Page 30 of Affair
“What do we do now?” the one asked. “If it’s not here, that means it’s someone else in the platoon. What if Hemmingway passed it on to someone else?”
He sighed.
That was a problem.
The rest of the platoon, the ones not working forThe BlackStone Group, were Americans. That was a big country, and that would take time.
“I don’t know. The boss is going to be hella pissed. He wants that crypto key. It’s fifty million dollars, and that asshole found out that he was doing dirty deeds in the sandbox. Then, he stole the only key. It’s gotta be somewhere, man,” he stated.
The other man shook his head.
“I don’t want to be the one who pisses off the boss. He’s not someone you fuck with,” he said. “We’d better go through this estate with a fine-tooth comb, and see if we can find that key. If not, we’re dead ducks. The minute Von Donore finds out we can’t find that key…”
Oh, they knew that answer.
They were going to disappear.
There was no doubt there.
As for the dead people…
“Put their bodies with the rest of the house staff. No one will find them for a while since they all live here. Maybe, if we’re lucky, it’ll be weeks.”
That was the best-case scenario.
That was a long shot, but they knew they had to take that chance.
Two of the three men headed toward the estate, keeping their masks on, as they entered the home again, just in case there was security they didn’t handle.
Inside, all of the people who worked there were already dead. The maids, the butler, and the housekeepers were all lying in puddles of their own blood.
Yep.
They’d killed them all.
Spreading out, they searched high and low for that long-ass crypto key. Von Donore had promised the mercenary who found it was getting one million dollars of the money with no strings attached—on top of his pay.
That was very motivating.
On the upper floor, they found a room that was memorializing Hemmingway Seville. In it, there were pictures of him by his Apache helicopter, the man in his uniform, and all of his service awards from the monarch.
They did what they needed to do.
It was torn to shreds.
Inside, they found nothing that led them to believe that the man had the key. The place was a mausoleum to his life, and nothing more.
There wasn’t a crypto key to be found.
“Keep searching,” the one mercenary said. “We have to figure this out.”
The only thing that was saving them was everyone was dead, and the main gate to the estate was locked down.
On the main floor, they headed into the family room, and that’s when they came to a stop.
It caught them off-guard.
“Who the fuck is that?” the one ex-soldier asked, pointing at the wall.
