What causes greed to grow when it is still in the credit of the seed? Poverty. It is like fertilizer, causing mortal vice to reveal itself in all its sinful beauty. There was no point in telling a poor man that "happiness is not in money." There was no point in telling an orphan like you that he was deprived of everything in order to have an 'inner beauty and soulfulness' that was above material things. It was all nonsense and fairy tales for you to pamper poor people like yourself.

And once you gave in to greed, you began to feel the eternal hunger more and more. No, not the physical hunger that used to make your stomach twist when you hadn't eaten a crumb in three days. Now you could afford the most luxurious restaurants. Hunger was different. Stingy. Greedy. Hungry for money, even though you had enough to live a life of luxury without working. Hunger for power, even though you had virtually every cartel in Mexico under your name. And no matter how much you plugged that void with all your needs, the hunger wouldn't go away, the thirst for more. Eternal hunger was your price for sheltering the deadly sin of Greed on your shoulder.

And she reveled in it. Cheered when you asked for more, like a newborn who couldn't survive more than an hour without being fed. Your deadly sin, Greed, was like your mother when she pulled you out of the slums after you graduated from the orphanage. Her warm arms wrapping around your neck from behind was like temptress snakes tightening their tails around your neck. It made her more real when she was in her human shell, making you feel another kind of hunger. A hunger for her touch, heavy and unquenchable.

"Another cartel in your hands," came her soft whisper over your ear, making you aware of her ever-present presence beside you. "How satiated do you feel right now?," Valerie's voice was velvet and you could rest, even without seeing her face, that there was that slippery smirk playing on her lips.