“It wasn’t unexpected,” Legend replied, refusing to show any emotion because these guys were looking for that. “Now, what kind of deal are you looking to make? This property belonged to Larry’s mother, so it should be his with no question.”

  “It’s also possible the government will seize it.”

  “That’s true, but it’s equally possible that won’t happen. It’ll take a bit of time to sort through this mess.”

  “Right,” said the man with the cigar, “but you know what I want.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want what you took from the safe.”

  “What would that be?” Legend asked, staring at him. The second man remained silent. Legend had no idea who the second man was, but the first one was the property manager or the business manager who his father had employed for years. “Which one of you is Richard?”

  At that, both men laughed.

  “It’s a name we both use, and it really just means boss for us.”

  “Of course,” Legend replied, nodding. “So, what’ll it take to have you guys pull the contract on my brother?”

  At that, an eyebrow went up on the smoker’s face. “You heard about that, did you?”

  “Because your guys failed,” Legend stated bluntly, “but I’m not interested in keeping Larry safe for the next ten years, while he grows up to be an adult.”

  “Ten years is a long time. I mean, if he even got a couple more years of life, that would be a huge surprise. He’s what, five?”

  “No.”

  “What nine, ten?”

  “He’s ten,” Legend murmured.

  “But that could be all for him,” the smoker stated, letting Legend just contemplate that for a moment or two. “Well, we told you what we wanted, which is the contents of the safe.”

  At that, Legend nodded. “So you want the money, not the USB keys?” At that, the men eyed each other and then back at him.

  “What keys?”

  “You know what keys.”

  “I’ll take the keys,” the second man stated. “Make them my payment.”

  “What? So you can turn around and blackmail the same people?”

  He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if I do or not. Those people made the decision when they got themselves into all that trouble in the first place,” he stated, with a half laugh.

  “What about the contract on my brother?”

  “I can pull that,” the first man replied, “as long as I get my money.”

  “What makes you think there was any substantial sum in that safe?”

  “Well, there was.”

  “Sure there was, before he put his plans into place.”

  At that, the smoker frowned.

  Somebody stepped up behind Legend, and he stiffened but didn’t move. The bag was pulled roughly from his shoulder and tossed toward the two men.

  They immediately grabbed it, finding both the cash and the keys. The cash made them frown. “There should have been at least ten times this much.”

  “There was nothing even close to that.” Legend laughed. “You probably know better than I do that my father always traveled with a lot of cash.”

  “Yeah, he did, didn’t he?” He swore as he looked at the money again. “That won’t even get us out of the country.”

  “You don’t need his money to get out of the country. Come on. You’ve been taking good care of yourselves all these years. You’re just looking for a final payout.”

  At that, the other man looked at the smoker and laughed. “Jesus, it’s almost like he knows you.”

  “What do you know?” the smoker asked, his voice turning silky.

  “Not much. As you know perfectly well, my father didn’t talk to me because he considered me useless to him.”

  “It’s not that you were useless. He just didn’t understand why you were so righteous,” he spat, with a disgusted sound. “But when it comes to your brother, you’re not quite so righteous, are you? You’ll do all kinds of deals to keep him alive. See? That’s our best bargaining chip.”

  “Maybe, and that’s if you actually have a bargaining chip,” he muttered, “which you don’t.”

  “Wow, what makes you think that your brother is safe?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t in a safe place. He is essentially in Fort Knox, and you won’t touch him there, but I don’t want to sit there and keep him in a place like that until he’s an adult. In addition, I’m his guardian, and paperwork has already been taken care of to ensure that, if he dies, it all comes to me, and, if I die, it all goes to charity.”

  The other guy stared at Legend in shock. “Jesus, he told me that, but I figured you were bluffing,”

  “Not bluffing.”

  “Jesus, why charity?”

  “To get you guys off our back,” Legend stated, “and any charity is fine by me, which is another aspect of me that my father hated.”

  The other man nodded. “Yeah, I can see why. Talk about a fucking waste.” He glared at him and asked, “So what the hell are you even here for?”

  “I want the contract rescinded on my brother,” Legend repeated.

  “You don’t have much in the way of bargaining chips.” The smoker pointed at the little bit of stuff on the desk.

  “That’s not true. You’ve got the bargaining chips right there.”

  “But we have them. Remember that part. We actually have them here in our hands, so you don’t. Therefore, if you don’t have anything else to offer, I really don’t give a shit. So I can pop you right now, and your little brother will have nobody.”

  “He’s got a team of people who will look after him,” Legend corrected. “His life is fine, but we don’t want to sit here and deal with you guys constantly.”

  “You’ve already taken out several of my men.”

  “No, not your men, my father’s men. Men willing to turn for a few bucks.”

  “They didn’t turn at all,” the one man stated angrily. “However, they were looking for something to call their own, when their wages were no longer getting paid.”

  “They’ve been well paid for a long time, just as you guys have,” Legend declared. “I know my father would have taken you out if he thought you’d been stealing from him, but I’m pretty sure guys like you steal anyway.”

