10– Fair and square

He stood back with his hands on his waist, admiring his cleaning skills. The kitchen looked spotless. Clean enough to work as his office for today. He was specifically looking at the marble island. He had to work on changing his second bedroom around, with a little more buying and discarding, it would become the perfect office where he could hold small meetings and handle the organizations money. He then went upstairs to take a shower. He pulled his white plain t-shirt over his head and went to look at himself in his full-body mirror on the wardrobe door. He was beginning to lose his packs. He threw his t-shirt on the bed and then went down to do a few push-ups. He did twenty then got up and looked in the mirror again feeling better. He then pulled his shorts off and stepped into the shower. He turned the tap on, and cold water came splashing out.

“The heck!” He muttered pushing the shower nozzle to the side as he tried to get the right water temperature.

When the water was finally hot enough, he adjusted the nozzle accordingly and stood for a few minutes with just the warm water running through his hair and down his body. He ran a hand through the front of his head and felt the familiar shape of the scar on his forehead. When he felt it, he kept his fingers there for a while, not moving, just feeling it. Was it him or her? He heard the familiar question echo in his head. He shook his head quickly, snapping out of whatever he was in. He grabbed the soap and began washing himself.

When he finished, he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his lower body and stepped out. He opened his wardrobe and just stared at the suit for a couple of seconds.

“Nope.” He said. He wasn't going to wear the suit today, he chose to dress how Hector dressed when he was home. A golf t-shirt, formal pants and formal shoes. The golf t-shirt tucked in his pants.

This morning, he woke up feeling exhausted. He blamed the weed for that, whenever he smoked it, he always woke up tired. That's why he didn't like it. But the weed wasn't the only thing to blame, he had to wake up earlier than usual today after he only had four hours of sleep last night. From 7 in the morning, he had started cleaning up his place. Throwing away takeaway boxes, getting rid of the beer bottles, straightening things up, wiping surfaces and sweeping. He had asked Joe and Zahn to stay the night and help him clean up in the morning but as usual, they ditched him, calling Ubers at odd hours just to avoid waking up in Hunter's place and having to clean up.

When he finished getting ready, he opened his top draw and pulled out his hand gun. He placed it behind in his pants and tried pulling the t-shirt over it but then realized his t-shirt was supposed to be tucked in. “Great.” He shook his head as he pulled out the gun and placed it back in the draw and pushed it close.

He went downstairs just to double check that everything was in place. The living room looked good, like it looked whenever Lolita was done cleaning. He then went back into the kitchen and stopped at his marble island. He remembered wiping wooden tables at the orphanage, no matter how much polish he applied, it would never lose its dark sad colour.

Ding! Dong!

Hunter walked out of his kitchen and went through the living room to open the front door. He looked at the clock on his wall, it was a few minutes to two in the afternoon. He opened the door and stepped aside for the men to enter.

“Good afternoon.” He said to them.

“Afternoon.” They responded.

It was Angelo and two of his boys. Hunter led the men to the kitchen.

“You may have a seat all.” He told them, as he took the top seat at his oval kitchen island.

Angelo sat closest to Hunter, on Hunter's right and then one of his men sat on the chair next to his and then the other one sat opposite them on Hunter's left.

“Did you bring what I asked you to?” Hunter was addressing Angelo.

Angelo reached to the ground next to him and pulled up a grey briefcase. He placed it on the island in front of himself. The briefcase sprung open with one click. There was a single green folder in there. Angelo took it out, closed the briefcase and set the briefcase on the floor next to him. The green folder didn't have anything written in the front cover. Just plain green.

Angelo opened the cover. There was a picture pinned to the right hand top corner of the page. “This is all we could get in twenty-four hours.”

Angelo removed the picture and gave it to Hunter. “That's Robert Holland.”

Hunter looked at the photo in his hands. Robert Holland was smiling and looked straight at the camera in the picture. He's teeth looked as white as snow. He was dressed in a smart grey suit, sitting in a stunted chair with his legs crossed. Behind him you could see some sort of banner. It seemed like he was at some talk show or something. Robert Holland had some grey hair on the sides of his head, close to the temples. He's beard was cleanly shaven with strands of white hairs.

Hunter was disappointed. “Twenty four hours and all you bring me is some picture you got off the internet?”

Either Angelo was really useless, or Robert Holland was very good at keeping his private life private, Hunter thought.

