AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I wait beside the table as Darius goes to the next room, where our parents are talking about the family business. Once the other partygoers arrive, they won’t discuss anything with women around.
My baby cousin walks in and looks around before spotting me.
“Elena, you look radiant,” he says.
“You look well, Sevan. Europe treated you nicely.” I smile and flag a waiter. “Vodka and Lime.”
The waiter hesitates for a moment, and I smile. “I say he can drink, so don’t worry.”
The waiter nods and hurries off.
“Thanks. I don’t think my father will be too impressed, though.” He slings an arm around my shoulders.
“So, any boyfriends?” he asks.
“Is that all you want to know from me? Is that the only thing that’s interesting about me?” I ask, glancing at him. “Don’t want to talk business with a lowly girl in the family.”
“I didn’t say that,” he says, removing his arm and holding his hands up.
“Yeah, but it’s what everyone thinks,” I say. “Why don’t we just go join your brother in the next room with our fathers.”
I follow him across the room and into the next room, where my father is sitting with some of the older family members who arrived early to discuss business.
“Elena, this is not a proper discussion for a young lady,” Darius’s father, Jonathan, says. “Why don’t you go and arrange a bottle of vodka for us old folks.”
I grit my teeth. I hate being spoken to like a maid. I flag down a waiter, “Bottle of vodka for the old folks, please.”
Jonathan chuckles. “She has her mother's spirit.”
“And temper,” my father says. “Elena, if you’re going to sit here, you need to be quiet. We’re discussing business.”
He turns back to my uncles. My brother and Darius stand behind their fathers, each looking at me. I ignore them and pay attention to what my father is saying about importing illegal cheap liquor.
“It’s not like we have a harbor at our disposal,” my father says. “Where we can ship things in from there.”
“Well, we can’t get the delivery companies to doctor their paperwork to make it look like something else is coming in. It would take us bribing straight from the top.”
“Unless we…” I start to say.
“Not now, Elena,” Ethan says.
The conversation pauses, and my father continues, “They are wising up to us using unmarked trucks to bring the shipments in. We don’t even need them to come in big shipments. Smaller shipments are fine.”
“Yes, but we can…”
“Elena, you should be more concerned about who you’re going to marry and how big your wedding party will be,” Darius jokes.
“Maybe we can marry you off as part of the bribe,” Ethan adds.
Everyone chuckles, and I stand up angrily.
“I was going to say you could set up an application like Uber Eats to drive around your deliveries. No one would suspect that. A taxi service is a great way to move things without constantly being inspected. And for your information, I am worth more than some bribe to a stupid man who might be able to assist our family. I have a bigger brain than all of you combined.”
I take a step away from them. “Furthermore, if you import decent booze, you could sell it at a higher markup than the cheap one. Either they’ll cave and buy the expensive hooch to keep their customers happy, or they’ll buy the cheaper one because it’s a competitive price. Especially if you make out that it’s coming from two different families. Finally, if you had any common sense, you’d launder the money through something known to make a lot of cash, like a video store, an arcade, or a laundromat. Certainly not some stupid butchers.”
I turn and storm out of the room, followed closely by two guards.
“I’m going to the yard,” I snap at them as I walk toward the back deck. They continue to follow me, so I stop and turn around. “You don’t have to hound me. No one is going to kidnap me out of my own backyard. Stay here, or I swear to God I’ll have your heads on a pike in the desert for fun.”