  The one guy laughed. “No, that’s true, and we got a lot of what we needed over the years. I could probably live just fine, but you know? … You see all this sitting around here, and it’s such a big parcel of money that you can’t help but want to get your hands on it.”

  “But you can’t now.” Legend smiled. “As I said, unless the government decides to seize it, even this house has been signed and sealed. So what becomes of it will all be up to Larry and what he wants to do with it.”

  “Larry?” he repeated. “God, that kid is even worse than you are. Do you have any idea how much your father hated the fact that his kids were the squeaky-clean type? He hated the fact that you were special, as he called it. I have no idea what the fuck that specialty is. You look pretty ordinary to me. As far as he was concerned, power was something that needed to be used.”

  “And that’s what got him shot in the back,” Legend noted, with a shrug. “So, it’s not as if it did him any good to have that attitude either. Look. I understood my father just fine, but that didn’t mean I liked his politics. All I’m here for is to discuss the contract you put out on a little kid.”

  “You can buy it out,” the smoker offered, “just one-quarter of a million dollars for Larry.”

  “That’s nice,” Legend replied. “Do you think I have that kind of money?”

  “You do because you look after the kid now,” he stated, with a flat smile. “So, the answer to that question is obviously yes. You pay that, and we cancel the hit.”

  Legend eyed him for a long moment, knowing that, even if he did pay, there would never be an end to this. He rubbed the back of his neck, and immediately guns appeared in both men’s hands. “Wow, look at that, so much trust.”

  “No honor among thieves,” the two men said at once.

  “We’ve been working with your father for decades to overthrow the government and to take care of business,” the smoker began. “Absolutely nothing you can say or do will change how we feel about this. You will now control a ton of money, and we need a ton of money to reestablish ourselves again.” They looked at each other, smirks on their faces.

  “Is that what you’ll do, just set up a whole new war? Another camp of soldiers to come back after the same government?”

  “Well, if not this one, another one. It’s amazing how many people will pay to have you kick down their government and to put a better one in its place.” He shrugged. “It’s just what we do.”

  “Just not well. I mean, you lost this one, so what makes you think anybody’ll pay you to win the next one?”

  “Because they won’t know the difference, because, just like your father, we can feed them lies.”

  “So did he actually do this out of political beliefs or because he was being paid?”

  “He did it because he believed in it. As for me, I did it because I was being paid.” The smoker gave Legend another half smile. “So you see? We don’t have the political aspirations that your father did. We were just along for the ride because it’s fun.”

  And that, of course, made them the worst kind of mercenaries because the only language they actually understood was money. “So, power and money, that’s it, huh? And the ability to kill is what? A nice added bonus?”

  “It took a while to get to that point, but you’re right. It is kind of a nice bonus when you can take out your opponents without any qualms,” the smoker acknowledged. “I mean, the world would be a lot easier to live with, if people were honest about the shit they did and if they knew they would get shot for lying, cheating, and stealing. So what the hell? You wouldn’t do it, but the fact of the matter is, everybody does it, yet nobody has to pay for it.”

  “Including you guys?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, including us, but we don’t count because we’re the power behind these wars.”

  “Interesting,” Legend muttered. “So, what do you want to do in this situation?”

  “Well, you’ll arrange … our money. We’ll give you a couple days to pull in a nice influx of cash. I think one-quarter of a million should do for us to pull back the contract, and then we’ll talk about what else we might need,” he noted, with a flat smile.

  “Meaning that you have no intention of ever stopping to extort money from me.”

  “Why would we? You have a massive fortune at your fingertips, and it’s a fortune that we feel fully justified in having a part of because we helped in getting it.”

  “So you say, but this house in particular belonged to Larry’s mother. It’s the family’s ancestral home.”

  “Yeah, and Larry might very well want it, considering that we killed Larry’s mother because your dad was getting a little too fed up with her. She became a problem, so to speak, so we had to take her out. We cleaned up his messes for him.” The smoker shrugged. “As I mentioned before, killing just becomes easier and easier all the time.”

  Legend stiffened at that. “I’ll be sure to tell him,” he replied, almost with a murderous tone. “At some point in time, he’ll need to know the reality of his father’s actions in that regard.”

  “Of course,” the smoker agreed, “and then there’s you. If you don’t think we have leverage to make sure you behave too, you’ve got a rude awakening in store.”

  At that, he asked, “What kind of leverage would that be?”

  “Well, we have a team already at the motel, picking up your girlfriend,” he shared, with a laugh. “So, don’t think that you’ll be getting off scot-free either. We’ll hang on to her, until we get that first one-quarter million, and we’ll talk after that.”

  Such a slimy smile had been added to his tone that Legend knew this would have to end tonight, one way or another, and he knew exactly which way he would vote. It may not make him any better than his father, but, at least, Legend was doing it to save a life.

