Chapter 240: The Price of War

Chapter 240: The Price of War

Bitch! Why dont you answer your goddamn phone?! Nadine shouts from the other end of the phone.

Bitch, what time is it? I grog with the oversized smartphone by my ear, rubbing my forehead.

Time to wake the fuck up, bitch, Nadine says.

Fuck you, bitch.

Bitch, Im going to slap your ass red! Come down, Ive been under your apartment for thirty minutes! Lets go have breakfast!The source of this content nov(el)bi((n))

Putain.

I hope you choke on a dick one of these days, I reply to her, looking around the messy room from the bed and opting for the first semi-clean top I could put my hands on. I grip the soft duvet covering my naked body and take in the cozy warm feeling of it, hoping to bring some of it with me in the cold foggy Fall in Paris.

Seeing my face with make-up still on from the night before, I sigh.

Bitch, you look like you have seen the Devil, Nadine says to me.

You always look like I should choke you, I reply to my hyperactive friend.

Wouldnt you like that? she says with a laugh, bumping her much wider hips against mine.

So, whats new? I ask her with a yawn.

Bitch, you just came down and you are already talking business? Get me some croissant if you want to hear anything from me. And we are going shopping this afternoon. Your current look likes the nightmares that haunt those two cocksuckers of Dolce and Gabbana.

Always the Duchess, Nadine, I say with a smile.

You can bet your Muslim ass on it, Nadine says while maneuvering a cigarette to her mouth with four-centimeters-long nails.

Do you have a lighter she starts mumbling with the cigarette between the pink glossyied lips when I have the thing already halfway out of my pocket. I love you so much, she adds, biting the sounds down.

I snatch a cigarette for myself and light it up.

You better start buying them for yourself, bitch.

If I start buying them, I become a smoker. If I just steal them from you, Im just having fun, you know, I smirk.

Nadine is a black prostitute whose parents came from Nigeria to make a better life for themselves. Her father was an architect back there. Right here, instead, hes in prison. He started dealing drugs when he couldnt find any job, not even in the most remoted village in France. Nadine brothers deal drugs and, in a way, they work for me. Shes always been my friend and when I started my little shenanigans, she immediately went along. Shes my fashion guru and my big sister, probably the person I love the most in the entire world.

We sit in one of the most expensive places to have breakfast at in the entire city, getting a bad look from all the waiting staff. Once they even asked us to leave because of our aspect. I kindly asked some of my subordinates to have a word with them after hours.

Two cappuccinos, two brioches, and Nadine lets the last word hang, waiting for me to add something.

A water, and maybe some fresh-squeezed orange, I tell the nervous white girl who came to us.

Maybe? the waitress asks.

It means that you choose what to do, if you mess up, we mess you up, bitch, Nadine says with the smile of someone who owns the place.

Bitch, you are too sensitive. You know how your job gets peopleyou know? Why you so sensitive, then?

Come on, I repeat.

Bitch, Im serious. Gotta get those tits harder, you know. And maybe bigger, too. But harder, for sure.

I raise a hand toward the waitress, ignoring Nadine.

Another croissant. And another cappuccino. Also, you know what, bring me another orange juice, thank you, I look at the girl and smile.

I dont tip. This girl is waiting tables. If she thinks shes entitled to my money just because of that, shes wrong. Nadine and I come from the deepest viscera of this monster of a country. Basic courtesy should be extended to people only doing their work. But thats where it ends.

You got an appetite on you, bitch. Good for you, you need to flesh up those bones of yours, Nadine says, whipping another cigarette in her mouth.

Some days I wish you hadnt passed this smoking thing on me, bitch, I tell her, blazing up another cigarette with the butt of the last on.

So, bitch, lets talk business, she says, happy I waited for her to get her filling of chit-chat.

I gesture with the cappuccino in my hand and nod.

Got five properties good to go, she says in-between puffs of smoke, three of which in countryside around Nantes. One around Nancy. The last one is somewhere in the industrial zone of Lyon. If you put people working there, we are talking about twenty-three spot since we already have eighteen up and running.

Do you know that cryptocurrency can, on a level, be traced? Its not all dark web this and silk road that, as some people believe. When you are a big player, you have to deal on secret protocols, foreign countries, and many inconvenient things. The fact that Im rich in the open, for example, is purely for my own convenience. And to travel around with the excuse of wasting all these money left and right. But when it comes down to it, the real deals of money are exchanged toward China and Pakistan. Not much dealings in India. But the two previously mentioned countries provide me with the workers needed to run illegal plants. People desperate for money that I can cover in literal gold.

Now, with twenty-three spots up and running, our supply of weapons skyrockets. The most isolated, basically basements running in the countryside, are where the bullets are made. Its one thing to manage a gun-frameand another to go around causing explosions in a city.

I look down at the flaky crumbles left on the table by the croissants just to raise my head a second later when I hear Nadine laugh.

Whats up, bitch? I ask with a smile.

Do you ever think about the fact that we are basically gang leaders?

Am. Not are.

Terrorists. Not gang leaders.

Yeah, we are two boss bitches, I say with I wink.

We laugh it over while I mull some of my plans on my own. No one has really figured out what we are doing inside our organizations. In the end, we do really just run gun manufacturing plants and sell the products. Some news channels are even catching up with it after almost two years of running this trade.

But no one has figured out the endgame.

I look down at Nadines body, butt naked on a hospitals bed. She died with a horrible hospitals gown on, something that she would have absolutely hated. Not in style, not covered in her precious gems and expensive clothes. She had died while they tried to remove a bullet to the chest. The surgery was not easy, and the hospital has always been overworked. There was a mistake dictated by how tired the surgeon was. Nothing to blame him or worse, kill him for.

I look at the body on the bed while her brothers are arguing about some stupid deal that she was supposedly involved on. She hadnt told me anything about it. Our entire operation had a lot of scouts and spies among escorts and prostitutes. And Nadine had engineered most of that, she had been the boss bitch managing all of them with her snarling remarks and her sass.

I go out while the voices of those men are just white noise in the background, a sad soundtrack to yet another casualty of war.

The neons are flickering above my head, probably needing a change, and maybe some rest. Not unlike me.