“Relax,” Angelo told him, flipping a page. “Robert Holland, fifty-six, owns a multi-million dollar company called Three Way Factor. So, this company is basically a pyramid scheme in disguise made up of three parties. Investors, lenders and him. What this company does is get investors to invest in them with really good return profits paid out monthly. Three Way factor then takes these investments and borrows people in need with higher interest rates. When the lenders pay the loan back, he pays back the investors their dividends and keeps the profit.”

“So did this guy become a billionaire with this strategy or did he start with something else.” Hunter asked Angelo.

Angelo shrugged. “Man doesn't seem as clean. If you have a company like that then obviously you run something on the low because there's no way a pyramid scheme like that would turn you into a billionaire.”

“Are you asking me?” Hunter placed the picture on the table. “Because those are the kind of things you had to find out.”

“And I did. Check this,” Angelo flipped a couple of pages and pulled out a newspaper article and passed it to Hunter.

“This is last year's paper.” Hunter was looking at the year on the paper. “What's this supposed to mean to us?”

“Three Way Factor made the news December last year for having the most return profit in a single financial year in the country.” Angelo pointed at the highlighted part of the article. “And a year before that is when he borrowed the one million from us.”

“So he used us?” Hunter tilted his head.

Angelo nodded. “To cover his gambling issue.”

“This guy clearly has a gambling problem.” Hunter pointed out. “Nobody in their right mind gambles their clients' money. Especially not when you're supposed to be an investment company.”

“Maybe he's a risk taker. Common for businesspeople.” Angelo said. “But look here,”

Angelo flipped the page and turned the folder upside down and then passed it to Hunter.

“There's three pages showing his return profits from two years ago up to the current financial year.”

Hunter looked at the graphs on all three years.

“In 2020 his company did okay, 2021 was the highest income and then this year the company is doing even worse than 2020.” Angelo looked at Hunter as if he was supposed to understand something. When Hunter didn't say anything, he continued. “Right now, Robert Holland is in no position to pay back a one and a half million debt, in fact, he might need to borrow more. So, he won't pay the money he owes us, at least not this year. He's just not telling us that.”

“That's out of the question. You don't borrow money from the Black Souls and not pay back.” Hunter said. “What did he think when he came to borrow it? He needs to pay us back by any means necessary. I don't care if he needs to sell a few of his organs to do that. If we give him more time, people that will come after that will try the same thing and that's not happening under my watch.”

“Well,” Angelo smirked. “Like most billionaires...”

Hunter waited.

“...he has a safe in his house. Word goes he has at least two million in there.”

“How do you know?” Hunter asked him.

“I might have pulled some strings. Paid one of his associates to spill.”

“Which associates?”

“Robert Holland's half-brother. Same father different mothers.”

“You paid a billionaire's brother to spill?” Something didn't add up to Hunter. He was cautious since Hector and Marco Bianchi had told him not to trust anyone.

Angelo chuckled. Hunter watched and waited for him to finish laughing.

“Nah,” He answered. “He's brother is some black sheep who lives downtown. Definitely envies Robert so it was easy to get information out of him.”

“And what's this brother's name?”

“Neill Holland.”

“Can we trust this brother?”

Angelo shrugged. “All he did was complain about how Robert has about two million in his safe but doesn't give him a penny.”

“How much does the billionaire owe us?” Hunter sat back in his seat.

“One and a half million dollars. Including interest.”

“Plus the money you paid his brother to talk.” Hunter said.

Angelo took out his phone and used it to calculate, he then showed Hunter the screen. “That's about one million five hundred and ten thousand.

“Plus penalty f*e for not paying on time. Make the total two million.”

Angelo sighed. “This guy is going to be hard work.”

“If he won't give it to us then we'll go get it.” Hunter said. “What's his security like?”

Angelo pointed to the folder. “There’re pictures at the back of the folder. Pictures of the exterior of the mansion and then a family picture of him, his wife Elizabeth and daughter Rebecca.”

Hunter browsed through the pictures, they were all taken from the internet. This mansion looked bigger than Hector King's mansion. The last picture was of Rob, his wife and daughter. The two women stood on either side of Rob with made up faces and bright plastered smiles. You couldn't tell who was the mother and who was the daughter. They both looked the same age. Just the one was shorter than the other. Hunter guessed that the shorter one was the daughter.

