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He debated one of the upstairs bedrooms. They had enough, after all. But that might take some explaining he was unwilling to make.
In the end, the obvious place revealed itself.
Apparently furious at being ignored and walked around an empty, dark house he knew very well anyway, Gussy seized his arm as they entered the impressive main living space. Aleksey heard the faint echoes of the previous time they’d stood there together, The Honourable with the husband he hadn’t loved, and he with the man he apparently had.
However, even he had to admit that this was a strange way to prove you loved someone.
He allowed The Honourable to unzip him.
He was soft, which was a first, but understandable to him, if not to Gustav. Gussy took it as a personal insult. Aleksey told him to take it as a challenge.
It gave him some time to rethink.
But they would be here soon, his Iraqis, and there was no alternative.
He took a deep breath and a last look around the beautifully decorated room, at the vast tree hung with off-white ribbons, at the swathes of pine over the enormous mantelpiece, and eased the gun from the back of his waistband.
In a gesture as unlike himself as he had ever made, he stroked lightly over the balding head beneath him.
He had never given this young man one moment of affection.
And he didn’t give him one now.
When his ears stopped ringing, his first thought was to be relieved: jaws did not clamp shut at the moment of death.
He returned to the kitchen and poured himself a full tumbler of whisky, then thoughtfuck itand drank from the bottle instead. Sometimes, it was a huge disadvantage living entirely on alcohol—it took longer each time to achieve the pleasant numbness with his surroundings he preferred.
Numbness to himself, he reflected sourly.
But he wasn’t doing this for himself alone.
He was doing this forthem.
It was almost noble.
His attempt at humour fell flat even in his own head, which was unacceptable, so he opened a bottle of spiced rum left over from Christmas to see if mixing his drinks helped on the path to oblivion.
By the time he’d changed out of his blood-splattered clothes, things were beginning to swim nicely out of focus.
His next guests arrived, very politely on time.
Equally courteous, Aleksey met them at the door and pleasantries were exchanged.
They’d brought more bodyguards with them than Aleksey had anticipated, but he didn’t see it as a particular issue. They wouldn’t be staying long.
He offered them all a drink.
They weren’t interested in New Year hospitality. They wanted to know when Ben Rider would arrive. They’d been promised Ben Rider—the real one, this time.
In his mind, Aleksey followed the paths these men had mapped out for Ben. How they would take him to their embassy, what might happen to him there for days. They might then bundle him, dying but with a thread of life, onto an aircraft and take him back to their own country for a final game or two. After all, they couldn’t keep lions in an embassy in London.
And all of this would be videoed, and the footage sold in the markets of Baghdad to entertain the populace.
In some ways, he wished he’d continued with his extinction-level plan for these brothers, and that he could draw his gun once more and kill them.
It had been what he’d originally invited them here for, after all.
But the pieces had aligned differently. The Gustav pawn had fallen, and he had committed to this plan.
