Contracts, Matt Rogers [phonics reading books TXT] 📗

of death. And your foolishness led to the death of the person you love most.’

Parker sat still, silent and morose.

‘Did you really love her?’ Slater said. ‘Or does everything come second to the pursuit of power?’

‘Of course I loved her.’

‘Not enough to protect her,’ King said. ‘Isn’t that what a father is supposed to do?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise to us. We’re grown-ups. We don’t need it.’

Silence.

‘Apologise to her.’

‘I can’t…’

‘And whose fault is that?’

Slater knew he’d broken through the sociopathic exterior. He’d cut through to the core, and Aidan Parker would never be the same. The budding politician’s old life had consisted of numbers, and charts, and projections, and risk analysis. And there was no doubt his assumptions had merit. If Mukta had just stuck to his normal routine, he wouldn’t have turned murderous, and Raya would still be alive. But that’s the problem with breaking everything down, analysing everything, sitting behind a desk and trying your hardest to work out how to climb to the top…

It just never goes that way in the real world.

Parker now understood that.

It had cost him everything.

Slater said, ‘We’re not here to babysit you. We operate outside the law, so none of this is our responsibility. We’re not going to arrest you, or punish you. But we’re going to go back home and tell them everything. Your life is over. I don’t know what they’ll do with you, but it won’t be sunshine and rainbows. You should steel yourself for that before you come back.’

Parker nodded quietly.

Slater said, ‘If you think we’re going to talk you out of doing anything drastic, we won’t. We honestly don’t care about you. You almost got us killed. We’re ambivalent about what happens next.’

Another soft nod.

‘Do you have a second gun?’

Parker nodded. He reached into his puffer jacket, came out with a second Beretta, and handed it over without the slightest hint of hostility.

He was truly broken.

Slater took it, and checked to make sure King had the other Beretta.

Then he said, ‘We’re leaving now.’

Parker nodded.

‘I’d say it’s been nice knowing you,’ Slater said, ‘but it really fucking hasn’t.’

King opened the door and shuffled out, and Slater lingered in the doorway for a long moment.

Looking back at the man who had almost destroyed them.

Parker looked up.

‘Are you going to shoot me?’ he said.

His voice echoed.

Slater said, ‘No.’

And tossed the gun on the floor at his feet.

‘Do what you think is best,’ he said.

He stepped outside and shut the door behind him.

King lingered in the dirt laneway. He noticed Slater come out without a weapon, and cocked his head to one side.

‘What are you doing?’ he said.

Slater said, ‘Giving him a choice.’

‘Don’t underestimate his desperation,’ King said. ‘He’s going to open that door and try to shoot us.’

‘I don’t think so.’

To make sure they were covered for all contingencies, King raised and aimed his Beretta.

The silence drew out. Sounds from the village floated by — the distant rumbling of engines, the faint whine of a plane taking off, the steady thunk-thunk-thunk of a local chopping wood.

The door stayed closed.

There was no movement from the other side.

Then a single gunshot rang out, muffled by the rock and the heavy door.

Slater nodded. He took no pleasure in it. It was a horrible situation, and there was no joy to be had in the demise of the man who’d orchestrated it. But still…

…it was some measure of finality.

King said, ‘So that’s it.’

‘That’s it.’

They turned and walked away.

88

Washington D.C.

Three days later…

Jay Randwick had spent the past thirty years of his life obsessed with efficiency.

It had led to many outcomes, the large majority of them positive. There was the mansion in a quaint tree-lined street in Spring Valley, one of D.C.’s most exclusive neighbourhoods. There was the Bentley and the Rolls, and the Lamborghini Huracan for weekends. There were the memberships to the most esteemed country clubs, tables at the best restaurants in town, the finest whiskeys, the rarest cigars. There was the trophy wife — number three, which he had to admit had caused some considerable disruption to his career trajectory — but there were no kids. He’d never admitted it to anyone, but he’d done the math and realised how much children would cost him in future earnings. It simply wasn’t worth it. So he paid meticulous attention to detail in practicing safe sex, and despite his numerous affairs he’d never been confronted with a positive pregnancy test by any of the call girls or budding socialites he used and discarded with increasing frequency.

Sometimes he wished he found deep satisfaction in the material conquests — houses, cars, girls.

But really, none of it meant anything to him.

What he relished was the hunt.

The game. The process. It’s all he ever cared about, and he’d decided decades ago that it would be all he focused on until the day he died. There was something beautiful about the art of constructing things and then implementing them — businesses, ideas, routines. He was always coming up with faster and more efficient ways to carry out his days, and it had led to an empire he couldn’t fathom. There were so many industries he’d conquered, so many different pies he had his hands in. Because at the end of the day, everything came down to a simple logical process. Do this, do that, repeat until you’re profitable. Learn from your mistakes, fix what’s broken, don’t touch what isn’t. Use the profits to keep expanding. Never settle. Never relax. Never rest on your laurels.

Just keep going onward and upward.

He’d mastered the process.

And now there was the next logical step.

He’d made enough money for ten lifetimes. He had more than he knew what to do with. So what does a man who has everything acquire next?

Simple.

Power.

Sure, Aidan Parker was an unorthodox candidate for President, but Randwick had been dissecting what made people successful his whole life, and he knew Parker had the goods for a successful campaign. The man had an incredible knack for breaking down complex matters into simple explanations.