“You’d be surprised what the human mind, body, and soul is capable of given the right circumstances.”
“I still doubt I would. I am an attorney, after all.”
He laughs softly, and then his eyes go dark again. “I hope you never have to find out first hand.”
“I hope so too. And stop deflecting. Who was he? The man in the restaurant?”
He raises one admonishing eyebrow, and I simply match it with one of my own. He can power trip all he wants. I’m done with this facade. Now, it’s my turn to get answers.
“His father killed my father.”
I swallow this information along with another sip of what I now recognize as brandy.
“Is that why he wants to kill him? For your benefit?” I ask, wrinkling my brow in confusion.
Magnus shakes his head no. “The man also killed his mother.”
I exhale a silent, shocked laugh.
“This is the world I operate in.”
“One where everyone kills everyone.”
“I’ve only ever killed one man.”
Now, I really am shocked.
“You wanted to know everything. I’m telling you. The rumors of just how many people I’ve supposedly killed are greatly exaggerated. Of course, after I was done with them financially, some of them managed to do the job of their own accord. ”
“Why did his father kill yours?”
“It’s a particularly long story.”
“I have thirty-eight more days.”
He smiles.
“My role in this started was when I was thirteen. You want to know what I’ve been up to the past year? You have to go back just that far to learn what I’m doing and why.”
“So, start at the beginning.”
Magnus takes a long sip before continuing.
“My father was the Vice President at a bank in Luxembourg. As such, we were fairly well off. Until he was accused of embezzlement. Considering everything that happened in the years following, with the bank being involved in money laundering, I know he was framed because he was the first to discover it.”
Magnus’s face hardens, and his eyes cloud into that forest green hue that always portends something dark and dangerous.
“We lost everything, not just money. All our family friends, respect, even the school I was attending, I had to switch since so many of my classmates were children of people he had once worked with.”
He looks off to the side in thought. “My father was going mad with vengeance. He and my mother would argue into the night about what the bank had supposedly done to him. She wanted him to move on, suggested us relocating to Monaco where she was from so they could start fresh. He just kept insisting he was being framed to cover up money laundering that the bank was involved with.
“Then, one day, he took off for a short trip, saying he’d finally found one of the men responsible for everything. By then, my mother was already half-packed, ready to take my sister and me with her to leave Luxembourg for good. But before he left, he came to me with only one name. I suppose by that time, my mother was done listening to his theories. Richard Coleman, the father of the man you saw in the restaurant.”
“The financier?” I ask in surprise. “I thought his wife and son died in a plane crash almost twenty years ago.”
“That was the going theory.”
I sip my drink to ponder this bit of news.
“My father told me that he’d figured out the man was pretty much the ring leader for the operation, even above the president of the bank himself. It was only years later that I learned that the president of that bank, Noah Wolff—”
“The Luxembourg Launderer?”
I nod. “I learned he was just as innocent as my father was. His only crime was being so blind to it all for almost five years. Knowing my father, he wouldn’t have gone to Noah without definite proof, even if he’d had his suspicions. By the time he had it, no one was listening to him.
“At any rate, my father went to confront Richard Coleman. He never came back.”
Suddenly I’m no longer drinking.
“That must have been what finally convinced my mother of the truth. I knew what she was doing was dangerous, but I was just as filled with rage as she was, so I never stopped her from publicizing it.
“One man came to see her, to sit down and have a frank discussion about what she was doing. Gabriel Fouché. He has always served as a sort of spokesperson for the group involved in the laundering scheme. By then, I was good at overhearing things I shouldn’t hear. Unlike my mother, I was smart enough to operate in silence. He warned her about the danger she was putting herself in by airing the crimes of certain powerful individuals, men who the bank had been not just hiding money for, but cleaning it in such a way that it was untouchable.
“It isn’t only drug cartels and other underworld figures who need to hide and clean money. It’s men like Gabriel who own tech companies that have no problem doing business with the sorts of people you’d find on no-fly lists.
“When my mother finally pointed the finger at him as one of the criminals my father was investigating, I saw the look on his face from where I had hidden myself. When she was strangled a few days later, I knew exactly who was responsible, even if he hadn’t done the dirty work himself.”
Magnus stops, swirling his drink around as he stares at a side wall. When he brings his gaze back to me, it’s perfectly level. “The one who actually took her life is probably fully decomposed in a forest somewhere by now.”
The lack of reaction on my part, either externally or internally, confirms just how immune I am to this world Magnus lives in. Truthfully, there’s a small part of me that admires his dedication to an eye for an eye.
“He’s the only one you killed?”
Magnus
