The Sigma Asset 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022

49: Shot Keys

Korean translations at the end of the chapter.

E five, B five, C sharp five, G sharp five. Punk was simpler than I'd expected. But five drinks down, I was loving it.

Jules and Katelyn were bouncing around Lavanderia's dancefloor while a sweat-drenched Ted yelled into the mic, surrounded by waves of adoring groundlings. Unfamiliar to me as their music was, the Shot Keys sounded raw and direct, the half-time beat patterns and funk bassline making my leg muscles twitch of their own accord. I hadn't been able to stop dancing even if I'd wanted to.

Selena spun on her heels with arms outstretched, almost crashing into us. She steadied herself on Katelyn and turned to blow a drunken kiss across the dancefloor to Julián at the bar, who was only just managing to hold onto two beers while a sea of dancers surged around him.

Thoughts of Abba rushed into my mind unbidden; he'd loved dancing so much, to every kind of music. I'd avoided dancing ever since I'd lost him. I wondered what he'd think if he saw me, dancing with my friends to punk-funk in a Californian bar. He'd probably join right in.

If he was still with me, what would he think of Will? Would he give me fatherly advice not to dive headfirst into situations that would ultimately hurt me? Or would he tell me that Will was worth the hurt?

A tug on my arm jolted me out of my thoughts of home, and Jules pulled me to the bar, sweat pouring off us both. She ordered us more drinks and dragged me to a table, her eyes filmy with tears. It looked like she was ready to talk. 

"Glad I got you outta the house?"

"Yeah. This is amazing, Jules. Thank you." I sipped my pale ale, wondering how to broach the subject of Lars. "You feeling back to normal?"

"I'll live," Jules grimaced into her mojito. "It just hurts."

"So, did he get deported or something?"

"Yeah. The Detective Inspector told me that the Norwegian Foreign Office is gonna take him into custody. He offered to give evidence relevant to ongoing cases in exchange for serving his sentence back in Norway."

Evidence relevant to ongoing cases. 

If FlowYoga's parent company, Breeze L.L.C., was truly connected to Sigma, maybe Lars would incriminate his Sigma contacts in exchange for clemency. I was suddenly itching to talk to Teresa about what information Lars had given to the police. At the same time, I wished that the pace of the Sigma case would slow just a little, at least for the next two weeks, to keep my final days with Will clean and pure and just for us, uncontaminated by Sigma dirt.

"Did Lars tell you what he'd done? All that fraud stuff?"

"No. He only told me what my contract lawyers were gonna find out anyways."

'How did he even get you to agree to a sale, Jules?"

Jules chewed on the mint in her drink. "When Lars arrived for the Retreat, I'd planned to stay away from him. But he called me when his flight landed, begging to see me. When he got to my place, I'd never seen him look so scared. Like something bad had happened to him.

"He said there'd been a problem with one of his recent ventures, and that he'd made a loss. Almost four million Euros. I just told him that FlowYoga could make four million in a year or two, and that there was nothing to stress about. But he seemed so...broken about it.

"Then he started talking to me. I mean, actually talking to me, about himself. He told me about how tough his childhood was, and how it made him so determined to succeed. I'd never heard him talk about himself before."