VAN WALLER sat back in his desk chair and read the spreadsheet for the fifth time. He loved numbers; his nimble mind grasped their complexities easily, massaging data into precise conclusions. He made his decision, rose, poured himself a slender finger of Macallan’s, and drank it. He put the glass down, picked up a pistol, and faced the man bound to the chair.

“Anwar, what am I to do with you? Tell me.” His voice was deep, cultured, and overlaid with traces of his Eastern European origins. His tone was that of a disappointed father to a misbehaving child.

Anwar was a short man with a thickened, soft body who slumped in his chair, his arms and legs tightly bound. His face was round and his skin would normally have been a light brown color, but now yellow and purplish bruises clustered on his cheeks, forehead, and jawline. A knife cut traveled from his left cheek to his split nostril. The blood there had congealed and blackened. His dark hair was slicked back solely with the sweat of fear.

“Please, Mr. Waller, please. It will never happen again, sir, I swear.”

“But how can I trust you now? Tell me. I want to find a way. I value your services, but I need to know I can trust you.”

“It was her. She put me up to this.”

“Her? Tell me.”

Anwar let a trickle of blood drop from his mouth and onto his pants leg before answering. “My wife. The bitch spends money like it is water. You pay me well but it is never enough for her. Never!”

Waller sat down in a chair across from the captive. He put the gun down and looked intrigued. “So Gisele put you up to this? To steal from me to cover her spending?” He clapped his hands together. The sound was like a gunshot and Anwar flinched. “I had my doubts about her from the beginning, Anwar, I told you this, did I not?”

“I know, sir, I know. And as usual you were right. But for her I never would have done this terrible thing. It made me sick to do it. Sick because you have been so good to me. Like a father. Better than a father.”

“But you’re a man. And a Muslim. You should be able to control your woman. It is part of your culture. Your faith.”

“But she is Brazilian,” exclaimed Anwar, as though that would explain everything. “She is a she-devil. A wicked, wicked slut. No one can control her. I have tried, but she beats me. Me! Her own husband. You have seen the marks yourself.”

Waller nodded. “Well, she is much larger than you. But you are still a man, and I despise weakness in men.”

“And she cheats on me with other men. And women!”

“Repulsive,” said Waller in an indifferent tone. “So you know where she is?”

Anwar shook his head. “I have seen nothing of her for a week.”

Waller sat back and spread his hands. “If we find her, what do you suggest?”

Anwar spit on the concrete floor. “That you kill her, that is what I suggest.”

“So you trade her life for yours, in effect?”

“I swear to you, Mr. Waller, I never would have thought of betraying you. It was that bitch. She made me do it. She drove me crazy. You must believe me. You must!”

“I do, Anwar, I do.” Waller stood, walked over, made a fist, and drove it into Anwar’s already swollen face. The little man slumped to the side, his dead weight kept in the chair only by the bindings. Waller grabbed him up by his slicked hair. “Now you have been suitably punished. You are valuable to me. Very valuable. I cannot afford to lose you. But this is your only forgiveness, do you understand?”

Anwar, the blood trickling from his mouth, mumbled, “I understand. I swear that I do. Thank you. I do not deserve such mercy.” He started sobbing.

“Crying is not manly, Anwar, so stop it, now!”

Anwar choked back his last sob and looked up, his right eye puffy, his left one nearly closed.

Waller smiled. “I must reveal something to you. You will find it of interest I’m sure. We located your wife. We have Gisele.”

“You have her?” said an astonished Anwar.

“And I agree with you, she is a she-devil. A woman designed by God to drive men insane. Would you like to see her, tell her what you think of her before we kill her?”

“It would give me great pleasure,” muttered Anwar unenthusiastically.

“Or perhaps you would like to do the honors? A bullet to the brain of the evil woman? It may do you much good. A catharsis. A character builder.”

Anwar flinched. “I am an accountant. I have no courage for that.”

“Fine, fine. I just thought I would extend the offer.” Waller turned to one of his men. “Pascal, bring the woman in to face her wronged husband.”

Pascal, a small, trim man in his thirties, passed through another door. A few moments later the door opened again and Anwar could see his wife’s head peering around the doorframe. Normally her skin was even darker than her husband’s. But now she looked terribly pale, her eyes wide in stark terror.

“You miserable bitch. You devil. See what you have caused. You have… you have…” Anwar faltered as the door opened farther and Pascal marched in holding the severed head by the dark strands. Pascal didn’t smile at the horror on the husband’s face. He just clutched the back of the head and held it up, as he had earlier been instructed to do by his employer.

“Oh God. Oh God. No, no, it cannot be.” Anwar looked at Waller, then back to his wife’s head. “It cannot be.”

“It is, Anwar. It is. But now you can return to work a happy man.”

Anwar sobbed for a few more moments before lifting up his head and letting out a tortured yet relieved breath. “Thank you, Mr. Waller. Allah thanks you.”

