Page 15 of Lethal Legacy

“Good of you to join us, Leo.”

Pavel glances at me, then scoots his chair out of the line of fire. He knows this isn’t going to go well.

The little prick finally removes his headphones, which are almost bigger than him. “My name is Teo.”

Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.

“Tell me,Leo.What is your job title?”

“System test engineer.” He mutters the title as if it’s beneath him.

“And do you like your job?”

The rat-faced littlemudakshrugs. Actually shrugs.

From the corner of my eye I see Dimitry, my second-in-command, move off from where he’s leaning on one of the machines, balancing evenly on his feet.

He knows what’s coming.

The tech heads who have been with me for a while do, too. They go pale and eye the floor nervously.

Headphones doesn’t, though. He slouches against the machine bank, moving from one foot to another as if it’s hard work holding himself upright.

“You look bored, Leo,” I say softly. “Are you bored?”

He tilts his head as if he’s actually considering the question. “I think we should be more aggressive in our testing.” He nods at the screen. “Mercura should be able to slip in and out of sites like this unseen. I thought our job was to test its resilience.”

It takes a certain level of either stupidity or balls to keep bluffing when death is standing in front of you. I almost admire the idiot.

Almost.

I crack my knuckles slowly. “So you decided to get creative with your job, instead of just fucking doing it?”

The kid glances around properly for the first time, taking in the muscle lounging against the walls and the terrified faces of his coworkers, finally beginning to realize that our little gathering doesn’t quite pass the vibe check. He licks his lips nervously.

“Your job is to run the resilience tests we give you.” I get up nice and close, and the kid’s nostrils flare. “Not go ahead and decide what tests need to be run.” He tries to step back, but there are only machines behind him. I get even closer and he steps sideways, standing in the middle of the corridor between machine banks.

That’s better.I’d rather not get blood on the machines.

“You especially don’t get to decide to run a test on a website made by our biggest competitors. One they set up specifically so they could watch every new digital coin that hits the market. But I think you already knew that, Leo, didn’t you?”

There’s an audible gasp from the table behind me, followed by a very tense silence. All of them know, or at least suspect, the price for selling me out.

And the kid definitely isn’t shrugging anymore. His eyes move from side to side as he tries to think up a good story, but it’s way too late for that. It was too late before he ever walked in the room.

“I hope they paid you more than the amount I found in your account.” I pull out my gun slowly and watch his eyes go from defensive to terrified. “Because if not,Leo,your life is worth about as much as those shitty chinos you’re wearing.”

I shoot him straight between the eyes.

He lands just where I planned, away from the machines, although he still manages to spread his brains all over the glass screens covering them. The tech heads hit the floor the moment I fired and are currently cowering under any available surface. Funny how they can all play Call of Duty without batting an eye, but the moment the real thing is in their face, they’re losing their guts all over my lab-clean floors.

“Chill, little dudes.” Dimitry’s calm drawl cuts through the chaos. “None of you have suspicious zeros in your accounts. So long as you keep it that way, you’ll keep your brains, too.” He nudges Leo/Teo’s limp body. “This dickhead lost his long before they wound up on the floor.”

“I-I’m sorry, sir.” Pavel stares at me, stuttering with shock and terror. “I had no idea—”

The others chime in from various positions behind machines and under tables. “I had nothing to do with it—”

“I didn’t know—”

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