The guild's man turned to face Leo, his face pensive, and the two seemed to share a look that Ryan couldn't quite place and didn't have the mental capacity to decipher at the moment.

"Let's hear it," the guild's man said as he relented.

Leo seemed to brighten up at the go-ahead. Turning to face Ryan, he laid a hand on him.

"I know that you said you don't need my gold, but this is as good a time as any to accept my help. The alternative is much, much worse," Leo said.

Ryan stared at his friend, a look of relief already beginning to spread across his face even before he could fully digest the words being told to him.

Ryan knew that his friend—no, brother—was right about the issue. He couldn't take the contract being offered to him by the Looter's Heaven; hell, he wouldn't even consider it even if he was blind and couldn't read the contract himself. The Looter's Heaven had become his worst nightmare from what he'd thought was his dream.

"Leo, you don't have to do this," Ryan said, trying to be modest, but inwardly he couldn't wait for Leo to help him get past this nightmare he was currently living in.

"I know, but I want to. Heck, I'd never forgive myself if I just watched this happen," Leo replied.

The guild's man seemed to wipe a tear from his eye at the statement. Ryan didn't know if it was just the guild's man mocking the touching moment he was having with Leo, or if the man was genuinely moved by how the brothers had stood up for one another.

Ryan himself had to agree that the entire thing made him happy and, in a way, nostalgic about how both of them had always had each other's backs.

"So what will it be?" Mr. Coman asked Ryan as he cleared his throat noisily.

"I'll take the gold," Ryan said to Leo. The big man didn't hesitate to pass Ryan a handful of gold, as though he was already prepared for this exact moment.

Ryan counted the coins—they were five gold in all, more than he needed, but no doubt Leo's way of letting him have a safety net after paying the last of his debt, or tax in this case.

Without a shred of reluctance, Ryan tore the contract into pieces, the torn parchment falling to the floor. No words were needed; everyone there already knew the decision Ryan had made, and although the guild's man would rather die than accept the fact that he agreed with Ryan's judgment, Ryan knew internally that he did, and that was enough for him. Quickly taking out a gold and three hundred silvers from the pouch that he'd already prepared, he added Leo's five gold coins and handed it over to the guild's man.

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"There's your gold, Mr. Coman," Ryan said, too mentally tired to put up a tone. "I believe that our business has been concluded."

The exchange happened without a fuss, the guild's man more than happy to collect the coin and Ryan more than eager to remove his neck from the sword hanging over it. At this point in time, he was glad that he had Leo by his side, both to advise him and to help him out.

Leo having a day off on this exact day and deciding to spend it with Ryan meant that Veron was certainly watching over him, and that was more than he could ask for.

"Of course, Mr. Lionheart, your receipt will be handed over to you as soon as possible," Mr. Coman said. "I'll also expect you to pay a monthly fee of one gold, as all members of the guild are expected to do so."

Ryan almost face-palmed. Of course he was expected to pay more gold. When was anything ever straightforward? He couldn't remember the last time that anything had panned out the way that he wanted it to.

"Sure, when do I start?" Ryan asked, resisting the urge to lash out.

"Next month," Mr. Coman said calmly.

And so the circle begins, tax after tax after tax. Utterly ridiculous if you asked Ryan, although he hadn't ever paid tax before, so what would he know about that?

"Then that's settled," Ryan said. "Anything else I need to know?"

He might as well find out all the nuances that he was currently ignorant about right now, as he certainly had someone who was well-versed with the guild staring right at him.

"Nothing much, let's see," Coman mused. "The guild hosts monthly meetings and all members are invited. It is in no way compulsory to attend, and anything else you'll learn from your fellow guild mates."

Okay, guild meetings—that shouldn't be too taxing for him to attend. He'd love to see the people who were willing to stomach the extortion that was being disguised as tax. After all, not every merchant or trader made up to a gold per month, which, now that Ryan thought about it, made sense on why he wasn't approached by the guild earlier to pay up on his tax. No doubt they had dubbed him a waste of their time and didn't want to waste it.

"Okay, so that's that, I suppose," Ryan said.

He turned to Leo, but the big man seemed to be lost in thought, something that Ryan couldn't really understand. What could be more important than what was currently unfolding in front of them, Ryan had no idea.

Anyway, the big man had played his own part, and what was left now was for Ryan to play his own part.

"Yes, I suppose," Mr. Coman said.

The guild's man still seemed hesitant to leave, and Ryan had to wonder if something was wrong with the man, if he wasn't all too well in the head. No doubt the conclusion of their interaction was entirely different than what the guild's man had thought about earlier.

"Well, spit it out," Ryan said, too tired to keep up the pretenses going around.

"I'm not supposed to say this, but..." Mr. Coman began, "you might be making the biggest mistake actually paying up rather than taking the deal."

Ryan didn't think that the guild's man had actually read the scroll. If not, these were not the words of someone who'd seen the terrible things laid down on the scroll that had been handed over to him.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that I've made the best decision I can considering the current circumstances," Ryan said. "Isn't that right, Leo?"

The big man seemed to jolt awake at the question posed to him by Ryan. He ran a hand through his sandy hair before turning to face Ryan squarely, a move that Ryan knew meant that he probably wasn't going to like the next words that were going to be said to him.

Maybe he would, but the odds were stacked against him at this point. Both the tax man and Leo, by the looks of it, didn't believe that he was totally out of the hot stew—maybe he'd even gone deeper at this point.

"That might've been a worse decision," Leo said.