Feisty Repartee

TSOTF, Part 12

Joseph took a sip of wine and grimaced, not knowing if the bitter taste in his mouth was from the fruit or the phone call he’d just received. He hated violence, and condoned it only as a last resort, and only in the pursuit of the greater good. So much was at stake, that one innocent life was irrelevant, he supposed. Stepping to the window he looked out at his beloved city.

The maid had served the cause well. She hadn’t hesitated to tell her new friend all about her suspicions about her employer’s young wife and his son. Her invitation for her friend to join her one afternoon for coffee had given XAres the ‘in’ that they needed to not only learn just what Martin McKay was planning, but to return in the dead of the night to make certain rooms of the house, and the guest house accessible to them both visually, and for sound.

Learning of Jack McKay’s financial maneuverings to destroy his father and his affair with his step-mother, Joseph had been certain the gods had been smiling upon him. Jack was a perfect pawn, easily manipulated. His hatred of his father ran so deep, that he was willing to accept all possible outcomes, even if that meant that Martin McKay would to be eliminated if he became a threat. Surprisingly, Jack hadn’t even seemed interested in possessing the formula, unlike his father, who foolishly believed that the others would allow him a partnership of sorts. The elder McKay may be busy savvy, Joseph thought, but he didn’t understand the depths to which man sank in his quest for power.

Joseph had taken it upon himself to see that no harm came to Jack McKay, knowing there was only so much he could control. From the moment Jack landed in Rome he would be shadowed and protected. It was no longer simply a precaution, but necessary. To hear that Coleman’s man had paid a visit to the maid the moment Jack’s limo had left for the airport had been unexpected news. He had thought he had been so careful, but had obviously underestimated the reach of Coleman’s organization, and wondered just how deeply the tentacle of betrayal had snaked into XAres.

He had no idea how much information had been extracted from the maid before she was killed. Nor did he know at this moment whom Coleman‘s deep pockets had bought off, leaving him to dangerously assume that he had not been betrayed by someone in the inner circle, if the maid had been seen as a viable source of information. He sighed deeply, reminding himself that he’d been left with no choice. Within the hour, all threats outside the inner sanctum would be eliminated as a precaution. They had come too close to lose now.

Still, the younger McKay was no longer an anonymous bidder, of that Joseph was certain. Coleman could do much with that information, but with time as his enemy, he would simply take the path of least resistance. Joseph drained the wine from his glass, wishing there was more he could do to protect the woman, as Jack had requested. He wondered if she had told him yet that she was with child. Such knowledge could prove dangerous if Jack were facing a choice between the formula and the woman. Yet, Joseph had not given the order to remove the threat. There was something about the young man that gave him hope that he could not only bring XAres the formula, but protect the woman he hadn’t yet realized he loved.

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