“I have no need of your Allah’s blessings, Anwar.” Waller raised his pistol and aimed it at the man’s head, his eyes first focused on the metal nub of the sightline on the end of the muzzle and then onto the ultimate target.

Anwar jerked back. “But you said—”

“I lied.” The bullet torpedoed into Anwar’s brain. Waller relaxed and then triggered another round, tattooing the skin just to the left of the first entry wound. He placed the fired gun on the table and took a few moments to pour one more finger of scotch. Drinking this down slowly as he walked across the room to reach the door, he turned back and glanced at two of his other men.

In an admonishing tone he said, “Just remember this time that a two-hundred-pound man needs twice that weight to hold the body properly underwater.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Waller,” said one of the men nervously.

“And melt down the damn gun.”

“Right away, sir.”

“And Pascal, get rid of that,” he added, pointing at the woman’s head. “Cheers.” Waller disappeared through the door and settled into a black armored Hummer that sped off the moment he buckled his seat belt. An Escalade followed with another Hummer in front of Waller’s ride.

He’d discovered that his “trusted” accountant had a slush pile siphoned from Waller’s substantial cash flow. It was minor skimming, less than a tenth of one percent, and had done Waller no financial damage, but it was an unforgivable act. To let it go would have been a sign of weakness. In Waller’s business your competitors and people who worked for you were constantly looking for any signs of frailty. If they thought they’d found it, your mortality rate went up a thousand percent. He understood that lesson well, since it was how he’d come into the business many years ago. His mentor had let a minor slight go by with no consequences. Three months later he was being eaten by wolves in the Pacific Northwest and Waller was in charge. Over the next two decades, there had always been consequences whenever someone had betrayed him. He had no desire to be devoured by wolves. He would much prefer to do the eating.

He looked at the person sitting next to him. Alan Rice was thirty-nine, a graduate of a prestigious university in England, who’d traded the halls of academia to help Waller run his empire. Some men were just drawn to the dark side because that’s where they could thrive properly.

Rice was slender, his hair prematurely white. Though his features were delicate, his mind was muscular, brilliant. Men like Rice were seldom content to be second-in-commands. But he’d also helped triple the size of Waller’s business in a short period of time, and Waller had given him additional responsibilities commensurate with his talents. Waller was the only indispensable one in his business, but it was close to the point where he could not run it without Rice.

Waller flexed his gloved hand.

Rice noted this movement and said, “Recoil on the pistol bad?”

“No. I was just thinking about the last time I’d killed someone.”

“Albert Clements,” said Rice promptly. “Your Australian point man.”

“Exactly. It makes me wonder. I pay them extraordinarily well, and yet it never seems to be enough.”

“You have thousands, you want hundreds of thousands. You have millions, you want tens of millions.”

“And they must think I’m a fool to let them get away with it.”

“No. They just think they’re smarter.”

“Do you think you’re smarter than me, Alan?”

Rice looked over his shoulder at the building they’d just left. “I’m more intelligent than the man you just killed, if for no other reason than I have no wish to die at your hands. And I would if I tried to fool you.”

Waller nodded, but his expression wasn’t quite as convincing.

Rice cleared his throat and added, “I understand that Provence is beautiful this time of year.”

“There are few times when Provence isn’t beautiful.”

“You’ve spent much time there?”

“My mother was French, from a little town called Roussillon. It’s the site of some of the largest ochre deposits in the world. Many famous painters, like van Gogh, traveled there to obtain the earthy pigments for their palette. And unlike many other villages in Provence, the buildings are not white or gray stone but wild reds, oranges, browns, and yellows. If I were a painter I would move to Roussillon and capture its images using only its colors. We had happy times there, my mother and I.”

“Have you been back as an adult?”

“Not to Roussillon, no.”

“Why not?”

“My father died there when I was twelve.”

“What happened?”

“He fell down the stairs and broke his neck.”

“An accident?”

“So they believe, yes.”

Rice looked startled. “So it wasn’t an accident?”

“Anything is possible.”

“Then your mother…?”

Waller placed a large hand on Rice’s narrow shoulder and squeezed a little. “I didn’t say my mother, did I? She was sweet and good. Such an act would’ve been unthinkable to the purity of her soul.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Yes, I understand.”

The orbital ridges around Waller’s eyes seemed to deepen. “Do you understand, Alan?” He removed his hand and pulled a note from his pocket. “I see that a young American woman is leasing the villa next to mine.”

“We just found that out. However, I doubt she poses a threat.”

“No, no, Alan. We don’t know what she poses yet, do we? The proximity alone is enough, is it not, to raise questions?”

“You’re right. I will find out all that I can. So will you visit this Roussillon? Is it far?”

“Nothing in Provence is really that far.”

“Then you will go?”

“Perhaps I will.”

“Just don’t become a victim of some accident yourself.”

“Please do not concern yourself about me. My father was careless and weak. His son is not.”