He knew keeping his cool was going to be difficult when he heard Clarissa sniff.

Upon turning to her, he watched as she crossed her arms across her chest and stuck her nose in the air—the very image of a haughty aristocrat. It made his blood boil as she looked down at him.

"I’ll have you know I had to cancel my session with my personal trainer for this. Pedro hates it when I cancel. Then you had the gall to make us wait!"

Arthur was sure he could hear his teeth grinding together as the shrillness of her voice caused his back to itch. Around the room, he saw several of the men nod along. He caught Jim’s placid expression, and the older man looked almost bored as he watched him.

It was clear he was trying to figure out what Arthur would do next.

"I can’t lose my cool," Arthur thought as he tried to keep his breathing even. "I need them to summon Rathnil and to lead me to whoever is messing with my hoard."

He forced himself to nod. "I’m sure, but this is important, as was my meeting with Sandy here."

As he spoke, he waved over to where the woman in question stood off to the side. When heads turned to her, she nodded and went back to looking at the floor. The picture of someone who had gotten chewed out recently and wasn't pleased about it.

That was also part of the plan. If they believed she was on the outs with him, and by extension, Carina, he hoped they’d be more willing to bring her into their confidence. It wasn’t exactly a hard sell. Everyone knew he’d placed Sandy in her current position as a punishment and a show of force on his part.

"Well, we’re here. What do you want?" Clarissa snapped, once more shooting a glare at his briefcase.

Arthur took a moment to make eye contact with everyone in the room before he answered. "I’m sure you’ve heard of the recent theft as well as someone messing with the profit numbers."

All around, heads nodded, as even Clarissa agreed with the statement. It was a younger boy who spoke up. Sandy had mentioned that his name was Domanick McAlister. She’d mentioned that his family once had something to do with the oil trade. Now, he mostly spent his time sucking up to whoever was in charge. Eager but not smart, was her way of summing him up.

As he looked at Arthur with an expression that he could only describe as vapid, it was hard not to agree with the assessment.

"How can I? Sorry, we. How can we help with that?"

Not long after he finished speaking, a few of the others made quick murmurs of agreement while nodding along. Arthur ignored them, keeping an eye on Domanick. His mess of red hair and freckles made him appear even younger than Sandy claimed he was.

"Domanick, correct?"

"Yes, sir!"

His tone oozed with enthusiasm that Arthur detected as fake from a mile away. He’d used a similar tone with Derrick multiple times when the man was trying to lord it over him. It was one of the few petty revenges he could get away with, and to hear it turned against him made his skin crawl.

"Well, what I need from you all is simple. What do you know about Bobby?"

Clarissa answered before the young man could give another teeth-grindingly enthusiastic reply.

"You mean the man that woman sent to be tortured? A disgusting act. How could you condone such a thing?"

Rage bubbled up, and he felt it seep into his throat. With slow movements, he picked up his glass, waiting as Sandy moved over to fill it with water. She glanced at Clarissa as she passed, but the other women didn’t appear to notice. That, or she was deliberately ignoring her.

Before he answered, he took a sip of his water to cool the heat in his throat as he used Customer Empathy on Clarissa. She was seething—hardly a surprise—but he could feel some sadness mixed in. That came and went as she looked at and away from the briefcase.

"I didn’t. However, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. Clarissa, what do you know about the event? Any thoughts?"

"Oh, why should I?" She sounded affronted. "All I know is he took some baubles and some cash. He was probably trying to impress someone. What people like that do is of no concern to me."

"Is that what you all think?" Arthur asked as he looked around the table.

All around him, he saw shaking heads and heard assurances of their concern about the issue. It all sounded so insincere.

"No, sir."

"Not at all."

"If I knew anything, anything at all, I’d tell you!" That last one came from Dominick.

Arthur ignored the yes men as he turned to Jim, the only one who hadn’t spoken. The man picked up his empty glass, and Sandy approached the table once again to fill it. When she did, he sipped before placing it back down.

"I think it’s a problem with ideas," Jim said, his voice slow and deep. "Someone clearly thought they could get away with it. Miss Heady’s additional security measures have stripped anyone sensible of that notion."

"So, you think we should ignore it in the hopes it won’t happen again?" Arthur asked, genuinely curious.

"No. You clearly don’t believe he acted alone. Personally, I have little information on the case in question. He stole some jewelry and other high-end goods, didn’t he?"

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"He did."

Arthur couldn’t help but wonder where the man was going with this as he waited for Jim to continue.

"Is this some kind of ploy to pretend he doesn’t know what’s going on, or is this him daring me to call him out? Either way, it feels weird. I’ll have to tell Sandy to watch this one."

"In that case, he probably expected to sell it in-house. I doubt many of your scavengers would have an interest in such things. Though, now that I think about it, didn’t Riccardo keep such things on hand? I recall one of his people bragging about it."

"Oh yes, I heard that too," Domanick chimed in as several others nodded.

Arthur took another sip of water, more to give him time to think than for any other reason. He wanted to disagree, but he’d benefited from Riccardo’s stashes himself in that regard.

"I see. Well, that is certainly an avenue I can look into. Any other ideas?"

Another chorus of negatives went around the table, but he didn’t miss the way they all looked at each other. There was a sense of suspicion there.

"Maybe it’s not the entire group then. That would be easier in some ways. There will be less store resources to spend if I need to make an example of one." He tried not to let that thought show on his face as he glanced at Sandy.

She gave him the barest nod, the signal to move on. He agreed. It was doubtful he would get anything more out of them on this topic. Not between Jim’s reasonable explanation and Clarissa’s outward hostility.

