Page 86 of Beautiful Villain
The processing site came into view like a skeleton rising from the dark with its long concrete walls and rusted beams.Windows were punched out like empty eyes.It sat just far enough from anything that mattered that no one would hear what happened there, and just close enough to the city that business could still get done.
A perfect place for a handover.
A perfect place to end a war.
The convoy slowed as we approached, engines idling low, men already moving in their seats, checking weapons, scanning the shadows.
By the time I left this place, Provence would be mine.
And Mikayla, whether she knew it yet or not, would be on her way to becoming exactly what she was always meant to be.
My wife.
I steppedout of the car and let the cold bite into my lungs.
The air down here felt different than it did on the mountain.Damp.Industrial, a cold that settled into bone instead of skin.
Laurent was waiting near a stack of rotting pallets, trying very hard to look like a man who mattered.He was dressed too neatly for a place like this, coat buttoned, shoes clean and shiny, hands folded in that way that men do when they’re about to host a polite business meeting.
“You finally made it,” he said, eyeing the army of soldiers I’d brought with me.Before he could speak, I beat him to it.
“I know what you said,” I replied.“Precautionary measure; they’ll stay outside.Are you ready to finish this?”
He gestured toward the yawning dark of the main building.“Inside.We have a table set up.The seller is waiting.”
Of course he was.
I followed Laurent in, my men fanning out behind me without a word.The interior of the building smelled like mildew, and the high ceiling swallowed every footstep and turned it into an echo.In the center of the space sat a folding table under a harsh light.A man I didn’t recognize waited there, thin and pale, fingers drumming against a stack of documents like he was counting the seconds until he could leave.
This was the seller.The man Gianni Cavalho had supposedly bled for.
Laurent made the introductions with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.We shook hands, brief and careful.I had been dealing with this man for eighteen months through Laurent and his web of brokers, and there had always been a very deliberate reason we had never met face to face.The man standing in front of me now had small, watchful eyes and the kind of nervous energy that came from knowing too much and trusting no one.He had gone out of his way to avoid being in the same room as me.
“Let’s get on with it,” I said.
The seller slid the folder across the table toward me.Inside were deeds, port rights, pipeline control, and a web of shell companies so tangled it would have made a weaker man sweat.I went through it slowly, checking signatures, seals, and serial numbers, letting the silence stretch.Laurent hovered at my shoulder, watching my face like a nervous animal waiting to be kicked.
Everything was in place.
All that remained was money and ink.
“Payment?”the seller asked, his voice thin.
I glanced toward Viktor, who stood a few steps back with a tablet already lit in his hands.
“Crypto,” I said.“You will see it within seconds.”
The seller nodded.Laurent dragged a hand down his trousers, wiping away sweat that had no business being there.
Viktor tapped the screen.Numbers shifted.Wallets updated.A soft chime rang from the seller’s phone, and he looked down at it like a man who had just been handed his own heartbeat.
“It’s there,” he said.
“Sign,” I replied.
He did.
The pen moved across the page in careful strokes, too careful, as though he were afraid the paper might bite him.Laurent signed next with an exaggerated flourish, then pressed his witness seal into the page like he was blessing a marriage.
