“How do you figure?”
“Death didn’t scare me when I had something to live for. It certainly doesn’t now. But maybe you’re thinking you can use torture to extract the information you want. Look at me. How long do you think I’d last before my heart gave out? So, now you’re considering threatening my family. Do you think I’m some kind of idiot? Do you think I don’t know it was them? That they were the ones who hired Louis Gould to kill me and then, when he failed, left me here to rot? If you do decide to kill them, please bring them here and do it in front of me. I’d love to watch.”
The old bastard was right. But he was also a simple creature with even simpler needs. He wanted dominance over others. In Rapp’s extensive experience, there were only two ways to deal with the Enzo Ruizes of the world: kill them or give them what they want. And since the former wasn’t going to get him very far, Rapp had no choice but to choose the latter.
“You’re holding all the cards,” he admitted. “What do you want?”
It was a question that had already been answered, really. And while Rapp wasn’t particularly happy about whacking Ruiz’s kids, they weren’t exactly innocent bystanders.
“It’s not what I want, Mr. Rapp. It’s what I don’t want. I don’t want to die of old age sitting in this chair. That’s not a fitting end for a man like me.”
“What’s that have to do with me?” Rapp said, not sure anymore where this was going.
“I want to be killed by the world’s most infamous assassin.”
Rapp just stood there.
“Not what you expected?”
“I figured you’d want me to go after your kids.”
The old man nodded. “It’s tempting. And a few years ago, that probably would have been my request. But I made them what they are. They’re my legacy. They’re the reason I won’t be forgotten.”
“Well, then you and I have no problem, Enzo. I’d be happy to kill you.”
Ruiz seemed unwilling to take the statement at face value. “But what I’m going to tell you isn’t what you want to hear. It’s going to make you angry.”
“Even more reason for me to twist your head off.”
“Even more reason for you to leave me to rot,” the Spaniard countered.
“If you know anything about me, you know I’m a man of my word.”
That seemed to satisfy him. But only barely.
“Unknown to my children, I still dabble in the business online. It’s what keeps me sane. The file came in on an email account I use for one of those businesses. From a Gmail account.”
“Whose Gmail account?”
“I have no idea. Besides the file, there was just a brief message asking me if I would be interested in killing her.”
“And you said?”
“I said yes, of course.”
“What else?”
He shrugged weakly. “I’ve contacted that Gmail account on a few occasions since, but received no response.”
“Have you done anything about this?”
“About killing her?”
“Yes. About killing her.”
“We still have a deal, correct?”
“I said we do, Enzo. And to be completely honest, I was planning on killing you anyway.”
The Spaniard seemed to want to smile again but caught himself. Clearly, he’d done something Rapp was going to be extremely pissed-off about. But what?
“I sent the document to Legion. He accepted the job and I have paid in full.”
Rapp waited for more but apparently that was the punch line. “Call him off.”
The Spaniard looked perplexed. “I can’t call him off.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
His confusion deepened. “Is it possible that you aren’t familiar with Legion?”
Rapp shook his head. He didn’t have much interest in the new generation of private contractors unless they were careless enough to get in his way. Most weren’t. The rest were dead.
Once again, Ruiz found himself in the driver’s seat. He straightened a bit more, clearly having the time of his life. “Legion is a completely new kind of killer. He has an anonymous email address that very few know of. If you want someone eliminated, you create your own anonymous email account and send him information on the proposed hit. If he agrees, you send two million euros in bitcoin. After that, both email accounts are deleted.”
“So how do you get in touch with him if you change your mind?”