“Well, like you told me on my birthday, this is my big party, so I make the damn rules here, right? And my rule is to have a good time in here and get this bigger money out of everybody’s pockets. And you doubted if I could even do it. Now what?” he asked.

Lucina kept her cool. “Now we get the bigger money that we both want,” she told him.

It was a subtle moment for Ivan, sitting there dressed up with Lucina Gallo in the back of the limo, while heading to a top-flight affair. Less than a year ago, he could only dream about such a thing. So he lost his wits for a minute and went after her.

“So, Lucina…once we get all this money together, and we’re seeing eye to eye, rich and all that good stuff…are you gonna let me touch you like I’ve always wanted to?”

Lucina immediately looked away. “We should not have this conversation before business,” she answered him sternly.

Ivan said, “Well, when can we have it?”

Lucina blew him off. “We’re almost there, Ivan. Behave.”

She refused to look at him.

Ivan stared her down for another minute and laughed it off. Yeah, she likes me, man, she’s just constantly fronting. She can’t even look at me, he told himself. But I’m gonna have her sooner or later.

When their limousine pulled up to the front entrance of the hotel, the valet staff were still parking cars with zeal.

Ivan looked out at them and noticed one of the guys who had worked there when he visited the hotel with Catherine. He smiled immediately.

That’s the guy I told I was coming back that night, Ivan reminded himself. I wonder if he’ll remember me telling him that.

When the chauffeur helped them out of the limo, Ivan got the valet’s attention.

“Hey, man, I doubt if you remember me, but I came here one night in May last year, the same night as the Padres party downtown, with a pretty brown girl, and I left earlier than you thought I would. And you asked me why I was leaving so early. And I said I would be back.”

The valet listened to Ivan’s story intently, wanting to remember it. And by chance, he did remember. He had wondered why the man was in such a hurry to leave the hotel, with such a pretty girl staying there.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, I do remember that night,” he responded. “You ran across the lot like you were in a hurry to get somewhere. That was you?” Ivan no longer looked the same.