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No more drop in my fucking shares, more to the point.
Another nod was a bit boring, so he gave a little wave of his fingers in acknowledgment of the praise.
“You receive payment, yes? Big the money?”
Very big the money,from my shares, you fucking cheapskate.
But on the other hand, two-hundred-thousand pounds wasn’t to be sniffed at either. Sniffed up maybe?
“Any suspicions he might have about your involvement must be allayed.”Well, my involvement, anyway. You’ll be fed alive into a wood chipper when it suits me to tell your brother.
Given the expression on the other man’s face, Aleksey wondered if he’d said that last part out loud, rewound, and decided the frown was merely an attempt to translate the first. He knew the feeling, and being the paragon of virtue he was, added slowly with a sigh, “Your nephew is dead and there are no other sons. You are now your brother’s heir once more, yes? If he starts to suspect your involvement, you will notbehis heir, will you? Then where will you be?”Other than here, annoying me.
“What you suggest?”
Oh, the temptation to tell him the truth.
“I suggest you—”
“I kill your man—yourop-er-ative; one who shoot my nephew. That please my brother—if I hunting and shooting. Bang, bang, like he shoot boy. Yes, very good. You give your man to me. I make more worth your while. More I give you for all this.”
Sometimes, Aleksey reflected, he was a better actor than he was given credit for. Unappreciated, that’s what he was.
Give Benjamin Rider to this reject from Al-Qaeda?
But then...Aleksey pursed his lips, thinking, well aware that this would merely appear as if he were considering the suggestion. Which in a way, he was. Balls being tossed into the air just so, the pattern they made in the vacuum of his life, chess pieces aligned to complex rules of his own devising, giving him something, anything, to concentrate on so he would not look around and see the emptiness.
In his mind’s eye, he plucked Ben Rider, his most beautiful and valuable piece on the board, and moved him out from his shelter...the new, and apparently more-interesting-than-him fucking thatched cottage. He studied Ben in his new position—out on his own, surrounded by enemy knights and rooks. Nowhere to turn for protection except to his own king—and he liked that move very much indeed.
“That might be arranged, yes.”
* * *
Chapter 36
Four Months Before April
The atmosphere between them plummeted as soon as the others left, Tim finally clueing into the cheerless atmosphere and possibly deciding that driving on half a bottle of red wine was acceptable after all. Squeezy rolled his eyes and said he’d drive him, shag him, and then run back.
Nikolas was a thundercloud of repressed energy waiting to unleash a storm on someone’s head. Not even Squeezy was willing, apparently, to get a soaking for something he hadn’t done.
As soon as the door closed, Nikolas headed straight for the wine rack and proceeded to drink heavily for the rest of the evening, keeping himself apart, until he made some excuse about needing to do some work and retreating entirely into his study.
Ben let it all ride for a while, busying himself with getting ready for bed, desperately pretending he wasn’t missing Nikolas in the shower—Nikolas’s annoying jibes at the way he brushed his teeth, his choice of razor, or his vanity if he so much as glanced at himself whilst doing any of this routine. He wondered sometimes if Nikolas understood the all-encompassing force he was in Ben’s life now and how, when that presence was withdrawn, everything became hollow, shaky.
He’d allowed the drinking, however, that obvious avoidance of talking, because that’s exactly how he felt: shaky. He needed fury, not fear.
When he’d worked himself up to a level of anger that left no room for self-pity, he braced and went into the study.
Nikolas was sitting with his feet up on the desk, watching porn.
It wasn’t an auspicious start to an arg—to a conversation.
“Nice.” Ben, wearing only some boxers, sat on the desk blocking Nik’s view.
Nikolas pursed his lips for a moment then slid his chair to one side. He took another swallow of whisky, which he had moved onto when apparently not getting what he wanted from the wine.
“You could have that for free if you came to bed.”
