Adler | The Aces of St.Sinclair BOOK 1.

Virtue | A TWENTY

I found myself in the elevator with that stylish French lady once again. I dubbed her by the name Mademoiselle.

I concluded she must've been staying on the same floor as me to cause this reoccurrence. Today she wore a black pencil skirt that spectacularly defined her slim waist line and a scarlet red laced blouse.

Her hair wasn't as artfully assembled, unfortunately. Its bleached blonde tips with dark roots were bounded in a sloppily done bun, the numerous strands of hair stemming were proof of this.

Her manicured nails clung to the coffee in her shaky left hand. It hadn't seemed to have been her first cup, in regards to the shiny silvery grains sprinkled on the firmly sealed plastic lid and her wristwatch.

She probably ordered the first cup from room service where cream and sugar were in irritatingly air tight packets. Along with the astonishing quantity that matched a pea. I didn't get it with posh places having miniature sizes. This being a perfect example of why it needed to change. The lady who clearly had a high consciousness to appearance and how other people thought of her, probably didn't want to be known by the staff as that person ordering numerous rounds. Even if she'd probably never see their faces again after checking out.

Presumably after struggling to open her sugar and only succeeding to make a mess, she opted for the easier choice of heading to the coffee shop three blocks down for a mega large that cost ten pounds less than what the hotel charged. I'd done the same a few times when seriously craving proper proportioned hot chocolate.

Mademoiselle somehow managed to be ranting on her phone with her free hand while a thick binder was tucked under her arm. Which had me wondering if multitasking came naturally or through a series of industries pushing overloads on their employees. Past her flawless make up, I could see it in her eyes she'd barely slept a wink.

The doors opened to reveal the lobby and as she strode out, I realised I'd spent the whole ride concerning myself about a stranger's troubles. Perhaps because I empathised them with my own.

When I wasn't tormented by Garren's words the other day, I would be up all night thinking about dad losing the bakery. To distract myself, I turned to reading one of the erotic novels Ben had sent me. It was surprisingly poetic rather than just foreplay. I saw the genre in a new light.

I knew dad still hadn't cashed in the cheque. I had uncle Louie's bank account credentials memorised and would check through my phone for any sign of particular large figure withdrawals. There had been no changes since the last couple of days that I'd looked. No matter how many times I'd refresh the page.

The weekend suddenly felt too far away. I was antsy to solve this matter already and contemplated on just skyving this morning. After all, Mrs. Harvey's linguistics class was a breeze, as was Home Economics of course and I knew nobody would miss me in PE.

The pros outweighed the cons in skipping and I was preparing to dash back to my room to change, when my phone alerted me of a new message. Ashton had sent a text filled with only emojis and grammatically erroneous amount of exclamations. Attached was a link to a clip which I gathered she wanted me to urgently see.

I played it and the picture came to screen a very pretty young woman. An embroidered band rested atop her brown curls and a cardigan over the shoulders which was how far the camera exposed her. It was decorated with pins and without the extravagant trophy shelf or spacious bedroom behind, I could tell she stood in a high class.

"Greetings, all. It's your faithful steed Virtue," she said with a smile. "Hope you had a wonderful day, if you didn't - tomorrow's another opportunity. Keep your chin up. Now, this vlog will be another personal read on current public affairs & events. I'll be centering this on the crimes of capitalism in today's society. It saddens me to say, my dear friends, it has only fallen deeper in influence and oppressive power."