Dammit.

“Who’s the job?” Mychael asked.

“Duke Markus Sevelien.”

Chapter 12

“And my client wants him delivered to the old Ta’karid temple at sundown tomorrow,” Cradock said, with a smug smile that held no hint of apology for any death and dismemberment we might incur from trying to pull off a major kidnapping in less than a day.

Mychael didn’t move. “No deal.”

“You agreed to the terms.”

“Terms that gave us at least three days’ planning and prep time.” Mychael stood. “The deal’s off.”

“Are you saying you can’t do it?”

Mychael didn’t bite. “I’m saying we won’t. If your client wants the duke, he’ll have to pay more and wait longer. One day to get inside the elven embassy, get Sevelien, and get out isn’t kidnapping; it’s suicide.”

Cradock smiled like a man with a secret. “The duke isn’t staying in the embassy. Two days ago he moved into the house at the end of Ambassador Row.”

That was more than a little disconcerting. Why the hell did Markus move out of the embassy?

“Ambassador Row, which is conveniently around the corner from the elven embassy,” Mychael noted dryly. “Still no go.”

Judging from the sweat beading on Cradock’s upper lip, if the deal didn’t go down, and Markus didn’t get taken to the Ta’karid temple, Cradock wasn’t going to live much longer than sundown tomorrow himself.

I knew exactly what he’d done. “The goblin has already paid you, hasn’t he? Though perhaps a better question would be what is he going to do to you when he doesn’t get what he’s already paid you for? I think he’ll take his gold back with interest out of your hide.” I leaned forward and crossed my arms on the back of Mychael’s chair and lowered my voice. “Unless he said he’d take you—just like he did the general.”

A twitch took up residence in the corner of Karl Cradock’s left eye. Yep, I’d hit a nerve.

I pushed on. “You heard what happened to him, didn’t you? Or did you get to watch while it happened?”

Cradock’s continued silence was all the answer I needed.

“Sounds like you did the job, then stayed to help with the cleanup,” Mychael noted. “While your client no doubt found your attention to detail commendable, I wouldn’t exactly call pushing the general’s body out of a coach tidy.”

“You’re not paying us enough to clean up that kind of mess,” I told Cradock. “We’re in acquisitions—and I don’t do housework.”

In a blink of his twitching eye, Cradock’s bravado was back, though he still looked a tad pasty. I didn’t blame him; riding in a dark coach with a dried corpse would turn me pasty, too.

“My client made it worth my while,” Cradock told us. “For that much money, I’d toss my mother into the street.”

I snorted. “You have one?”

He flashed a grin. “Not anymore. And he’ll probably offer you the same deal.”

“I wouldn’t call being allowed to live only if I help dispose of a body a deal.” Mychael adjusted his cloak, and I saw the flicker of light reflected in the gem on the chain around his neck. My own hung just below Orla’s ample breasts.

“We’ll take the job,” Mychael said. “On the original terms plus an extra hundred in expenses—but we’ll pass on the client’s bonus. We’re not undertakers.” He leveled his gaze on Cradock. “And we want it all now.”

“Half now, half when the job is done.”

“Karl, I don’t think you’re going to be here when the job is done. There are two freighters in port, both of Caesolian registry. You’re from Caesolia; you know the captain of the Reliant, and you’ve already booked passage.”

Karl Cradock tried to look cool and calm, but his eye twitch was back. “The client hasn’t paid me my bonus, and I’m sure as hell not leaving Mid without it.”

“Yes, you will, because you value your life more than a few goblin coins; I don’t care how much they’re worth. We want our money now.” Mychael put both hands flat on the table in front of Cradock and leaned forward. “Every. Last. Coin.”

Karl Cradock told us we wouldn’t find Markus Sevelien in the elven embassy, which was good because I’d been in there once, almost got caught, nearly died, and was in no hurry to repeat either experience.

Where we were going was worse, if that was possible. It only confirmed my opinion about the wee hours of the morning—nothing good ever happened after two bells.

Generally, if you’ve just been paid an obscene amount of money to kidnap someone, you stash your gold and then you snatch your target. Not that I’ve had personal experience, but my last name was Benares.

We were carrying our payment, all of it. Goblin gold is lighter than normal gold, so one man could carry what it’d normally take a pack mule to haul. Mychael was doing the carrying. He had a satchel and pockets; all I had was an absurd amount of cleavage.

We were doing our walking-and-hiding thing again. Walk until we spotted another living soul, then hide in the shadows. And when we talked, we kept our voices low.

Markus was staying in one of the lavish homes on Ambassador Row, which was conveniently around the corner from—and within screaming distance of—Embassy Row with all the guards and weapons and death and destruction. A great place to visit in the middle of the night, if you had a death wish. A fly couldn’t sneeze on Ambassador Row without attracting attention of the fatal kind. Not exactly the ideal scenario for a kidnapping that Mychael said wasn’t going to be a kidnapping.

Not that I thought knocking Markus over the head and hauling him off was necessarily a bad plan. And it definitely wouldn’t take much right now to get me to knock Markus over the head. In my family, kidnapping was often the first step to productive negotiations with a rival or enemy. Any decent strategist knew that negotiations were better conducted from a position of power. For a Benares, that often meant a small room, a chair, and your rival blindfolded and tied to it.

I suspected Mychael’s plan involved warning Markus in some way that he was next on Sarad Nukpana’s menu, but if the two of us as Mychael Eiliesor and Raine Benares couldn’t be seen anywhere but the citadel, I didn’t know how we could do whatever Mychael wanted to do and still remain among the living, or at least the un-jailed.

I didn’t know because Mychael hadn’t told me.

“So are you going to tie a note to a rock and throw it through his bedroom window? Or toss a carrier pigeon over the wall and hope a trigger-happy guard doesn’t shoot it?”

“What?”

“How are you going to tell Markus that Nukpana’s uncle put a price on his head—and the rest of him?”

Mychael gripped my upper arm and pulled me into an alley.

“I think a personal visit would be best.” He gave me a look that spoke volumes, and then he sighed. “Though this would be much easier if you weren’t with me.”

I knew exactly what he was getting at. “So suddenly I’m not so indispensable?”

“Suddenly you’re a woman with a vindictive glint in those pretty gray eyes.”

I pursed my lips against a smile I felt coming on. “Compliments will get you nowhere.”

“Which one? Vindictive or pretty?”

I shrugged. “Either one works for me. But if you’re worried that I’ll choke the life out of Markus, I promise I’ll be perfect.”

Mychael chortled. “A perfect what?”

“Whatever Markus deserves.”

“No punching or choking.”

“I would never dream of it.”

“Raine.” That one word held a world of warning.

“Okay, I’d dream of it, but I wouldn’t do it.”

“Because you’d rather stab him.”

I just smiled. Mychael was getting to know me way too well.

“That’s not what we’re here for,” he told me.

“That’s not what you’re here for. If Markus had anything to do with Balmorlan kidnapping Piaras or getting Tam charged with murder, there are some impulses that I won’t even try to control.”