Page 103 of Taming Achilles

“Ugh, how pathetic,” I interrupted with disdain. “They used to say you were good at this, but that hamfisted attempt at getting me to change my mind …” I yawned loudly to make my point.

“The plan to take over Kemet oil could still work.” I could feel his logic pivoting, like the many parts of a lock clicking into place. “There are billions there. And very few of us to split the money with. We won’t need titles to rise. Money speaks more than titles.”

I lifted the gun, so the barrel pointed to the ceiling.

“How much?”

“Billions, guaranteed. Maybe even more.” His words came out just a little too fast, like he was grasping at straws, looking for the one he could cling onto to hoist himself from this predicament.

“You and that Scotsman would be able to buy yourselves titles,” he said, as if that would motivate me to do anything.

“Who would we have to answer to, though?” The interrogation continued, as I played the part of a person coming around to his way of thinking.

“No one,” his fingers tapped on the table as they unspooled from fists. “I’m it. Just me.”

“I don’t believe you.” The tremor in his hands was a sign of deception.

The shaking in his fists continued, and he took in a stuttered breath, then covered it with a scoff.

“Try again.” Those words would make him come to heel. I knew it. Because I learned it from him. It was a second warning that lying would cost him. Bodily. “Remember, father, Machiavelli says that ‘If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.” I brought the barrel back down to point at his head, then turned to point at his leg. “Maybe a knee cap would work.”

He took another sharp breath. How long had it been since he’d been in the field? Years? Decades? He was losing his touch.

“There’s one person, and he’s …” His shoulders shook by mere millimetres. Barely perceptible. But that was a sign of fear. “He’s powerful. Very powerful. You don’t want to cross him.”

“Alex Baas was powerful, and I put a bullet in his head and staged his death,” I stated coldly.

“No, not like Baas.” I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was frowning with condescending disdain. I had seen that expression numerous times. “That boy was so easy to control and manipulate. He was greedy for gain and power because of fear. He feared being the weak little boy he had been in school.” He laughed. “Pathetic, really.”

What was truly pathetic was that he couldn’t see his own greed reflected in the same way. But I didn’t say that.

“Who’s in charge of this plan? Where can I find him?” I asked again, getting us back on track.

Victor had a tendency to bloviate about people he thought were beneath him. He’d go on and on if he wasn’t stopped.

“He’s American,” my father said. “You’ve actually met him. Married to your little friend’s sister.”

“Interesting,” I said, narrowing my eyes. I pointed the barrel back to his head. “That was all I really needed from you. Goodbye.”

“Wait. Wait!” His voice grew in agitation. It was just like Victor Fox to not cower, but to get annoyed in the face of his own mortality. “You and I can still take over the world, Pippa. We can climb the echelons, and create a new world.”

Ah, power. The motivation of my progenitor.

“We can rise higher than we could have ever dreamed.” The conviction in his voice belonged to a Disney villain. Maybe that’s what he was. A true evil. Just like Machiavelli’s Prince, he was a cold hearted man who cared only for his own self-interest.

“We can raise the status quo and create a world of our own making,” his fists clenched and his voice rose like a preacher at the end of his sermon, ready to bring down the wrath of God to his congregation.

“I have no interest in preserving the status quo,” I finally said, bringing the end of the barrel to the base of his spine. I was saying farewell using the only Machiavelli quote I ever liked. “I want to destroy it.”

My father never understood my friendship with Brett Bradley, who contracted with the CIA. He’d never understood our mission, or our goals. All he knew was that I was cultivating contacts that could benefit him one day.

But how could he ever understand when he never saw me as anything but an asset to him? A prop. A thing to be used for his own ends, like one of the chess pieces he liked to twirl in his palm.

“You couldn’t kill your own father.” That was his last ditch effort. Appealing to my emotions. The very thing he disdained in me.

“You’re right, I can’t. Because I’m too … sentimental, as you said.” I stepped to the side, putting my gun back on safe.

“I have no such compunction,” a Scottish brogue spoke from the shadows to my right, as my fiancé stepped forward, his Glock in his hand. “This is her wedding gift to me.”

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