Page 38 of Conquer

I spent the next ten minutes removing the bundled stacks of twenty-dollar bills that totaled five hundred thousand.

Gordon watched, his gun pointed at me the entire time. Sam kept her gaze somewhere on the dirt.

When I had taken all the cash out, Gordon said, “Now turn the bag inside out.

I did, even unzipping the internal pockets and turning those inside out as well.

“Now put it back,” Gordon said.

I did, repeating the same process, careful not to move too quickly.

I could see that Gordon thought his victory was at hand, and I didn’t want to do anything that would make him nervous.

When I finished, I stood and stared at Gordon.

“So, that’s the cash,” I said.

“And the rest?” he replied, referring to the rest of the money that I’d wired to the account I’d set up for him.

“I’m reaching into my pocket,” I said.

I did, moving slowly, and then extended my hand with the slip of paper in it.

“What the fuck is that?” he asked.

“It’s the account number for the account that has the rest,” I said.

“On a slip of paper?”

“Yes. I suggest you not lose it,” I said.

He laughed. “Very fucking funny, asshole. So that’s it?”

Gordon had taken the slip of paper from my hands and put it into his own pocket.

“Yes. That is,” I said.

He looked shocked.

I’d suspected his plan was haphazard, that he had simply tried something and hoped that it would pan out. He probably hadn’t expected this to go smoothly, and I didn’t feel the need to tell him it only had because I had wanted it to.

It would’ve been easy enough to kill him on sight, though I didn’t want Sam to see that.

I kept my eyes on Gordon, saw the little spark that told me he thought he’d bested me. I didn’t care one bit.

“I thought you would pay, but I didn’t think it would be so easy. You really love her, huh?” he said.

“You have your money. I’d leave and go spend it,” I said instead of responding. I didn’t take any extra care to explain the inherent warning, but he seemed to pick it up.

“I intend to,” he said. “But I’m supposed to believe you’re just going to let me walk out of here?”

“You don’t have to believe it. You just have to do it,” I replied.

Gordon narrowed his eyes, his gaze brimming with suspicion. “I think I’ll take some insurance,” he said.

He looked at Sam, and I took a step closer to him.

“No, you won’t.”

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