20 Chapter 20: A Potential Asset

Arias's sixth day didn't only end with him having to pay the cockroach of a woman to phone the police and give them his name, address, and room number the following morning.

At around 11 pm, just a few minutes after leaving the casino. Arias moved toward another, less elegant and riskier neighborhood while toting a duffle bag containing $1 million in cash.

The street was scary, but it was nothing like Gotham's. Even from a visual standpoint, everything was very busy, with lots of flashing lights and signs.

The kind of dangers it had were pickpocketing, scamming, sex workers that drugged clients, mugging, car jacking and so on.

Due to the low cost of goods compared to more wealthy streets, many tourists fell victim to it because at first glance one would not even realize such a dazzling area had such dangers.

Even as Arias walked with a duffel bag over his shoulder, many eyed him greedily.

His impeccable appearance, genuine designer suit, and sparkling watch were dead giveaways.

People would approach him as he walked and offer to carry his bag, offer him a place to stay, or invite him to a gentleman's club or casino, but he ignored them all.

Many of the more seasoned ones avoided him due to his intimidating appearance and enormous stature.

The only other reason someone who resembled him may be there is to do serious crimes that they didn't want to get involved with.

He soon stopped outside a glitzy pub and entered right away.

When he did, everyone turned to look at him. Despite being handsome guys or well-dressed ladies, the majority of those present were simply con artists and whores passing the time between jobs.

Arias glanced around and his gaze alone was enough to make a good number of the people looking his way shift their heads away.

They were merely straightforward con artists out to assess the newcomer. They didn't dare to look any more after they caught a glimpse of someone who appeared capable of killing them without even thinking twice.

He moved over to the bar counter rather than one of the seats after determining that none of them appeared to be a threat and sat down, setting his luggage on top of it.

When Arias did so, a burly-looking bartender was cleaning some of the glasses. Soon after, the man approached and casually raised the question.

"What can I get you?"

Arias looked at the man and responded. "Entry into The House."

He observed a little change in the man's look when he said those words, but it barely persisted for a split second before he shook his head.

"We don't sell those, anything else?" The big man answered again nonchalantly.

While carrying his backpack, Arias stood up and shook his head while displaying obvious annoyance.

"Then I suppose I'll spend this million dollars elsewhere." He stated casually as he made his way to the door.

As he was finishing, a tall, lanky man in an inexpensive suit got up, tipped his old hat, and grinned toothily at Arias.

There's no need to rush, sir.

Pa!~

Arias smacked the man with the back of his hand without even shifting his body and sent him flying across the room.

He broke one of the tables as he landed on it after his body had twice rotated. The other customers stared at the injured man, who was still breathing shallowly, indicating that he was still alive, but he showed no signs of standing.

No one dared to approach Arias as he walked towards the door and lowered his hand as if he had swatted an insect.

"Now hold on there, you mentioned you wanted a ticket to my casino?"

A voluptuous woman with neat-dark hair pulled back into a bun and dull blue eyes emerged from the back room through a door behind the bar counter. She was wearing a scarlett red skin-tight dress with a slit that ran up to her abdomen.

Her left leg was virtually completely exposed; any less and her lower intimate area would have been in plain view.

The same leg was covered in a lengthy green snake tattoo that extended from her lower left leg, up her thigh, up her back, and all the way to her right shoulder.

Before concentrating on her face and responding, Arias gave her a brief second glance.

"Not the house per say, I'm looking for someone who goes by the name Roulette."

The woman with dark hair grinned at Arias and put her hand on her bare hip.

"Mind if I ask why you're looking for them? And how you knew where to find them."

Judging from actions, Arias knew he was either speaking to the person he was looking for or someone close like the right hand.

"I'd like to hire them. An information broker that goes by Santa Clause or Clause for short, recommended them to me… among others."

When she heard those remarks, the woman grinned a little and spun her finger around. Everyone started to leave the room almost immediately, leaving only the two of them.

"Excuse the caution, it's rare for me to get visits related to business. Most times it's just really irritating people and bothersome characters. Why don't you sit down, have a drink and explain what exactly you want to hire me for?"

Arias raised a brow in her direction and asked. "Is it that you offer a lot of services or…?"

When he asked, the woman, who identified herself as Roulette, laughed and extended her hip more seductively.

"Oh honey, I'm the type of woman that believes everything has a price. If someone ever walked up to me and offered the right price, I wouldn't hesitate to sell even myself." She examined Arias up and down and dropped her already slack-hanging black glasses as if to make a suggestion before adding.

"A 10% discount if the man suits my tastes." Although she laughed magnificently, Arias saw that her remarks weren't just jokes.

"Interesting philosophy you have there. However, the service I'm looking for encompasses accounting, networking, business management, and general financial literacy. Concerning the prerequisites, I'm looking for someone who won't be deterred by criminal activity, who isn't a criminal who is publicly wanted, and who is last but not least, desperate."

"When I asked for information about such people, you were one of the top candidates."

When Roulette heard that she was in a desperate situation, she scowled. She quickly crossed her arms under her medium-sized breasts and grinned with assurance once more.

"Is that so? Well one million would net you a few months worth of those services you mentioned and them alone. Negotiable of course."

She responded confidently, and Arias smirked because he could tell she thought the fee she gave would be too much for him to pay for just a few months.

After all getting a personal financial advisor with many years of experience wouldn't cost nearly as much.

Right off the bat she was trying to cheat him out of his money, exactly what he was looking for in the asset he currently wanted.

"That's cheaper than I thought. Here, this one million is simply to reserve you. In truth you don't stand out much and I'm not impressed by what I'm currently seeing…"

Arias paused and looked around the run down bar which served as the entrance to the House, her so called casino for criminals.

She scowled at his remarks but said nothing as he casually threw her a bag containing a million dollars.

"I'll make the decision of wether to hire you or not next week, I only need your contact."

Roulette scowled even more, but she then proceeded to kindly provide her her contact information, including phone number and email.

She believed he was foolish to put his faith in her to honor her word.

"You must be really trusting of people if you just going around leaving them a million." She teased a little mockingly, but Arias scoffed for the first time, which alarmed her.

"It has nothing to do with trust, if you love money and power, then you love me. No matter how you feel about it, you'll be captivated by my brilliance. Simply choosing not to would imply that you weren't as intelligent as I had previously believed. Wait for my call in the coming days… if you're lucky."

Arias departed after saying those final remarks.