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“I just wanted you to come and get the money, but I didn’t want to say it over the phone, you know? Because then you could pay off Sammy, right?” He paused and his eyebrows went up. “Then maybe he’d leave you alone.”
“Why do you care about whether Sammy leaves me alone?”
Herbert frowned. “Maybe I didn’t like the way he approached you at Mick’s funeral. Maybe I didn’t like the things he said to you there. It was disrespectful. I’d never conduct business like that.”
Lilianna’s eyes narrowed, and she searched her memory, before she said, “I didn’t even see you at the funeral.”
Herbert’s face softened a bit, his tone humble and low when he murmured, “Well, I came to pay my respects, and to ask you to meet me so we could discuss this private like, you know? But then Sammy hovered over you the entire time until past the end of the service. And I didn’t want him to know about Mick’s…winnings, know what I mean?” His hands gestured, circling in the air.
She searched her memory once more for all the faces she’d seen at the funeral but came up blank. She hadn’t really known anyone there. With the exception of the two waitress friends from the diner where she worked, the faces were a blur of strangers trying to express their sympathy. Even though she’d been happily surprised at the good turnout early on.
Herbert could have been at Mick’s funeral or not, because as he’d mentioned, she spent the last half of the service fending off Sammy and his smarmy innuendoes. She’d assumed that mostly people from Mick’s work had come. Herbert could have danced a jig in front of her at the funeral and she might not have noticed.
Something occurred to her, and she asked, “How do you know what Sammy said to me?”
He made a dismissive face. “People talk. What he said to you…what he asked of you there…well, it wasn’t right. Not at a funeral. Not at all.”
Lilianna swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. She hadn’t told anyone, not even Hunter and Dylan, what Sammy’s primary payoff motivation had been.
Sammy had told her that he’d forgive Mick’s debt if she spent some quality time warming his bed and fucking him every which way he demanded.
She’d told him she thought his idea was perverse, and that she’d rather be dead. He came back with the threats regarding his other business, where he’d tie her to a bed and let the masses fuck her ten times a day. His last words to her asked if she thought that would be better or worse than the death she craved.
Lilianna had never even repeated the initial offer to herself let alone told Hunter or Dylan. Sammy had expected her to “bend over and do whatever the fuck I want you to in bed” and the loan would be forgiven after a couple of months or so. Depending on how good in bed he thought she was. Bastard.
However, she took seriously his threat to put her in his brothel, if she didn’t come up with the money.
Her body did a small involuntary tremor in memory of Sammy’s slimy come-ons, innuendo, and final threat, as she was dressed in her only black outfit, saying good-bye to and burying her only cousin. Bastard.
She shook herself from that painful memory and said to Herbert, “That’s very nice of you. I didn’t even notice you at Mick’s funeral.”
Herbert shrugged. “Nice maybe. But mostly I’m a businessman. I run a business that roots for the winner to get the cash when they win. I even have most of it ready in small bills. Hundreds and twenties.”
“But it isn’t really my win. I never gamble. Not even the lotto.”
“The thing is everyone who knew about Mick’s bet would expect me to pay his next of kin. Everyone knows he only had one cousin. That’s you.”
“Right. That’s me. I just can’t believe he finally won something.”
“Oh, Mick won small bets on occasion. And he was always good for his debts. Always,” Herbert confided as if delivering vital information.
Lilianna nodded. Mick wasn’t a bad guy. They just had vast differences of opinion on financial matters, and pretty much every other aspect of how to live life. But again, he was her only family.
