Page 13 of Collateral Claim

Wilfred, who’s interested in Scarlett’s dad’s money and Scarlett by default, will help me out. I know it doesn’t look like that now, but he will serve my cause more than her father because he wants me to release Scarlett from this fakeengagement. He wants me to return to where I came from so he can make his move on her.

For all I know, he’s already made a move.

The idea of Scarlett with him sits as well as an onion would on top of my morning coffee. Smells like ass and ruins my plans.

I enter Daniel Pembroke’s office.

It’s a sprawling, traditionally furnished, masculine space with an impressive black leather seating area and a white bearskin rug that matches the white frames around photos of Daniel’s hunting escapades. The two men are already seated, with Daniel’s back to the window, which means he is forcing me to sit with my back to the door.

I take my time viewing the pictures, stopping to look at the image of him and his two girls beside a dead boar. The girls look like they’ve been crying, but he made them pose with him anyway.

“Do you hunt, Mr. Macarley?” Daniel asks.

“Not animals, no.” I bend at the knees and grip the armrests of the massive leather couch. I rotate it so that when I sit, I can see both the window and the entrance to the room.

I rest my Nighthawk pistol on the arm of the couch. “Now,” I say, “let’s get down to business. Last month, my brother was overseeing the handover of your cargo when he disappeared. Poof. Gone without a trace. And before you say he’s intentionally gone under the radar, my brother always checks in with me when he’s on the road. One day, he’s eating caviar on his yacht; the next, he’s missing.”

“Who is your brother?” Daniel asks.

I grit my teeth. “Drop the act, or I swear to God, you’ll be scooping Wilfred’s brains off the bear rug.”

Wilfred unbuttons his suit. “We do not recognize your last name.”

“But you do recognize me, don’t you, Daniel? At the party, you seemed to recognize me. Or was it that you recognized that the Grim Reaper had come for you?”

“I don’t know you,” Daniel says.

“Now you do. My brother’s name is Cassian Macarley. Goes by Cass.”

Daniel shakes his head. Wilfred does too.

I lay a hand over my weapon. “You’re begging for a bullet.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Daniel shouts. “I don’t know who he is. I’ve never met him. Never heard of him before.”

I tap the gun’s grip and decide he really is telling the truth. Wilfred? Not sure if he is truthful, but he’s less important now.

“You hired my brother to sell your weapons.”

Wilfred’s eyes widen, but he quickly schools his face. Too late. I caught it. I don’t know why he’s surprised, though. Could be because he doesn’t know about the illegal shipment of weapons Daniel is selling on the black market, or it could be he’s surprised that I know about it.

My brother and I run a tight business. We watch each other’s backs, which is why I’m so pissed he didn’t listen to me when I said no to this business offer. But I’m even more pissed at myself. I told him no when he asked me to oversee the transport of this cargo. I didn’t think he’d do it himself. I thought he would have called one of his men in the area.

But he wanted to see it through. The deal was massive, too massive to hire out. A billion dollars of profit for us. What really kills me is that my brother wanted to retire on this deal so he could fish all day or maybe raise a family.

I never wanted to fish all day. Or raise a family. And it should’ve been me who sailed with the cargo, not him. See, now I’m thinking he’s dead, and that makes me want to shoot someone.

Two someones.

How very convenient that I have two prime candidates sitting right in front of me. “Well?” I ask, getting impatient with their bullshit.

“We manufacture weapons,” Daniel says. “The company doesn’t sell anything outside of our government contracts.”

I shoot him below the kneecap.

The man screams in pain.

Wilfred jumps and shows me his palms. “Don’t shoot!”