He Wanted A Submissive

veintiséis.

More and more men threw their checkbooks at Valerie's new Best Man Award endeavor, and when she finally did give the floor up it warmed her heart that the at least twenty girl strong line on the stage with her... came down off the stage with her.

The room was alive with people chattering about what just happened.

As soon as she stepped off the stage, Margaret was on her like white on rice. Jeffrey sat stupefied in surprise at their table still.

"What in God's name do you think you're doing?! How do you expect the AAA to get these girls home seamlessly, safely, and without being caught?" She fumed in her face. The woman was an easy five foot ten, luckily Valerie had on heels tonight so they were almost toe-to-toe.

Adrenaline was already coursing through Valerie's veins, in the corner of her eye she could see Luca still staring at her, she just knew Margaret was the precursor to the hellfire that was to come. So, she swallowed thickly and looked Margaret squarely in the eyes.

"Well, you got them here seamlessly, safely, and without being fucking caught. You're the veteran chairperson. Make it happen." Valerie growled lowly.

She'd be damned to back down on this endeavor, Best Man Award be damned too— she was not allowing more girls to be trafficked.

She'd burn this place down with her in it before it happened.

Margaret's neck looked as if it could burst from how it strained to contain her anger. She sputtered with emotion before turning to Luca with her arms out in front of her in exasperation. "Can you speak to her? Does she realize what she's done?!" She cried.

Valerie finally met Luca's eyes, whom she'd been avoiding since she'd canceled the auction, it was as if he was void of all emotion. He said nothing, he held her gaze with a steel resolve; then he returned back to Margaret.

"Make it happen, Margaret." He told her plainly.

Margaret turned ghost white.

"W-what?! Luca— these girls are from every damn continent of the world, we can't just—" She bursted, incensed with her anger.

Luca held a long stemmed glass of wine in one of his hands, the thinness of the stem looking foreign in his strong hands, but he held it with a delicate touch. His eyes never leaving Margaret's  enraged expression, he threw the last gulp of red wine back into his mouth before shattering the stem of the glass over the table.

Unfazed by the broken glass in his very palm, he wiped the shrapnel off on the cloth of the table and leaned back coolly in his seat, his other hand raking through his hair.

"You're a smart woman, Margaret. You know what was asked of you."

Margaret looked like she could throw up. Stomping her six-inch-heel clad foot in dismay, she threw her hair back before spearing Valerie with a look Valerie was sure would've burned her to ashes had she cared, before the dark blonde woman huffed out of the room.

The screeching sound of a chair sliding against the floor made Valerie look towards Jeffrey who held his wine still in his hand, he had a look of bewilderment stuck on his face as he drunkenly rose from the table. He glanced at Valerie and laughed out a scoff as he shook his head.

As he passed Luca to follow the trail of flames his wife left behind, he patted him on the shoulder pitifully. "What a catch." He punctuated his departure with as he turned away from the couple.

Luca shrugged off the pat he'd just received and stood from the table, calmly brushing his wine glass mess to the middle of the cloth and proceeding to tie up the cloth before setting it in the center of the table.