After sending off Duke Devon, Baron Kabore arrived shortly after. William insisted that Kabore come in person because he needed to tell him a warehouse address in Paris. Inside that warehouse was $400 million in cash, part of an earlier deal between William and Kabore.
Kabore had transported antiques worth $500 million from Paris to London to hand over to William, while William was responsible for transporting $400 million in cash to Paris for Kabore.
This $400 million was part of the $630 million William had stolen from Pushkin, the financier of the Polar Bear mafia, in Boston some time ago. He had kept the money in the sealed underground vault he had dug in his castle.
Last night, William used a portal to deliver the money to a basement in a Paris warehouse. Today, when he told Kabore the address, he also handed him a voice-activated password device. The password was spoken in William's hometown dialect.
In some parts of the Heavenly Empire, the accent changes every few miles, so not only would Europeans fail to understand, but 99.9% of people from the Heavenly Empire wouldn't get it either. After chatting for a bit, Kabore hurriedly boarded a helicopter, waving goodbye to William. He couldn't wait to return to Paris to build his particle accelerator lab.
Watching Kabore wave, William suddenly felt a bit fond of this man, who was so dedicated to scientific exploration. He hoped Kabore's future wouldn't follow the same tragic path as in Cobra's Rise, where he was used and eventually killed.
When William returned to the reception room, he was thinking about how to console Charles, only to find him drinking whiskey.
Suddenly, William had a bad feeling. He glanced at the opened bottle of Macallan 1959 on the shelf and felt a surge of frustration. Although the Macallan 1959 wasn't expensive to William, costing only £30,000, it was extremely rare. It had taken his wine merchant almost a month to secure this bottle of Macallan 1959, along with a set of four 40-year-old vintage bottles.
Watching Charles down half a glass of whiskey while half-reclined on the sofa, William hurried over to the shelf, capped the half-empty bottle, and stored it in his personal space. He then checked the four vintage bottles to make sure they were untouched, finally relaxing.
"Hey, William," Charles said with a half-drunken smile. "Man, you always have the best stuff, like this rare whiskey you can't find anywhere. Not like Uncle Marco, who's worth over $26 billion but the best he'll offer is a £2,000 Macallan."
"Don't worry, I didn't touch your four bottles of the 40-year-old vintage. God, I couldn't even bring myself to open them. Only 500 bottles in the world, and you've got four!"
"You've had too much, Charles. Let me have the servants take you to rest, okay?" William said impatiently as he approached Charles.
"No, no, I won't sleep until I finish that bottle," Charles replied, downing the rest of his glass. He wobbled over to the shelf, fumbling for the bottle, but couldn't find it. "Damn it, William, you're being stingy. Where's the bottle?"
After searching fruitlessly, Charles staggered back to William, trying to sit on the armrest of the sofa. But William shoved him by the chest, causing Charles to stumble onto the opposite couch.
However, that push gave William an interesting revelation—Charles's heartbeat was steady, nothing like a drunk person's racing heart. This discovery made William sit down with growing interest, watching Charles continue his performance.
"Damn it, William, you're too stingy. Fine, when I inherit my fortune, I'll compensate you with ten bottles."
Damn it, William thought. The mention of inheritance made him lose interest. "Stop pretending. A drunk person's heart doesn't beat as steadily as yours."
Sitting on the couch, William brushed off the spot where Charles had touched him. "You put on quite a show of being depressed when the duke was here. Now it's just the two of us. What's the deal? Are you still lost in your role, or are you just enjoying the act?"
"Hmph!" Charles covered his face with his hand, remaining silent for a long time before speaking. "Can't you just pretend I'm drunk and everything I say is just drunk talk? Do you have to expose me so heartlessly? After all, I am your uncle, for real."
With a soft "whoosh," a bullet hole appeared just centimeters from Charles's nose in the back of the sofa. "I've told you, you're not my uncle. Try that again, and it'll be your nose next time."
"You're crazy!" Charles exclaimed, staring in horror at the silenced Glock 17 in William's hand. "God, people said you were mad, and now I see they were right."
"If you've got nothing else, get lost. I'm not interested in your family's drama," William said with disgust. "Looking at you reminds me of those annoying villains in movies."
"Haha," Charles chuckled, running his hands through his hair and rubbing his face. When he lowered his hands, his expression had turned into a sly smile. "What if this villain offered you a Margaux vineyard and a collection of antiques?"
Charles stood up, went to the wine cabinet, and opened a bottle of red wine. After swirling and sipping it, he made a few 'tsk tsk' sounds and shook his head. He opened another bottle, tasted it, nodded, and poured two glasses, handing one to William.
Sitting back down across from William, legs crossed, Charles said, "I remember hearing about a dagger Marco Polo gifted to the Cairns family—a serpent-shaped blade said to have belonged to the Tatar King, encrusted with ruby-sized gems."
"$26 billion?" William stared into Charles's eyes. "Do you have that much to cover inheritance taxes?"
"Heh, you didn't know?" Charles blinked. "In France, the inheritance tax is 45%, but if you bump it up to 55%, you can sell off assets to pay the tax. Besides, I'm sure you wouldn't mind lending me money or co-signing a loan from the Swiss National Bank, right?"
"Lend me a billion, and I'll pay you back $1.2 billion. Interested?"
William thought about it and shook his head. "Go talk to Duke Devon. The Margaux vineyard and antiques are tempting, but not enough for me to break the upper-class rule against meddling in other families' business. If I intervene in the Cairns family today, someone might interfere in the Devonshire family tomorrow."
"Charles, when you calculate too much, what you get in the end is rarely what you hoped for. You might even lose your life because people aren't stupid, and your uncle Marco is far from a fool."
William's words made Charles slump back onto the couch, staring at the ceiling with a low, bitter laugh. "Hah, of course you wouldn't care. You make more money in a year than the entire Cairns family is worth. God, why is this happening to me? Doesn't Marco know that Suzy is my girlfriend?"
"Hah," William sneered, his expression full of disdain. He silently thought to himself, "What a mess these circles are."
"I'll give you some advice, Charles. You'd better stay quiet and watch from the sidelines, or you'll regret it. And by the time you do, it might already be too late."
"What do you mean by too late?" Charles asked, suddenly alarmed.
"Because by then, you might already have…" William trailed off, making a slashing gesture across his throat with his thumb.
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