The Unkillable Warlord

The Ultimatum

Grant didn't tell his family what Marchetti said about their father. Not yet. Some weights weren't meant to be handed over before you understood what they meant yourself.

He was still turning it over three hours later, sitting in the warehouse office with Tasha's files spread across the desk. Reggie's jaw had stopped swelling. Piper had gone quiet in the way she did when she was thinking too hard to talk. Dom kept pacing the loading dock like motion alone might solve something.

Grant kept coming back to one sentence. *Your father never once looked at me the way you just did.* Not a threat. Almost an apology, buried inside something that sounded like admiration. He didn't know what to do with that yet, so he set it aside and went back to the files, because a war room had no room for feelings he hadn't finished understanding.

His phone rang. Brannigan.

"You went to see him," Brannigan said, no greeting. "Alone. At the docks."

"Word travels fast."

"Word travels exactly as fast as Marchetti wants it to," Brannigan said. "He's telling people. That's not something he usually does after a meeting like that."

"Telling people what?"

"That he's impressed." Brannigan's voice had an edge Grant hadn't heard from him before. "That's the part that should worry you, not comfort you. Marchetti doesn't get impressed by people he plans on letting walk away."

Grant absorbed that in silence, staring at the shell company documents spread across the desk like a map of a war he'd only just started to understand the shape of.

"I found something," Brannigan said. "The ledger. I know where it went."

"Where?"

"His accountant's house, not the office. Guarded, but not by professionals. Family men, mostly. Loyal, not trained."

"You're telling me this because?"

"Because I've got a daughter who needs a father who isn't owned by a man like Marchetti anymore," Brannigan said, and for the first time his voice cracked slightly at the edges. "You want to bring the whole thing down, that ledger's your best shot. It's got names above Marchetti's. Names I've never even been allowed to see."

Grant sat forward. "You're certain."

"I'm certain enough to risk what's left of my career on it," Brannigan said. "Three days, Grant. You heard him same as I did."

"Three days might be generous," Grant said. "He told me himself he's impressed. Impressed men move fast, before the feeling wears off and turns into something more careful."

"You think he'll come after you sooner."

"I think," Grant said, "he's already decided I'm worth removing before I get any more dangerous. The only question is how he does it."

He didn't have an answer to that yet.

"There's one more thing," Brannigan said, voice dropping lower. "The woman I told you about, the bookkeeper. She agreed to meet Tasha tonight. Said she's tired of being scared."

"Where?"

"A lot two blocks from Ironbrook's offices. Tasha's headed there now."

Grant felt something tighten behind his ribs, an instinct he'd trusted through a hundred kingdoms and hadn't yet learned to ignore in this one.

"Tell her to wait for backup," Grant said.

"I already tried. She said there wasn't time."

He got his answer two minutes later, and it wasn't the one he wanted.

The line went dead just as the warehouse door opened. Piper walked in, phone in hand, face pale in a way that made Grant's chest go tight before she said a word.

"Grant," she said, voice shaking. "It's Dad. He's not answering. He said he was going to talk to Marchetti's people himself, try to negotiate directly, try to end this before it got worse for us. That was two hours ago."

Grant was on his feet before she finished the sentence.

"He went alone?"

"He didn't want you doing something you couldn't take back," Piper said. "He said he'd rather it be him."

Grant's phone buzzed in his hand. Unknown number, same one that had been counting down the days since Kessler first walked into their warehouse.

*Three days just became tonight, Calloway. Your father's with us. Come to warehouse fourteen. Come alone, and come now, or find out what happens to a man who thinks negotiating with Marchetti's people is the same thing as negotiating with Marchetti.*

Grant stared at the screen, and for the first time since waking up in this body, he felt the full weight of exactly how much he had left to lose.

"Piper," he said quietly, "call Dom. Call Reggie. Call Tasha."

"What are you going to do?"

Grant was already moving toward the door, already feeling something ancient and cold settle into place behind his ribs, the same thing that had once conquered a hundred and eight kingdoms and buried every man foolish enough to think mercy was the same thing as weakness.

"I'm going to go get our father back," he said. "And then I'm going to make sure Marchetti understands exactly who he's been negotiating with."

Behind him, his phone buzzed one final time. He didn't stop walking to read it.

*Grant. It's Tasha. The ledger. I got a name off the first page before Marchetti's people traced my signal. You're not going to believe who's really running this.*