“The funds are wire-transferred in such a way that the money crosses multiple borders to frustrate detection.”
“Explain,” I demand needing to know exactly how he plans on transferring what I assume to be millions.
“For instance,” he continues, “the money might end up in a US trust managed by a shell company in Grand Cayman, owned by another trust in Guernsey with an account in Luxembourg, managed by a Swiss or Singaporean or Caribbean banker who doesn’t know who the owner is. It’s a whirlwind, basically.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and then looks up to me. “There’s no way to answer that. If I say yes, you’ll think I’m a liar. If I say no, you’ll think I’m a liar for the mere fact I never told you. But, if you need confirmation of where my interests lie, then I’ll give you the accounts. You see, the money was simply a bonus to Camilla landing on her ass, dirt poor and alone. The latter was the capstone.”
Testing him, I click the barrel open and dump the bullets. I walk over to him, lay the gun on the desk, and tell him, “I want all the accounts.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
He gets up and steps to his laptop next to my unloaded pistol. I follow, and when he sits in the desk chair, I stand over his shoulder. I watch as he bypasses the Internet and accesses the deep web through Tor, which is an anonymity network that insures nothing he does will be indexed.
In a few quick swipes of the keyboard, numbers and codes begin to filter in. “There you go,” he says and then points to the screen, explaining, “This column lists the country codes, this one here lists account and routing numbers, and this column here is—”
“Close it down.”
He looks at me in confusion but does as I instruct and proceeds to logoff. I’m satisfied that without the threat of force, he handed over all the information without an inkling of hesitation.
“I don’t want his money. You can do whatever you want with it.”
Lachlan closes the lid to his laptop, picks up the gun, takes one bullet from the floor, and slides it into one of the cylinders. He then gives it a spin before locking it into place.
“Here,” he says in an even tone as he hands me the gun. “I’d take a bullet for Elizabeth. You on the other hand . . . I need to come down from you shoving that muzzle into my head, but I’d take a bullet for you as well. You want me to prove my loyalty to you?” He takes a couple steps back. “Pull the trigger.”
A sane man would take his word for it, but the gesture isn’t enough for me, not after everything that has compromised my life and Elizabeth’s. She’s much too precious to take anyone’s word at face value. So I stretch my arm out in front of me, but with a slight adjustment, one that Lachlan won’t be able to detect, I mark his right arm as my target.
He offered this test of integrity, and when I cock back the hammer, I slip my finger over the trigger, and follow through.
I squeeze and fire, but all that sounds is the snick from the chamber rounding.
Lachlan’s face drops, stunned that I pulled the trigger and then relieved when he realizes his game of Russian roulette just played out in his favor. He falls back into the chair as I holster my gun. And now that I have the confirmation that the only reason he withheld information from me was to fuck over Camilla and my father, I turn and walk to the door.
“Stop by later this afternoon. Elizabeth would enjoy seeing you now that we’re back,” I say without turning around.
And then I leave.
ELIZABETH IS STILL in bed sleeping when I get home from a long day of meetings. It’s been days of the same. She’s heartbroken and trying to cope with losing her father for the second time in her life, so I haven’t wanted to push her too much. I’m worried though. She’s been living in shades of darkness since we returned from the States. It’s more than the moping around that concerns me though. After my talk with Lachlan the other day, I came home and heard her voice coming from the bedroom. But she was in there alone. When I opened the door, I could tell she had been crying, so I decided not to question her.
I have to remind myself how fragile she still is. It wasn’t that long ago when she completely broke down after she found out about her mother and had to be medicated. She’s experienced only a handful of episodes since that night, but none that measure in magnitude.