The Unkillable Warlord

"Say it," Ren said. "Say you're proud of me."

The Warlord looked down at the blade in his own chest and almost laughed.

"Proud," he said, "is not the word I'd choose. Efficient. That's the word."

"Eleven years I waited for this."

"And I gave you an opening in eleven seconds. Learn something from that." Blood filled his mouth. He spoke through it anyway. "A man who conquered a hundred and eight kingdoms does not die apologizing for it."

Ren twisted the blade. The throne room went white.

* * *

GRANT CALLOWAY - CALLOWAY LOGISTICS, IRONPORT, OHIO

"Say it," Ronnie Kessler said, tapping the folder against his palm. "Say you don't have the money."

Grant's father didn't answer. He just stood there in his own warehouse, gripping a clipboard like it could stop a bullet.

"Walter." Kessler's voice went soft, the kind of soft that was worse than shouting. "Two hundred and forty thousand dollars. Sixty days late. I've been patient. Patient's not the same as forever."

"I need thirty more days," Walter said.

"You said that sixty days ago." Kessler smiled, and the two men behind him smiled too, like it was choreographed. "Cute little company. Family business. What is it, three trucks now? Used to be six."

Grant felt something behind his ribs go very still, the way it used to before a battle, back when he'd had ten thousand men waiting on his word instead of a father who couldn't stop his hands from shaking.

"Your son still work here?" Kessler asked, not looking away from Walter. "The one who stacks boxes? Might want to tell him to find a real job before this place folds."

That was one.

"Or is he the manager?" Kessler laughed, and his men laughed with him. "Manager of what, exactly? A warehouse with nothing in it?"

That was two.

Grant stepped forward before he decided to.

"Grant, don't," Walter said.

"He's fine," Kessler said, eyes flicking over Grant the way you'd size up a stray dog. "Kid's not gonna do anything. Kids like him never do." He turned back to Walter. "You've got seven days. Not thirty. Seven. Or Mr. Marchetti stops being patient and starts being creative."

That was three.

Grant felt the memory before he understood it. A throne room. A blade. A son's face twisted with eleven years of hate. It came and went in half a second, and when it left, something in him had already decided.

"Seven days," Grant said, "is generous of him. Considering the debt isn't real."

Kessler's smile flickered. "Excuse me?"

"You brought two men to collect a legitimate loan." Grant kept his voice level, the way he used to when addressing men who could have him killed with a word. "Legitimate lenders don't need muscle. They need lawyers. So either the debt's inflated, or you're not actually here to collect it. Which is it?"

The warehouse went quiet enough to hear the box fan rattling by the loading dock.

"You've got a mouth on you, kid," Kessler said finally.

"I've got a father who's about to lose everything he built," Grant said. "That tends to loosen a person's tongue."

Kessler stepped closer. Close enough that Grant could smell his cologne, too much of it, the kind a man wore when he needed people to notice him before he opened his mouth.

"Seven days," Kessler said again, quieter now. "Tell your boy he's got a mouth that's gonna get him hurt."

"One more thing," Kessler said, pausing at the door. He looked back at the row of empty shelving behind Walter, the gaps where inventory used to sit. "Heard you had to lay off Reggie Voss's crew last month. Guy worked here what, twenty years? Shame how fast a business folds once people stop believing in it."

That was four, and it landed harder than the first three combined.

He turned and walked out. His men followed. The door banged shut behind them.

Walter sagged against the loading dock like the string holding him up had been cut. "Grant, what did you just do? We needed time. We needed thirty days, not seven."

Grant watched the door, still feeling the ghost of that memory behind his eyes. A hundred and eight kingdoms. A million assassination attempts. Betrayed by his own blood and it still hadn't been enough to kill what was actually him.

"Dad," Grant said, "how much do we actually have. Not what we owe. What we have."

"Six thousand. Maybe seven."

"Okay." Grant almost smiled. In another life he'd burned that much gold just to make a point to a man who annoyed him. "Then we don't need thirty days. We need a plan."

"A plan for what?"

Grant finally looked away from the door.

"For taking Salvatore Marchetti's whole operation apart," he said, "before he takes ours."

Walter let out a laugh that had no humor in it. "You sound like you've done this before."

"Maybe I have," Grant said.

"Grant." Walter rubbed a hand over his face. "I appreciate the fight in you. I do. But Marchetti doesn't lose. Ask anyone on the docks. Ask the Hendersons, the Okafors, anyone who tried to stand up to him before us. They're not in business anymore."

"Then we do something they didn't."

"Which is?"

Grant looked past his father, out through the loading bay doors, at the three trucks left in a lot built for twelve.

"We stop thinking like a family trying to survive," he said, "and start thinking like the people who take things apart for a living."

Walter didn't answer that. He just stood there, watching his son with an expression that hadn't existed on his face an hour ago, somewhere between fear and the first thin thread of hope.

Grant walked past him toward the office, already running numbers in his head that had nothing to do with freight.

He was seeing a war room. He hadn't seen one in this life yet, but some instincts didn't need a second invitation.

Walter stared at his son like he was seeing a stranger wearing his son's face.

He was.