You know, your uncontested courtesan. The one you’re constantly begging to have just one more child with. It’s also not my fault you exceeded your budget. Not only did you exceed your budget, you ignored it completely.”
“I wasn’t letting some asshole take the boy’s vixen.”
“You still overspent, and yes, I already told him you overspent. You’re damned lucky he thinks the boy would be heartbroken if someone else took his fox. And the boy learned from you how to manipulate his father with a trembling lip and watery eyes, so I prevented that train wreck by reminding him you’d cry if the boy didn’t get to keep his fox, which in turn would lead to the boy pulling the same shit.”
“I am so proud of him for that.”
I couldn’t imagine Sandro crying over anything. “He makes his lip tremble and pretends to cry?”
“Yes, he does. He’s a master at it. His father cannot stand seeing any of our idiot sons cry. The boy is the only one who still does it just to drive his father insane. He starts with this sad sigh, and he stares, his expression one of deep disappointment. That’s when he does this thing with his lip. He bites it while it’s trembling, like he is determined to keep from crying. The bite is how I know the little shit is faking it. When he really cries, he retreats, hides, and does so in silence where he thinks nobody is aware he’s doing it. He likes dark, enclosed spaces. Preserves his privacy that way. Then we wait until he’s done and badger him until he talks about what’s bothering him. Expect to do a lot of badgering with that one. He’s shy.”
I considered the papers in my hand. Without another word, I handed them over. Sandro’s mother accepted them, flipped through, and when she reached the first page with signatures, she blinked. She glanced at me, resumed staring at the sheets, and snorted.
“Should I be concerned?” Theo asked.
“I’ve been snookered!”
“How could she have possibly snookered you beyond making sure she got paid properly for putting up with the boy?”
“The boy’s her provisional buyer. That’s how. She snookered me!”
“Oh, clever boy. He really got you good this time. Already put out paperwork for his little fox, did he?”
I pointed at the papers. “He asked nicely, and I was going to give him two years to convince me to put up with him.”
“You’re such a good little vixen. This is wonderful. I’ll pretend to negotiate with the brat, I’ll lure him home, and then ambush him. Then you can yell at him. After all, he lowered his guard and let you be taken out East.”
“On purpose.”
“What?”
“He did that entirely on purpose, because they let me out of the hospital earlier than he liked, and if I went to the East, I probably wouldn’t fall over dead, and he seemed to think he had the money to buy out the contract here. Or something thereabouts. Honestly, I was fairly heavily drugged at the time, but he wanted Anna to handle it so he could try to get in on the auction.”
Sandro’s mother giggled. “It just keeps getting better and better, Theo. They’re working together to snooker me.”
“And I get paid twice if he buys me from you, I think?”
“Yes, you would.”
“The boy’s grown up, and he’s out to snooker me and make his little fox rich at the same time. He’s playing the game, and if he wasn’t facing off against me, he might have even won it. He’d just take the money I just paid him, turn around, offer it back, then rob me to pay me off and make his little fox even richer. Isn’t it a thing of beauty?”
“No, Stephani. You may not sell the fox to the boy. You can continue with your original plan to put a bow on her head, tuck her into his favorite chair, and wish him a happy birthday. At least you can tell Marco you paid the boy rather than one of those Alley upstarts you so dislike.”
“Alley upstarts?” I asked, hoping to make the crazy rich people talk about something sensible that didn’t involve selling me again.
“Yeah, there are some middle-class morons from around here who think if they do well in the Alley and situate things to their liking, they’ll be able to get power and prestige in the East. It’s nothing you’ll have to worry about right now, but if any of them actually succeed in