Chapter 27 Auctiq
Jessica made a snap decision to stop intervening in
Brittany’s attempts to make life difficult for Daniel. No matter how Brittany tried to challenge him, Jessica would not utter a single word. She knew Brittany’s capabilities well; if Daniel could hold his own or even outpace her during their confrontations, it would at least prove that he wasn’t entirely useless that he could be considered clever.
In her heart, Jessica thought: If that’s the case, after a year, once he’s passed my assessment, I’ll assign him a high–level executive position. He should be up
for it.
Half an hour later, Jessica’s car pulled up in front of
Auctiq.
Auctiq was Delvin Hub’s most prestigious auction house, offering a variety of items ranging from
antiques and artworks to strange collectibles – everything under the sun.
As the trio stepped through the doors, a short, plump man greeted them warmly, his face beaming with smiles. This was Auctiq’s owner, Nicholas Snyder – also known as Smiley Nick.
The wider Smiley Nick smiled at you, the deeper he’d reach into your pockets. His smile wasn’t for the customers; it was for their wallets. With just a grin, Nicholas had conquered the auction world. All the bigwigs in Delvin Hub had been cheated by him at some point!
Even if you realized you’d been had, you couldn’t get mad. Trying to get your money back would likely just end up enriching him further.
“Ma’am Jessica, what brings you here today?”
“The eighty million you swindled from me!”
“Ma’am Jessica, how could I possibly do such a
thing? You’re my honored guest, the most esteemed
customer my deity.”
Nicholas kept up his radiant smile. “What did you see today at my place, Jessica? Or are you just browsing?”
“Browsing? Every time I’ve come here, I’ve walked
away with a bigger loss than the last. You’ve taken
eighty million from me.”
Jessica had Daniel bring over a cardboard box from
the trunk.
“These three pieces of junk, I’m returning them all to
you! Give me back my eighty million, and we’ll call it
even.”
“Listen, Jessica, the first time you visited Auctiq, I
told you about our policy. Auctiq never does returns.”
“No returns? What did you tell me when you sold
these to me? This is a Renaissance sculpture worth
twenty million! This is some ancient Eastern
porcelain worth fifty million! This is even more
impressive, a Monet painting valued at a hundred
million!”
“Jessica, this indeed is a Renaissance sculpture !”
“A fake from World War II.”
“Ah, well, if it’s from World War II imitating the Renaissance, I didn’t say anything wrong. I may have just omitted a few words!”
“And you claim it’s worth twenty million?”
“It’s definitely worth twenty million. Yen? Of course, even in dollars, it might fetch about a hundred
thousand.”
“You…”
Jessica was left speechless, never having been toyed with like this before.
“While this sculpture might be a WWII imitation, I’ve
made inquiries and it’s worth at least three million.
As for the other two items, I’ve also checked
one
is worth five million, the other twelve million. The
total value of these three items is at least twenty
million. I don’t want them. You take them back. I know I can’t get the eighty million, but you have to give me those twenty million, right?”
Jessica was making her bid. She knew before she arrived that Nicholas would never return her entire eighty million. All three items were forgeries, whose true value combined was only around five million. So she started high at twenty million, allowing
plenty of room for negotiation.
