Page 271 of Roberto

Lau’s emotions pivoted back to rage. “You STOLE from me?!”

“Borrowed.”

“Oh, and you’ll justwillinglygive it back!” the old man snarled sarcastically.

“Yes, I will. Minus the 50 million that’s mine.”

Lau’s eyes widened.“That’swhat this is about?!”

“That’s what this hasalwaysbeen about.”

Lau laughed – more in disbelief than amusement. “Why should I believe you?”

“For the same reason you didn’t kill me when my uncle tried to bribe you: I don’t need more enemies. I certainly don’t want awar with you, the triads, and the Yakuza, especially while we’re fighting my uncle.

“Which is why… if you give me and Mei-ling safe passage to the airport, and allow us to return to Italy… you’ll receive all 200 million dollars back. I swear it on my family’s lives.”

At the mention of her name, Lau glared at Mei-ling behind the desk.

He said something vicious in Cantonese, and she shouted back at him.

Han swung his pistol in her direction –

“Point your gun at me,” I warned. “If anyone harms her in any way, I’ll killallof you.”

“You’ll kill her,too,” Han pointed out.

“She told me that if we didn’t succeed, she wanted to die – ”

I looked at Lau.

“ – because whatyouwould do to her would be worse. ”

The old man didn’t contradict me, which I took as confirmation.

“Both Mei-ling and I are happy to go out in a blaze of glory and take all of you with us. So – all guns onme.”

Han reluctantly pointed his pistol back in my direction.

But there was at leastoneperson who wasn’t convinced.

“That means you’ll die, too,” Gota said.

“That’s correct.”

The Yakuza boss gave me ayou’re-full-of-shitsmile. “You won’t do it.”

“If all of you die, no one will ever know where the Bitcoin went. The Syndicate’s accountants will just know it got transferred out, but they’ll never be able to retrieve it.”

“But you’ll be DEAD!” Gota roared, like I was an idiot for not seeing the flaw in my plan.

“And I will have secured a 400% profit for my family. I’d say that’s anexcellentreturn on investment.”

Gota shook his head in disbelief. “You woulddieso your brothers can be rich?”

“So they can survive and win the war against my uncle?” I paused, then smiled. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“I don’t believe you,” Gota sneered –

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