She woke on the bed.
The ceiling. The walls. The same room. The same weight pressing down on her from the inside out, worse than the day before, her body swollen and aching in ways she did not have words for yet.
He was at the door with his back to her. He always had his back to her.
She looked at him and something that had nothing to do with fear moved through her chest.
"I hate you," she said. Her voice came out raw and flat and completely without performance. "I genuinely hate you."
He did not turn around. "Did I not give you clear instructions on the day I brought you here?"
"You can take your instructions and—"
"You are cussing now."
"I have been cussing you since the moment you brought me here," she said. "You just were not in the room to hear it."
"You will not like what happens if I turn around."
"Only cowards hide their faces."
Something shifted in his posture. His shoulders moved and his weight redistributed and for a moment it seemed like he was actually going to do it, to turn, to let her see what everyone else in his world was kept from seeing. Then his phone rang.
He stilled. Answered it. The conversation was brief and whatever it contained made the line of his jaw go hard before he ended it and said nothing further.
Aine stared at his back.
The anger in her chest did not leave. It simply settled deeper, pressing against something underneath it that she was less willing to name.
He did it again, she thought, the words moving through her slowly like something with weight. And this time someone died for it. Someone died because of me.
The tears did not fall. They gathered and sat and burned behind her eyes and she refused to let them go any further than that because he was still in the room and she would not give him that.
She would not give him anything else.
Wilson set the glass down on the table and stared at the bottom of it like it owed him something. "I cannot even laugh anymore." He had been trying to find the humour in it for the last hour and kept coming up empty.
Uttham leaned back in his chair with the particular satisfaction of a man who had been patient for a very long time and was finally being rewarded for it. "I still cannot believe Ozz dropped to last place."
"He had no one to carry it forward," Wilson said, turning the empty glass slowly in his fingers. "No successor. No contingency. Nothing." He shook his head. "All that power and he let it sit on one pair of shoulders."
"His loss." Uttham reached for the bottle between them and refilled his glass without hurry. "Because of him I am now sitting at third in the rankings."
The words landed between them and Wilson finally found what he had been looking for at the bottom of his glass. He laughed. Short and genuine and a little disbelieving.
"Third." He looked at Uttham across the table. "This calls for considerably more celebration than one bottle."
Uttham raised his glass.
"Then let us get considerably more bottles."
The Heir of Ozz World
"Come here, boy." Uttham did not look up from his glass. "Another round of beers. Move."
The figure with the tray did not move.
Uttham looked up. "Did you not hear me? Get us the beers, you imbecile."
"I am not going to waste my time with you," Jokull said.
The table went very still.
Blakson turned slowly in his seat. "Did he just shoot back?"
Dean was already moving, arm stretching across the table with the casual confidence of a man who had never had that particular gesture stopped before.
Jokull caught his wrist before it arrived. One hand, no warning, and Dean's arm twisted into an angle that produced an immediate and involuntary sound from somewhere in his throat. The Winchester came out with the other hand, level and unhurried, sweeping the table in a single motion.
"Nobody move."
The room froze.
Jokull kept the gun where it was and straightened. "I apologise for the abruptness of that introduction. My name is Jokull Ozanne. I am the heir of Ozz World." He released Dean's arm. "Now. Without wasting any more of either of our time, you are going to show me your warehouses."
The Heir of Ozz World
"Come here, boy." Uttham did not look up from his glass. "Another round of beers. Move."
The figure with the tray did not move.
Uttham looked up. "Did you not hear me? Get us the beers, you imbecile."
"I am not going to waste my time with you," Jokull said.
The table went very still.
Blakson turned slowly in his seat. "Did he just shoot back?"
Dean was already moving, arm stretching across the table with the casual confidence of a man who had never had that particular gesture stopped before.
Jokull caught his wrist before it arrived. One hand, no warning, and Dean's arm twisted into an angle that produced an immediate and involuntary sound from somewhere in his throat. The Winchester came out with the other hand, level and unhurried, sweeping the table in a single motion.
"Nobody move."
The room froze.
Jokull kept the gun where it was and straightened. "I apologise for the abruptness of that introduction. My name is Jokull Ozanne. I am the heir of Ozz World." He released Dean's arm. "Now. Without wasting any more of either of our time, you are going to show me your warehouses."
I did not plant anything in this building," Jokull said calmly, looking around the table. "The devices are already inside your bodies. You swallowed them with the beer. If any of you stands up too fast, it will trigger the reaction and you will die instantly." He leaned back in his chair. "I would stay very still."
The entire table went silent.
Uttham, the man who had spoken down to Jokull like he was nothing less than an hour ago, was now looking at him like a completely different person. "We are sorry," he said, the words coming out slowly and painfully. "Please. Spare us."
"One condition," Jokull said.
"Anything."
"Give me the location of every warehouse you own. Every single one. And do not lie to me."
They talked. Every man at the table gave up their locations without a fight, rattling off addresses and access codes as fast as they could. Jokull sent each one to his men on the ground as they came in and waited for confirmation. One by one the reports came back. Every location was real. Every warehouse checked out.
There was just one small problem.
Wilson pressed his hands flat on the table, his voice nothing like it had been when the evening started. "Please. Just let us go."
Jokull looked at him for a moment. Then he looked around at all of them.
"Have you ever heard this verse from the Bible?" he asked. "It says it is better to cut off your hand if it leads you to do wrong than to keep it and be destroyed completely."
Nobody answered.
Silence.
"No?" He nodded slowly. "Then allow me to be of some spiritual service. I am going to remove what has caused the most sin in this room." He looked at their hands on the table. "I will take them and let the rest of you live." A pause. "Do you agree?"