Page 144 of Lau Ahi
“You said this was to start?”
Faith looked confused but I wasn’t someone who played with eating. Having been once deprived of the ability to eat for days I refused not to indulge.
“Big brain needs fuel.”
“To be young and to eat whatever you want.” Faith was still a very attractive woman so I had no idea what she was seeing if she had issues with her form.
“Is that all?” The server looked between us, and I wondered if she were silently judging my order.
I smiled not wanting to be rude since I was unsure of the motivation behind her question. “For now. We’ll be here a while.”
“Do you need another 75 or would you like me to pour your glass?”
“Champagne will be fine.”
With a nod, the server topped up both of our glasses before placing the champagne back in ice.
“It’s my pleasure to serve you. Let me know if you need anything else. My name is Matty. If you need anything,” She nodded toward the cutely designed doorbell that sat at the end of our table, which was a way to call for service. I appreciated that they wouldn’t hover around and would only come by if our drinks needed to be filled.
“Do you mind if I ask you questions?” I was ready to get back to business now that we’d gotten the formalities out of the way.
Faith put down her glass before nodding. “By all means. If I feel it’s easier to just tell you, I have no problem injecting.”
“How did any of this come about?”
“The group has several branches. The tree has always been sound but sadly my branch started to wither.”
“Wither?”
“My grandparents’ generation started several art galleries—”
“Great way to launder money—”
She paused and seemed impressed with my lack of morality over what she’d confessed. “Especially when they’re all just forgeries or a front for a forgery business.”
I nodded again remembering everything that Ori had told me about his family.
“What was the problem?”
Faith seemed surprised that Ori had shared that tidbit with me, but she continued.
“Technology made it easier and easier to find out what was real and what wasn’t. Carbon dating, tests… all of that was something that was making it harder to turn the type of profit necessary to have a conglomerate like ours continue to see you as an asset and not a liability.”
“You all couldn’t innovate?”
My curiosity was piqued because I came from a family that fled a war-torn country and had made something of itself. Well abo had. My mother was a vapid, over-consuming waste of flesh but his success made up for her lack of it.
“When you have people who actually want to work it’s not hard to find a need and fill it. Especially not in the shadows we live in.”
“I’m guessing your family weren’t the salt of the earth type of people?”
Her eyes crinkled reminding me of her son and a feeling of longing hit me squarely in the chest. I had to shake it off because something as ridiculous as emotions weren’t about to cloud my judgement.
Haven’t they already?
Faith’s eyes hardened. The pain her family caused still a living thing despite the time that had passed. “Hardly. The people that we are connected to, they’re not what some would call good but they’re moral. They do far more good to outweigh what some would consider the bad. But many people wouldn’tsee them that way. Themafiais European so it’s romanticized. TheYakuzais seen as exotic so it is, too. The same with theBratvaand every major European kingdom still in existence. It all takes from many to hoard for self and does minor good deeds for the masses for PR.”
“So that’s what this is like?” ‘Cause I was now rethinking a lot. The whole point of getting me involved was to help people, not join the ranks of the predators.
