Fire dances in her eyes as she glares at me, waiting expectantly.
I simply turn my back on her, locking the bathroom door behind me, shaking my head. I pay for whores so I can get what I want without a hassle. This is a hassle.
I soak under the hot water a few minutes longer than my usual seven, wanting to give her adequate time to figure out she can’t swindle me, collect her scattered belongings, get dressed, and leave with some semblance of dignity. Mainly, so I don’t have to talk to her again.
Honestly, I don’t know if she’ll leave. She’d probably steal my shit while I’m in here, if I had anything in plain sight worth stealing. This place is a mausoleum, though—empty white walls and sparse furnishings, void of all personality, perfect for renting out. She could take my wallet, with no remaining cash in it, no credit cards, and a false driver’s license, if she really wants to. My passports and valuables are all locked in a safety-deposit box at the city bank. My other IDs and my gun are in a safe, and I assume cracking safes isn’t where her talents lie.
I continue with my morning ritual, taking my time to oil and lather my face before I begin carving the dark stubble from my cheeks with a straight razor. It’s the best tool for a well-defined strip of hair along my jaw, the beginnings of a beard that I like to keep short. A suitable everyday disguise, without going overboard.
Giving my body a good dry, I wrap the towel around my waist and open the door. It’s been twenty minutes. I assume she has given up by now.
My peripheral vision catches the glint of a blade as it approaches my throat from the right. If I weren’t me—with quick reflexes and well-honed combat skills and a steely demeanor—I would have panicked, giving the heavyset man she let into my villa a chance to maim me, perhaps kill me. But because I am who I am—what I am—I’m already moving to respond, my blood surging through my veins, my heart rate picking up with excitement.
Deftly grabbing hold of his meaty wrist, I twist until he yelps and is forced to release his grip on the handle, all while the whore stands in the doorway, her face trying to suppress her fright, her arms roped around that impressive rack in a hug. I retrieve the ten-inch chef’s knife that one of them must have plucked from my kitchen and set it on my dresser, beyond easy reach.
I’m guessing this isn’t the way they expected it to go.
“Who are you?” Besides a three-hundred-pound bastard with an obnoxious layer of chains tangled in the forest of chest hair protruding from a half-unbuttoned shirt.
He answers with a swinging arm, forcing me to duck and throw him face-first against the wall. He rolls his face to the side, smearing blood across the pristine white walls.
And now I’m irritated, because I’ll have to clean up that mess. “Let’s try that again. Who the fuck are you?” I already know who he is. Her pimp, who must have been sleeping in his car nearby, waiting for her call to see if this scam worked and I paid up, or if he’d need to come and put muscle behind it to intimidate me.
When he doesn’t answer, I tug on his arm. If I pull on it any tighter behind his back, his shoulder is going to pop out of its socket.
“You pay Alena for whole night,” he forces out in broken English, his face contorted in pain.
That’s right. That’s her name. “I don’t owe Alena anything. We made no agreements for the entire night and I didn’t ask her to stay,” I simply say.
“You had all night. Pay!” he insists, though it’s lacking any conviction. I wonder how much of a cut he’s getting. On an island of about fifteen thousand residents, you’d think there’d be no use for this racket. Then again, Santorini sees upward of half a million tourists each year, so there’s probably a lot of suckers.