Nelson’s eyes tightened, his whole body losing its previous casual air. “You’re taking out your brother?”
“I sent my two best men to do it.” Any minute now Malcolm would text him with the word that his brother was dead and they were safe. “Do you think he was working with MI6?”
“I know he was working with a man named Ian Taggart who still works for the Agency from time to time. They’re hunting me, not you, and if you only sent two men to take him down then my guess is your men are dead and Liam now knows you’re on to him. You should have talked to me before you pulled a stunt like this.”
Rory felt his spine straighten. He didn’t like the way Nelson was talking to him. “Since when are you my boss?”
Nelson leaned forward, his voice a low rumble. “Since the day I pulled you out of the SAS and gave you the kind of life you had always longed for. If it weren’t for me, you would have ended up getting kicked out of the Army. How long would it have been before your brother found out about your criminal connections? How long before he discovered all the secrets you sold? Do you think he would have helped you out the way I did? No. He would have handed you straight over to the government, and you would be rotting in prison.”
The waitress came back smiling a gap-toothed smile. She put two pints in front of them, but Rory wouldn’t touch his. He would fiddle with it, but he never drank anymore. He wouldn’t allow himself to be out of control for even a minute. But when he was finally able to shed the Thomas Molina guise, he would be himself once more. He would drink and fuck and kill whenever he wanted.
And Avery could watch it all. It would be the perfect punishment for fucking his brother when she’d avoided touching him. She’d treated him like a bloody infant, but she spread her legs as fast as she could once Liam had walked in the door.
The waitress walked away, and Nelson sat back. “I think I should take over setting up the Middle Eastern end of the business. You’ve done quite well in Africa, but my contacts are better in Asia than yours.”
So that was his game. A savage anger started to take hold. Everyone seemed to be trying to get their greedy hands on his property. It was starting to grate on his last nerve, but then he’d been doing a slow burn since he’d come back to England. “No. This is my business. I’ve been giving you a cut since day one, but that’s all you’ll ever get.”
He didn’t owe Nelson more than that. Hell, he didn’t really owe Nelson a bloody thing. Now that he thought about it, he was the one who’d gotten the bonds. He was the one who had set the charges. He was the one who had set everything up so no one had looked for him.
Nelson was the one who hadn’t even noticed that Liam had survived, and apparently Nelson was the one who had brought dear brother down on his head.
Maybe it was time to get rid of his mentor.
Nelson frowned but his eyes remained cold. “So you don’t need my contacts? You’re going to be able to move into the Pakistani and Afghan markets without me?”
He would once the Lachlan Bates deal went through. The terrorist cell in Sudan was his way to move into Islamist extremist groups. If he could make sure they were stocked, they would come to him. There were millions to be made and power to be had. And he didn’t intend to share a bit of it with Nelson, but he couldn’t let the man know that. It would be like announcing he was planning on assassinating him.
“I’m sorry. Of course I need your contacts.” Molina hoped he looked sincere. He wasn’t. He was thinking about how fast he could put the bastard in the ground. Nelson had been helpful, but his time was done.
Nelson seemed to relax a bit. “I know I can help you. Like I said, you’ve done a great job with the African markets, but you’ll see how much money we can make once you let me in. Have you handled your MI6 problem?”
He wasn’t worried about MI6. He was worried about his brother. “They haven’t figured out the codes yet.” He’d developed them himself, so not even Nelson could get access to his accounts and clients without the cipher, which was in his safe at home. “They won’t. They don’t even understand that there is a code yet. They’ve got some weird weigh ins at various ports of call. I just need to find the right people to bribe.”
He’d had a couple of breakdowns, but he was getting it cleared up.
“So Weston isn’t a problem?”
Molina rolled his eyes. He wasn’t worried about that idiot at all. “Weston is an aristocrat playing at being a spy. He’s been utterly ineffective, and once I leave London, he won’t have a chance to even stumble across something. After the ball is over and the coffers are full, I’ll move everything to Dubai. I have a very private compound. Only the most trusted will gain access. I’ll run the business from there.”