  At the look on Legend’s face, the others laughed. “We thought you would feel that way,” the smoker stated. “But you know? You just won’t have any hope of getting to her in time,” he added, with the most sinister smile Legend had ever seen. “Even if you manage to find a way to kill us, saving her still won’t happen because, … well, the team was already dispatched with a phone call earlier. I’m just waiting for them to call and to tell me that it’s all taken care of.” He looked down at the phone, then back at Legend and smiled. “So, what’ll it be?” he asked. “Keep her alive or not? Because, you know, I’ll give them one order when they phone me, and it’ll be on your head either way.”

  Chapter 14

  Blair paced the motel room, not even sure what she was supposed to do, but the longer Legend and Riff were gone, the more agitated she got. Almost immediately, when the guys had pulled out of the motel’s parking lot, a sense of wrongness filled her, the sense of something going horribly wrong. The beat-up getaway vehicle Legend and she had arrived here in was still outside, the keys in her pocket.

  A part of her yelled that she needed to jump into that sucker and go.

  Finally, with her instincts still screaming at her, she grabbed all the bags that she could, and it took her two trips to load the vehicle. By the time she came back for one last look around the motel room, she heard voices coming from outside, and she heard the phrase catch that bitch. Immediately she slipped out the window on the far side and went down the fire escape, then raced around to the front and drove off, careful to drive at a slow and steady pace, not wanting anybody to take an interest in her.

  As soon as she was out of the parking lot, she gunned it—as much as she could in this old heap—heading back toward the ancestral home. Yet there was absolutely no reason for her to go there, except for the fact that Legend was there. But that also meant that trouble was there as well. Suddenly she wondered what she was doing. What the hell was she doing driving toward trouble, when she should be driving away from it?

  At that thought, Terkel’s voice slammed into her head. Exactly, you need to come here.

  “I can’t. They’re in trouble.” When Terk hesitated, she glommed on to that. “You know it. You know they’re in trouble.”

  I do know they’re in trouble, but having you there won’t make it any easier for them.

  “Maybe not easier but surely I can do something.”

  I’ve got a large team of militia on the way but not for a little bit of time yet.

  “So then what? We need somebody to create a distraction?” she asked curiously.

  Something like that, but I’ve already got Riff on it. If you get into the mix, chances are you’ll just get hurt.

  “Says you,” she muttered.

  He laughed. Says me, and, honest to God, why is it that, ever since I’ve gone private, I have more people wanting to argue with me instead of just doing what I ask?

  “Because we’re not used to being part of a team like this, where we’re supposed to follow orders when they’re wrong.”

  Are my orders wrong? he asked.

  “Yes, at this point in time they are.” She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. “Get that team there as fast as you can.” And, with that, she pushed him out of her head.

  It didn’t take anywhere near as long as she thought it would to get close to the mansion, and, knowing that boldness was about the only option she had, she pulled right up to the front door, got out, and slammed the car door hard, yet hid the bags underneath one of the other vehicles, then strode up to the front door. She opened the door and called out, “Well, I’m here.”

  First came silence and then a scurry of activity, as everybody raced to the front hallway.

  She walked inside, took one look at Legend, then smiled. “There you are,” she said, and, walking over, she reached up and kissed him hard, but he was stiff, and anger radiated from him. She patted him gently.

  Then she turned, faced the other two men, and greeted them. “Ah, and here we go, Richard and Garry,” she noted, with a nod. “The two men your father trusted the most.”

  At that, the pair looked at her, not at all sure just what the heck was going on.

  She nodded. “Yeah, you sent some of your friends to the motel room,” she began. “I decided I didn’t want to talk with them. If you want to talk to me, then you talk to me personally,” she declared, glaring at the men. “The only thing you guys understand is power and money.”

  Legend jerked at that, almost as if it were a phrase he knew well. She turned, looked up at him, then smiled and asked, “Hey, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. You sure don’t follow orders, do you?”

  She shrugged. “No, not really, not when everything is screaming at me to get the hell out.” He nodded at that, then turned and looked at the other men.

  “So, now that you don’t have her as a hostage, new deal,” Legend stated. “You guys rescind the order on Larry’s life, and I won’t kill you where you stand.” At that, they looked at the guns in their hands and then at him without any weapons. He stood there, his hands on his hips, completely nonchalant, as if he didn’t care.

  “You don’t even have a weapon,” Richard, the cigar smoker, pointed out.

  She frowned at that because he did have two weapons; they’d taken two out of the safe, but she didn’t mention that. “He doesn’t need a weapon,” she stated. “He was just worried earlier about whether I’d been taken or not.”

  The guys looked at each other, then back at her. “You guys don’t even act normal.”

  “No, we sure don’t,” she agreed cheerfully. “Now, the question is, will you do your thirty-five years in prison cheerfully, or would you rather take a bullet?” She had said it so abruptly that they looked at her and blinked.

  “What are you talking about?” Richard cried out.

  “It’s like this. We won’t tolerate that contract on Larry,” she stated. “So, if you don’t pull it, we’ll just take you down. Afterward we’ll put out a news bulletin, saying that you’ve been captured by the military and that you’re talking, revealing your known associates in exchange for a lighter sentence.”