The aroma of twenty-year-old Macallan whiskey permeated the air of the office like poison, mingling with the bitter smoke of cigars. Heavy velvet curtains covered the windows, plunging the room into semi-darkness. Lorenzo sat in the chair, immersed in the usual migraine that meetings with his younger brother brought. He mechanically massaged his temple where the pain pulsed.

Rafael stood in front of the table, a pitiful parody of the man he had been a month ago. His once immaculate suit now hung on him like a crumpled shroud. "Lorenzo, I beg you, one last time!" his voice broke, he folded his hands in a prayer-like gesture, as if before not his brother, but a deity capable of granting redemption. "Only a hundred thousand. This is...Much less than was last time!"

Sweat beaded on his forehead, rolling down his temples. The office was hot, but Rafael knew that it wasn't the temperature. Red numbers of the debt pulsed before his eyes, like the neon signs of the very casinos that had turned his life into ruins. Debt collector, that witch, had given him three days of grace. Five had passed.

The last days had merged into one endless nightmare, where he rushed between the gambling tables and the debtors' apartments. Every thrown dice, every dealt card only deepened the hole he found himself in. His fingers, once used to breaking the bones of debtors and counting stacks of cash, now nervously clenched into fists, the knuckles whitening with tension. The marks from yesterday's work still adorned them—dark scabs where the skin had cracked on someone's teeth. But there was still not enough money. Life loves irony—now he himself was the prey, becoming the one whose fingers were going to be broken and teeth knocked out.