Those two, combined with the yes-men nature of the rest, would make any further questioning pointless. It made sense why so many of these people made it onto the board. Neither Rathnil nor Greenwine would want anyone to challenge them.

Which made Jim’s inclusion in all of this more suspicious. He was clearly smart and able to articulate an argument. Was it some kind of seniority? When Sandy had talked about him, she’d mentioned his family’s company had fingers in multiple pies before the collapse.

"I might need to get him on my side if it turns out he wasn’t responsible for this."

Clarissa’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. "Are we done here?"

The heat that filled him at the sound of her scornful tone made him want to shout and then make demands. Once more, he pushed it down, though he found it far more difficult, especially as he tried to think about how to phrase his next question.

They already had reasons to fear him, and giving them another wouldn’t help. If it turned out to be a sole operator, making it easier to gather allies was the last thing he wanted. No. He needed to stay calm and make sure people would work with him.

To quench the flames, he downed the rest of the water, drawing everyone’s attention to him with the force with which he put down his glass. His hand shook, and he resisted the urge to squeeze. Instead, he focused on getting his question out as best he could.

"No. I have something else I need to ask you. Tell me, what do you all know about summoning your old boss?"

***

No one spoke in response to the question, not even Clarissa, to make a snarky retort.

Arthur leaned back in his chair, looking at the group as he waited for a response. Heat flooded him, and the sheer idea of being able to capture Rathnil triggered something inside of him. He wasn’t sure why it poked at him like this. However, it sparked and bubbled, and he wanted an answer to how they’d done this. All his reluctance to yell until someone spoke was fighting against a tidal wave of curiosity.

When they continued to stay silent, he shook his head and turned his attention toward Domanick, who flinched back.

"Well? Tell me about Rathnil. I knew you had summoning circles for him. How did you catch him to start with? Domanick, what do you know?"

"Me, sir?" His voice cracked as he spoke, and he coughed. "I knew nothing about it. I wasn’t even born when they did that."

"Oh? So it was pre-apocalypse?" Arthur kept his eyes locked on the younger man, who quickly nodded.

"Yes. Really, before all of us. Sorry, sir. I’d help if I could. Really but—"

Arthur cut him off as he went back to glance around the table. "No one here knows anything? Really?"

"Oh, we did," Clarissa snarked, her words tinged with sorrow. "Until you killed him."

Everyone in the room looked directly at the briefcase then, and Arthur resisted the urge to sigh.

"Of course he knew. This can’t be easy, can it?"

The thought burned until he thought back to something that Sandy had said earlier. When he did, he turned to Jim. The man looked startled for a minute, but he soon returned to looking indifferent.

It was a neat trick, one that Arthur might have to learn if he kept doing meetings like this. For now, though, he had something else he needed to ask the man.

"You have access to Greenwine’s old files, don’t you?"

There was a general murmuring around the room, enough so that Arthur realized that it may have been confidential information. Not that he cared much about Jim’s secrets. No, he simply wanted to know if they had any potential leads. The man’s eyes flicking toward Sandy made it clear he knew where Arthur had gotten the information.

A fact that might make him harder to watch. However, he also didn’t appear to be upset. When Arthur hit him with Customer Empathy, he got back a mix of interest and appreciation. It made him wonder if he’d passed some kind of test.

When the man finally answered, it was in an even tone.

"I do."

When it became clear that he didn’t intend to say anything more, Arthur pressed on. "And? Do they say anything about Rathnil? A history, perhaps? His likes, his plans? Any information you can recall?"

He didn’t bother requesting the dragon’s weaknesses. From the look Jim gave him, it was obvious he knew what he wanted. A slight shake of his head killed that particular hope. Still, any information would be better than none.

"His files mentioned Rathnil, of course," Jim said with the slightest hesitation. "I don’t know how much you know."

"I know a CEO group summoned him, and he led your organization. Apart from that? Not much."

Arthur refrained from mentioning that he knew the dragon’s true nature. He wanted to know if it was something Jim knew and, if he did, would supply. Not that he banked on it; from what he’d seen, Rathnil had gone to great lengths to keep his demon charade intact.

"That’s correct," Jim agreed. "Before our time, but they captured him, and he promised to lead him to riches. Over time, the group followed him more and more. As far as his plans? It was to do exactly what he said—to make money. He was obsessed with it."

"How obsessed?" Arthur asked.

Jim tapped a finger against the table. "Anyway, he could make money, he would. But he didn’t want regular money, only those coins. As long as we made him money, he’d supply us with what we wanted. Food, clothes, and other luxuries."

Arthur nodded along with the explanation. It didn’t surprise him. A money-obsessed dragon was hardly a surprise. Still, he wondered about the why. Even as he pondered, greed filled him as he considered the idea of getting his hands on all the dragons’ wealth. It couldn’t all be counterfeits.

The itching returned at the thought, teeming to grow worse as the heat got to it. He stood up quickly from his seat and nodded to Jim.

"All of that is useful, thank you. The task I set before you is to work as a team to find out how they did it. There must be something about it. Sandy here will assist you with anything you need, alongside a small team of her choosing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another meeting to get to."

They clamored at him as he left the room, Augustus and Theobold flanking him.

His skin itched, and he had to force himself to breathe deeply as he stared at his shaking hands. Arthur needed to locate Leo to find out where Bobby was being kept. As terrible as he felt about this, the heat that infused him needed an outlet, and a thief was the perfect person to be on the receiving end.