The Aston Martin Vantage sat there in a shade of ash so dark it was almost black.

Leo for a moment, stood still, admiring all the right curves of the car.

"When did you get this?" he asked after he seemed satisfied.

"Just recently. I Sold the old one," Carlo said while taking the key out of his bag.

"I’d been planning to get this for a while, actually, so after the loan deal got completed, I just went for it."

Leo looked at it for another second and then said, "Good for you and Gianna I guess."

"Really," Carlo said as Leo turned and faced him properly.

"How was today for you?"

"The atmosphere was nice," Carlo said after considering things for a moment.

"Really good actually."

"Dawson is just so..." he searched for the word.

"Free with everyone. Like, there’s no distance there. Takes some getting used to if I’m honest."

"But aside that?"

"Aside from that, everything is good."

He nodded to himself.

"I can’t wait for it to start."

"Same," Leo said.

Carlo looked at him for a moment and then said, "Thank you. For this."

Leo’s expression shifted immediately into something unconvincing.

"I didn’t do anything, though."

Carlo stared at him, then looked away.

"Right," he said flatly, and shook his head before opening the car.

"See you later."

"See you."

The Vantage pulled out smoothly, and Leo stood watching it until it reached the lot exit, and then he turned around.

As he did so, his phone lit up in his hand with the name, Noah, splashed across the screen as the caller ID.

"The Skechers money came through," Noah said as soon as Leo picked up.

"At least wait to hear my voice first," Leo said with a chuckle as he pushed off from where he’d been standing and started walking.

"When?"

"Just a couple of hours ago. I’ve already moved it around the way we discussed, so let me walk you through where everything went because I need you to actually understand this, not just nod and say thanks."

"Go on."

"Right," Noah said. "So Skechers paid the full base, which was a hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds."

"Okay."

"Now, the moment that money lands in your account as straight income, HMRC takes forty-five per cent off the top.

That’s their highest rate, and you’re already in that bracket from your Wigan salary alone, so every single pound from Skechers sits right at the top of the pile and gets hit the hardest."

"Yeah," Leo said with a groan, understanding why people evaded taxes.

"Forty-five per cent of a hundred and ninety-five thousand," Noah continued, "is eighty-seven thousand, seven hundred and fifty pounds, and that is gone before you’ve touched anything."

"Go on," Leo indicated as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

The tax numbers he was hearing were starting to inflict a headache on him.

"And then National Insurance takes another bite on top of that, roughly two thousand, nine hundred pounds.

So if we did absolutely nothing, you’d walk away with just over a hundred and four thousand from a deal worth nearly two hundred."

"That’s almost half," Leo said.

"Almost half," Noah confirmed. "Which is why we are doing something!"

Leo turned into the corridor that led to his unit and slowed his pace slightly.

"So what did we do?"

"Three things," Noah said.

"First, the image rights company. I set it up a while back, and this is exactly what it’s for. Instead of all the money going to you personally, sixty thousand of it goes directly to the company as a licensing fee.

Skechers is paying the company for the right to use your image, your name, your likeness."

"That money sits in the company, and the company pays corporation tax on it, which is twenty-five per cent, not forty-five.

So instead of losing twenty-seven thousand on that portion, you lose fifteen. You’ve already saved twelve thousand just there."

"And the rest of the sixty?"

"Stays in the company for now. You can draw it down later as dividends at a lower rate than income tax."

"Alright," Leo said, following it.

"Second thing," Noah said, " is that the remaining one hundred and thirty-five thousand goes to you personally, and yes, it gets taxed at the full rate.

Forty-five per cent plus National Insurance takes roughly sixty-two thousand, so you clear about seventy-two and a half thousand from that portion. That’s your liquid money, what you can actually spend."

"And the third thing?"

"Forty thousand straight into your pension. Now I know you’re eighteen and a pension sounds like something you think about when you’re fifty, but listen to what I’m telling you.

That forty thousand comes out of your taxable income completely. HMRC doesn’t touch it. It doesn’t get counted. It grows in there tax-free until you need it, and by the time you need it, it will be considerably more than forty thousand."

Leo reached his door and leaned against it, phone still to his ear.

"So walk me through what I actually end up with," he said.

"Seventy-two and a half thousand in your account that you can use however you want," Noah said.

"Forty-five thousand sitting in the image rights company that you can draw down later at a lower tax rate. Forty thousand locked in the pension, untouchable for now but yours and growing.

Total accessible money, roughly a hundred and seventeen thousand. Total, including the pension, closer to a hundred and fifty-seven."

Leo did the math quietly.

"So instead of a hundred and four—"

"You’re at a hundred and seventeen accessible and a hundred and fifty-seven all in. The pension alone adds fifty thousand to that picture compared to doing nothing."

Noah paused while Leo went quiet for a moment.

"Speaking of knowing where the doors are," he said.

"How are you getting paid in all of this?"

Noah laughed, genuinely, the kind that meant he’d been expecting the question.

"I negotiated it into the deal," he said.

"Skechers are covering my agent fees separately, ten per cent of whatever they pay you, so you don’t have to worry about that!"

"And from Wigan?"

"Five per cent of your annual salary, but Wigan handle that too. They said it was a perk for not giving you any huge signing bonus."

"So you’ve arranged it so you don’t cost me anything from the Skechers money."

"Correct."

Leo looked at the door in front of him for a moment.

"Noah."

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

"Do well this season," Noah said simply.

"That’s all the thanks I need."

Leo smiled at that, pushed the door open and stepped inside.

"I will," he replied before ending the call.