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creatures roamed.
    He revved the engine as he pulled off. It was immature, but he didn’t care. The noise took his mind off the meeting he was about to have. It was going to be an unpleasant experience, and right now he felt like a child who’d been sent to the headmaster to be punished for something he hadn’t done. Sent by a teacher who’d taken a dislike to him for no good reason. His “ head teacher ” was Jerardo Capella: his father’s ex business partner and his enemy.
    “I have an appointment with your boss.” Ricardo tossed his car keys to the uniformed flunky who’d met him on the steps of an imposing glass-fronted building fenced in by parking restrictions. “It won’t take long. Shift the car if the police take an interest, will you?”
    He didn’t wait for an acknowledgment before taking two steps at a time and shoving his way through a rotating glass door. He stalled the open-mouthed receptionist by saying, “I’m seeing Capella. He’s expecting me. I know where to find him and I’ll take the stairs. I’m faster than the elevator.” Ignoring her protests he was on the third floor within a minute and turning the handle of a heavy wooden door.
    “So it’s true,” said a white-haired man sitting behind an enormous desk opposite a panoramic view of the Ibiza harbor. “I had assumed it was some kind of practical joke when my secretary said you wanted to see me.”
    “This is no joke.” Ricardo crossed his arms and glowered down at the older man.
    Jerardo Cappella slowly lifted his head, his face showing no emotion. “Then what is so important that you had to come here in person when we both have lawyers to communicate for us?”
    “Your wager. I’ve come to call time on it. I want my father’s property back.”
    A breath of amusement hissed through his nostrils. “The department store, you mean? And those decaying warehouses? I can’t imagine why you’re so desperate to win the bet and get it all back. You hardly need the income these days, do you?”
    “You know damn well it was my father’s dying wish that it was reclaimed for the Almanzas. I told you that the day after his funeral, remember? And it was then you refused an offer of millions to hand it over and turned the whole matter into a childish bet, trivializing his last moments. You were laughing in my face before Antonella’s tears were even dry.”
    The older man nodded and smiled. “But, my dear Ricardo, the bet was that you wouldn’t be able to abandon your extravagant ways, settle down and wed before your thirtieth birthday. Nothing’s changed. I’ll only consider signing that real estate back once you’re married.”
    “You stole it from my father in the first place, you bastard.”
    “That’s slander, be careful.” He frowned and passed a pen back and forth between his fingers. “Your dear papa was of sound body and mind when he signed those conveyance papers and they were witnessed by two sets of lawyers.”
    “He signed under duress, Capella, and you promised you’d get him out of jail if he did. And then you betrayed him.”
    Capella’s fist came down hard on the desk. “Your father betrayed me first, at the same time he betrayed your mother and everyone else who trusted him. He had to pay.”
    “So that’s why you set him up as well as taking his assets? Why you got your gangland cronies to frame him for theft, murder, and fraud?”
    “More slander?” The older man stood up, a foot shorter than Ricardo, and cracked a reptilian smile. “There’s no proof, and your father was a thief, murderer and fraudster anyway, wasn’t he? He’d just never been caught.”
    Ricardo gritted his teeth and stared at the wall for a few seconds to compose himself. He wanted to pulp the man he’d once considered an uncle. “I’m not here to rake all over this again, Capella. Just get the paperwork drawn up, because I’m getting married. I win the bet.”
    “But I actually win ,” Capella said, bad teeth