind, the Mystery Client laid out two identical copies of the contract that I had already seen onto the desk in front of me.

He reached into his jacket again and produced a fountain pen. Sleek, dark, lacquered, the kind of object that felt significant just lying there. He set the clip end facing him and spun it gently across the desk in my direction, where it came to rest against the contract with a small, neat tap.

"Sign the contract, Miss Brinson."

I licked my lip nervously, heart pounding against my ribcage so hard that I was worried he would hear it.

I picked up the pen. It was heavier than I expected. Cool against my fingers, more monumental than my usual cheap ballpoint pens.

The pen hovered over the dotted line for a moment.

I glanced up at the stranger, biting my lip.

Was I really going to sign a contract with a man whose name I didn’t even know?

All I knew about him was how his cock felt inside me.

Then I thought of the admissions offer with gold-embossed letters that Chloe had hidden under her stack of textbooks. I thought of the tiny house we shared that never got enough sunlight, and the electricity only worked half the time. And the alternative to taking this offer: years more of working at The Red Door for a fraction of this money.

I scribbled out my name on both copies of the document before I could second-guess it.

Life changing money, up front payment.

What’s the worst that could happen?

I passed the fountain pen back to the mysterious client, letting out a deep breath.

Now that I had signed it, something unspoken changed in the air between us, in the way that he looked at me.

I belonged to him. Some stupid, filthy part of me half-expected him to order me to my knees right away.

The Mystery Client’s expression did not change. He looked down at my signature, then took the pen and signed it himself without a second thought.

He looped a signature across the page just beneath my name in sweeping cursive.

He put one copy of the contract away into a briefcase with a mechanical click.

Then he handed the second copy back to me.

I flipped it open, curious to see my client’s name at last.

The signature was large, the letters connected in a flowing diagonal that slanted slightly upward. I tracked from left to right, parsing the shapes.

"E. Sar–" I read, trying to make out his handwriting with a horrible, sinking feeling in my gut.

"Emmanuel Sagres," he said, as though it was a very ordinary self-introduction.

I looked up at the man again, crumpling the edge of the paper in my hand.

"Your name is Emmanuel Sagres?" I said slowly. With a last burst of optimism, I huffed a laugh – maybe he simply shared a name with the Devil, surely he couldn’t be... "Like the mafia crime lord?"

He didn’t laugh. He nodded once.

"So you understand why secrecy is essential for me."

The smile faded from my face.

"You’re...Emmanuel Sagres."

The words landed with the finality of truth.

The man who had united the mafia kingdom in East Windlem. The king without a crown in this crime-infested hellhole. The name that sat at the centre of the district the way a drain sat at the centre of a basin.

The reason that my dad would be behind bars for the rest of his life.

The reason that I had become desperate enough for prostitution in the first place.

The man I hated most in all the world.

That was who I had signed myself away to.

Blood roared through my veins. The chair seemed to lurch under me as though a ship in a storm, ready to spit me into the icy waves. I grabbed onto the edge of the seat with both hands, my vision blurring.

Across the table, Emmanuel Sagres studied me with an expression of mild interest.

"Do you have a problem with me?"

Oh hell, did I have a problem. I scoffed before I could think better of it, my expression twisting into a sneer.

"I wouldn’t dare."

The realisation was still hitting me in waves, in the way of something so monumental that I could barely wrap my head around it. It got worse and worse the longer I had to think about it.

I just signed a contract. I signed a contract to have –

Fuck, I already had sex with Emmanuel Sagres.

All of a sudden it felt as though he still had me hanging from a hook on the balls of my feet. The scent of his expensive cologne was choking me. I could still feel the heat and stretch of his cock inside me, those long fingers digging into my thighs.

Oh, no no no no no.

I stumbled to my feet like the chair had stung me.

This won’t do. This just could not be happening.

I have to go.

Backing away three steps until my back hit the door, I turned the doorknob without turning my back to the dangerous man watching my every move.

Why was that locked? When...?