Page 1 of Stolen By the Billionaire
1
An American Navy SEAL
Blaze
Blaze Robinson crossed his ankle over his knee as he sat in front of his lawyer’s desk, trying to get comfortable and not fidget in the chair that was scaled for someone much smaller. The squat seat made his knees stick up like a grasshopper, and his shoulders were broader than the chair’s back.
He growled, “I am an American Navy SEAL, and I will not be blackmailed by a goddamn Russian mafia boss.”
The lawyer behind the desk, Bình Huong, broke eye contact and looked down at the letter and documents he was holding. A corner of the paper in his hands wavered, and his fingers tightened. The hair on the top of his head stuck up where it had been cut too short. “This Mary Varvara Bell, whom you say is involved in organized crime, never specifically threatens you with physical harm in the letter. If she had, I would’ve recommended that you take it directly to the FBI.”
Blaze bent one elbow, squeezing his bicep. His suit jacket tightened around his arm, and he rubbed his chin. “We will not be involving the authorities.”
Dealings with foreign agents like Russian oligarchs could get his Top Secret security clearance revoked, even unwilling dealings.
“I’m shocked that she rejected your settlement offers,” the lawyer said. “They were overly generous, assuming she doesn’t want to go to court.”
“She knows I won’t.”
The lawyer glanced up at Blaze again before he hurriedly shuffled the papers on his desk. “I can’t believe a competent attorney allowed you to sign this loan.”
Blaze shrugged. “I didn’t have a lawyer. I was twenty years old and fresh out of BUD/S.” The elation and trauma of surviving the Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training course, also called “A” school, had colored his perception with a blue sheen of invincibility for months. “I owned nothing except a few uniforms and my boots. It seemed low risk at the time.”
“But then the original signatory, Stanley Bell, died, and Mary Varvara Bell inherited the company.”
“Confiscated his assets in a hostile takeover is more like it,” Blaze muttered. She’d taken over the White Russian Syndicate in a maneuver like a military coup.
“And now she’s threatening you with fulfilling the conditions of this contract.” The attorney flipped his gaze up to meet Blaze’s eyes again. “You haven’t disclosed your financials to me, so I’m unsure what to recommend. Most career military people wouldn’t be able to come up with the money to purchase what she’s demanding unless they had invested the initial loan in something with a thousand-percent return,” he chuckled.
Blaze didn’t answer. He had accountants for financial advice.
The attorney rifled through the pages, referring from one text block to another. “The list of her demands in lieu of your assets will run to millions of dollars if not many millions. It’s twenty times more than what the initial zero-interest loan was for.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“I’m not even sure that some of these weapons she wants are legal,” Huong muttered.
Blaze knew a lot about weapons. “Some are not legal to buy or possess here in Illinois, but it’s relatively easy to purchase the equipment in other states or, for a few, other countries.”
Huong looked over the top of the pages at Blaze, his eyebrows raised in exasperation. “Is she trying to set herself up like Blackwater, or Academi, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days? This list looks like she wants to equip a private mercenary force. I mean, private warfare is a lucrative field, but this can’t be legal.”
“I could not discern her motives from the letter.”
This time, the lawyer stared straight at Blaze. “But you know why she wants military-grade weapons like this.”
Blaze didn’t know, but he had theories. The lawyer didn’t have a need to know his thoughts on the matter, so he just shrugged again.
All the possible reasons for Bell demanding that particular shopping list were detrimental for the world and the US, which meant Blaze’s US Navy SEAL brothers-in-arms would be in harm’s way if she got those weapons.
And that was unacceptable.
Damn, he wished he’d refused that stupid loan all those years ago. Nothing was free in this world. Nothing was even cheap.
Huong went back to scanning the documents. “All right, let’s go through the three basic parts of a contract, just in case we can break it. There is an offer and an acceptance on your and Stanley Bell’s parts, so it’s a quid pro quo agreement. That’s two of the requirements.”
Blaze waited. He could outwait anything. He’d spent fifteen hours curled around a sniper rifle one time, waiting for a terrorist to come out of a building, and he’d made the shot.
The lawyer continued, “As for consideration, the third component of a legal and binding contract, both the loan and repayment were something of value, so that just leaves your competence. You signed the contract when you were of legal age to do so and weren’t inebriated or otherwise compromised, right?”
