Lovely's calculating gaze softened slightly, a satisfied grin tugging at the corner of her lips. "Good," she said finally. "Then I can wait."
Her words dripped with false patience, but beneath them lurked a venomous warning.
When Adam and Mary returned to the apartment, their faces were pale and heavy with worry.
The color had drained from their cheeks, as though the weight of their earlier meeting had stolen away their vitality.
Both knew, without a word exchanged, that the conditions demanded by Lovely, Hans, and Milo were nearly impossible to fulfill.
Worse still, they both understood the greed that drove that trio; once they received the money and their current conditions were met, they would not stop.
They would continue imposing new demands, testing how far Adam and Mary's patience and desperation could stretch.
It wasn't just extortion... it was a pit with no bottom.
To say that their greed would know no bounds would not be a lie.