“Beautiful wife and daughter.” Hunter said. “Does this mansion have any guards?”

“Well, we don't know about the inside but there's two guards at the gate, Robert has a guard, his wife too and his daughter.”

Hunter thought for a while.

“We can't get through those guards without bloodshed, can we?” Hunter asked him.

Angelo shook his head.

“We don't need that kind of exposure on us anyway.” Hunter said. “I'm guessing there's millions of cameras around and in this place.”

“Definitely.”

“I guess the only way we can get to that safe is if we have a man on the inside. Do we have any housekeepers working in this mansion?” Hunter asked.

“I sent Nathan there right after you called, my boy hasn't slept in twenty four hours. And he swears he didn't see any maids entering or leaving.” Angelo gestured toward Nathan who was sitting opposite him.

Hunter looked over at Nathan. He looked about Hunter's age, maybe a few years older.

“This is one of my best soldiers.” Angelo added.

“I need someone camped out there, watching that mansion twenty four seven. We need to find a way in there.” Hunter said.

“Go.” Angelo told the boy sitting next to him. “Nathan, you go home and get some sleep and switch up with Sean tomorrow at two o'clock.”

“Sure boss.” Nathan responded.

“Alright.” Sean said.

The two men got up and left the kitchen.

Hunter waited to hear his front door open and close.

“What does the mother and daughter do?” Hunter asked Angelo.

“The mother owns a clothing line called Sunflower She, sells female clothes and shit. And the daughter is an author, publishes books for teenagers and shit.”

Hunter nodded, getting up. “For now, we work on trying to find access to the mansion. We don't need to make a noise. I want this to be clean. Walk in there, pop that safe, take the money and go. Clean. Fair and square.”

Angelo got up. “Yeah, that'll be best.”

Hunter held out a hand and Angelo took it. They shook hands.

“Keep me posted.” Hunter told him.

“Will do.”

Hunter walked Angelo to the door and closed the door after he stepped out. He then walked back to the kitchen, took a seat and began going through the folder, brainstorming. Thirty minutes later he closed the folder and stood up. Robert Holland was someone really high up, a billionaire, so Hunter knew that the best thing to do would be to keep Hector in the know too. Wouldn't want himself doing anything that would get Hector upset.

He pulled out his cell phone and called Hector King's number. After a few seconds, of waiting, there was crackling on the other end.

“Hunter.”

“King,”

“Everything okay?”

“The issue with Angelo. It's a billionaire that owes us the money…”

Hunter spent the next ten minutes telling Hector everything Angelo had just found out about Robert Holland. The next ten minutes was devoted to questioning and answering. Hector asking and Hunter answering. After all the clarity, Hector spoke.

“You know, don't ever tell anyone this, but if you wanted to get to me, the only way you'd be able to do so successfully was if you breached my security system. Access, like you said.” Hunter was listening. “Find out who is in charge of his security team, is it a company, is it the police, either way, get in there and once you're in Robert Holland's house, you can deal with the cameras and the safe.”

“Sounds like a plan. I'll get Angelo on that. And then we'll find a way to get one of his boys, Nathan in as one of the guards, preferably Robert's or his wife.”

“You said the wife is busy running some sunflower clothing business, Robert too is stuck at his factor company. The best person would be the author. Where do authors write their books?”

“At home...”

“Exactly. Then that's our target.”

Hunter nodded. He felt so grateful to have brought this to Hector. Hector had come up with a solution in less than an hour.

“Noted, sir.”

“And Hunter,”

“Yes?”

“When we breach the security and someone has to pose as the daughter's bodyguard, I don't want that Nathan to do it.”

“Angelo said that Nathan is one of his best soldiers.” Hunter pointed out.

“I don't care what Angelo says. Like you said, we need this to be professional, so I want you to do it. You'll be the bodyguard.”

This was Hunter's idea, but he had no idea that he'd have to physically get involved. I mean, he was the underboss, shouldn't someone lower ranking get such an assignment?

“You have a problem with that?” Hector asked Hunter because he was quiet.

Hunter shook his head and switched his phone to the other ear. Rejecting this assignment would be Hunter's first time rejecting an assignment. But rejecting an assignment from Hector King just as he was promoted to underboss would make Hector assume that Hunter was refusing an assignment because he was feeling equal to Hector now. All this was what Hunter was thinking as he responded to Hector.

“No, there's no problem, sir. I'll do it.”