They poured a bucket of cold water on Alex, who regained consciousness after feeling a shiver and got up from the floor with his whole body wet.
-Finally you woke up,” a gritty, metallic voice sounded next to him.
Alex raised his head and looked at the person who had spoken.
-Who are you, why am I here and what do you want from me?
At his questions, Augustine couldn’t help but chuckle slightly and said:
-I can’t believe you are so naive that you asked such questions.
A man of Agustin’s standing next to him stepped forward and said:
-Alex, have you forgotten what happened before you fainted? You asked us for a loan of half a million and you lost it all. How are you going to pay it back?
Alex was stunned to hear his words, and suddenly his eyes snapped open, filled with fear.
“I’ve lost all the money!”
He remembered going to the front desk to borrow half a million euros under a state of confusion, but then he had lost it all in a very short time without a penny left.
-“Sir, I promise you that I will pay you back the money I borrowed. Please, give me a few days and I will find a way to pay you back,” Alex knelt directly on the ground and pleaded in a trembling voice.
Agustin looked at him with indifference and spoke:
-Alex, I have looked into your family background. You have no job, and your father has already spent almost the entire family fortune to settle his bribery mess. Where can you get that kind of money to pay me?
He looked up and smilingly said in a flattered tone:
-I have a cousin who is now the girlfriend of Umberto, president of the Santangel Group, and will definitely marry him in the not too distant future. This five hundred thousand euro debt will be nothing to her and she will definitely help me in this thing. Sir, don’t worry. I will not renege on the debt.
-Oh, will you? -Agustin pretended to show a little interest- If she is Umberto’s girlfriend, she is indeed able to help you pay this debt.
Hearing this, Alex was quick to say:
-Yes, yes, yes, my cousin is capable of doing it.
-But why are you so sure that your cousin is willing to pay off the debt for you? She is not your mother, why should she help you?
Agustin asked the questions half jokingly half seriously to Alex and glanced secretly towards the hidden door.
Alex froze with a frown at his questions because he wasn’t sure if Albina would help him or not, but at this point he had no choice, so he said to Agustin:
-So, I would like to ask you to give me a few days, and I will convince my cousin to help me settle the debt.
Agustin pursed his lips without speaking, looking at Alex for a while.
Under his long, stern gaze, Alex became so nervous that he felt short of breath.
Suddenly, Agustin spoke:
-Well, I give you a deadline of one week. After one week you have to pay back all the money you owe me, understand?
Alex breathed a sigh of relief after hearing Agustin’s words.
The latter smiled slightly looking at Alex’s relaxed expression and added:
-But I have to remind you that the interest on this loan of ours is very high, therefore, the more you delay, the more interest you will have to pay. If you can’t pay it back by then….
As he spoke, Agustin glanced up and down at Alex, as if he were a prey to be slaughtered.
Alex trembled unconsciously, touched his forehead on the ground repeatedly like a total coward and said:
-Sir, don’t worry. I will definitely pay you everything with interest on time.
Alex thought inwardly that as long as Albina promised to help him, the interest would only be a small amount of money and it would not be was nothing serious.
Seeing that Alex had made such a confident promise to him, Agustin let him leave the casino.
Alex had just left Agustin’s property when he saw that man, who had encouraged him to continue gambling, was talking to a casino employee standing at the entrance. It seemed that the two were friends.
He was stunned for a moment, and a thought suddenly flashed through his mind, “I’ve been set up!”
“This man is obviously from the casino. Even if he’s not, he’s someone the casino has arranged to trick me into borrowing money from them!”
With such a thought in his mind, Alex became very angry, his eyes turning red, he pounced on that man, pulled him by the collar of his shirt and questioned him fiercely:
-Why did you lie to me?!
The man, a bit stunned by the sudden grab, saw that the person grabbing her by the collar was none other than Alex and grimaced:
-When have I ever lied to you?
Alex gritted her teeth angrily and questioned him aloud:
-If you hadn’t encouraged me to borrow money from the front desk, I wouldn’t have been able to owe the casino so much money! It’s all your fault.
Hearing this, the man replied while smiling mockingly:
-How can you blame me? Seeing you enjoying the gambling game so much at the time, I only made a suggestion, telling you where you can get the money. As for borrowing or not borrowing the money, isn’t that your decision?
Alex froze for a moment.
Then the man continued:
-Besides, when I proposed it to you, you explicitly refused. It’s you yourself who suddenly changed your mind and went running to borrow money. What’s it got to do with me? You can’t blame me after losing the money!
Hearing this, Alex slightly loosened the mana, which gripped the man’s shirt collar tightly, with an expression full of dejection on his face.
Yes, originally Alex had planned to leave after losing all of his grandmother’s savings, however, thinking that he had Albina and Umberto as his backup, he could not resist and gave free rein to his gambling addiction. As a result, he went to borrow from loan sharks and lost all the money he borrowed in the following rounds.
When the man saw Alex’s ugly face, he pulled his hand away from him, straightened his clothes and sneered at him:
-You’d better think about how to pay back the money. If you can’t settle the debt, maybe your hands will be cut off the next time I see you.
After saying that, the man left.
Alex stared at the silhouette of the man, very furious. Although he himself knew that the casino people had set him up, he could do nothing about it, after all, it was he himself who had signed the loan contract without anyone forcing it on him.
***
After Alex left, Agustin looked in the direction of the inner room and said in a deep voice:
-Albina, you can come out now.
Then, the hidden door opened and Albina came out from inside.
The subordinates who was coming out under Agustin’s order unconsciously looked back and exclaimed inside that this woman was too beautiful, even more beautiful than some stars on TV.
Albina approached Agustin and said smiling:
-I didn’t expect this Alex to fall so quickly into our trap. I thought it would take us some time. Thank you very much, Agustin. You have helped me a lot.
-You’re welcome. We simply benefit from each other. You have promised me so many benefits, so naturally I have to work harder on my part,” Agustin smiled and looked at Albina with a soft look. Alex is a pure coward without any will and has been easily fooled by us. The rest of the plan will depend on you. I’m afraid the Thorns will be coming to bother you soon enough.
Albina didn’t care about the Espina family’s discomfort, because this was a part of her plan. Now the fish had taken the bait and it was time to close the net, so there was no need for Albina to keep pretending to be nice to those damned Espina family.
-I see. Well, Agustin, I’m leaving first. Then I still need to bother you to send your men to put pressure on the Espina family.
“Only when I force the Espina’s into a cul-de-sac will they give up their homes and all their possessions.”
Agustin nodded his head.
Then Albina left.
Inside that small interior room of Agustin’s, Albina had seen the miserable appearance of Alex, who was kneeling on the floor like a coward, begging like a clown for Agustin to give him some time.
Looking at that miserable expression of his, Albina felt a lot of pleasure, but at the same time, some fear.
Gambling really was a vice that could destroy a person without a strong will completely. Alex was a good example.
He became addicted to gambling because he was dissatisfied with his current state, but he did not want to work because of his lazy character, so he had been hoping that he could win big money from gambling.
However, how is it possible for one to get something for nothing? People who expect to get something without paying even a little effort are bound to lose everything in the end.