Into the Lion's Den (72 page)

“It's snowing! All right, let me call Heindrik.”

“No way, if you do that, we'll get all of them here! Come on, Guntram, you can't be such a sissy!”

“I was happy at home and it was your idea to come here!”

“You get laid with my uncle and I get nothing and here I have an opportunity. Call Heindrik from the
road!”

“It's snowing!”

Marie Amélie entered the kitchen only wearing her short dress, with many buttons off and those Eskimo
fashion boots. “Armin, I'm waiting!” she whined and I blushed like an idiot because I was sure what she was waiting
for and honestly to announce it so openly, it's too much for my taste. Maybe, I'm a prude, but women should be more
modest.

“One second, baby”

“Are you still here, Guntram?” She noticed me.

“Having tea,” I growled.

“Be nice and leave us alone, will you? Or do you want to play too? Wouldn't be so funny like with
Annette, but perhaps you can do something after all.”

I didn't blush this time because my brain was trying to connect with my ears. Did she want a ménage à
trois? With me? Is she crazy or just stupid? I must have gaped at her because the next I knew was that Armin was
shaking me from the arm.

“Go home, will you? Be quiet about this,” Armin growled at me very upset. OK, sports with Annette is
fine, but another man in the equation is bad.

“Don't you want to stay, Guntram? Perhaps we can teach you something,” She pressed and I was very
shocked and tried to hide my embarrassment by putting on the snow boots. “Or do you only like sugar daddies? Have
you ever been in bed with someone who's not twice your age?”

“Mind your own business, girl!” I barked because I had enough of her.

“Armin! He's insulting me!”

“Insulting you? I still have not given my opinion of you and frankly my dog does not deserve to be
compared with the likes of you!” That was not a nice answer, but at that point I had enough. I'm dragged here, left in
the middle of the road and now called “rent boy”? There's a limit for everything.

“Fuck you faggot!” Armin shouted at me and slapped me like a little girl. You need some lessons from
Massaiev to know how to hit boy! If you want to hit like your uncle, then know the rest too and be ready to go to the
end. If not, don't do it. I returned the blow exactly as Yuri had thought me. One single hit and with “all you have,
Guntram, your size doesn't give you the chance of a second,’ I broke his nose and lip and he went mad. Armin pulled
out a knife from his pocket and brandished it over my chest very closely. Boy. That's not impressive; a stoned man
twice your size is. I took one of the kitchen knives hanging from the metal bar and the minute he came toward me, I
launched the knife against the opposite wall, not to hurt, only to warn, because the next was going to be on his leg or
arm. Yes, I learned some things at the slum and then, Yuri taught me some more, like this Israeli fighting method, Krav
Maga, “just in case you need it,’ The knife just passed along his head and neatly stuck on the wall.

“Next one is to your heart and Milan or Ratko are not here to hold your hand.”

“You fucking animal!” he roared, but changed his mind about attacking me, because I had the second
knife ready.

“You're staining the floor, go to the bathroom, I had enough of you two,” I took my overcoat and left the
house with the keys still in my pocket. Marie Amélie shouted several things at me but it's not worth to write them
down. What was she expecting? She provokes a fight between two men and she thinks that we'll insult or scratch each
other faces? I'm not tall or a super Alpha like all these men here, but I'm not a sissy!

I walked back home at fast pace, furious, nervous and with my heart hammering in a nasty way. I had to
stop and throw up on the side of the road. Bad sign. I sat in one of the trunks because I felt bad with the cold, the
snow and the previous fight. That's nothing for me any longer. Next time, I'll keep distance from those two and if he
impregnates her, it's not my problem. Her father should be more careful! I'm twenty-three not forty!

A black Audi screeched its tires next to me and there was my favourite Viking, Heindrik, royally pissed
off with me. “Get inside the fucking car, Guntram! Do you want to freeze to death?” he yelled at me. So much for the
famous Swedish aloofness. “You should have phoned me the minute those two arrived and threw you out!”

“How do you know?”

“First, you walk in the snow without telling me, and now you do it in the middle of a storm? Do you
want to give me a heart attack?”

“I just went out!”

“What were you thinking? You almost killed the little imbecile!”

“How do you know?”

“Video, boy! How did my men pass from watching Playboy TV to Kill Bill? Are you nuts?”

“He started and if you can't stand the fire, stay out of the kitchen!”

“Since when you know how to defend yourself?”

“I'm sorry, Heindrik if your job was endangered.”

“That's not the point here! You could have killed him!”

“And he not? Should I remind you that he pointed me with a razor and even threatened me with it? No!

How dumb of me! I should go to my knees and cry like a little girl because I'm the stupid boy your boss fucks every
night!”

“Don't raise your voice to me! What he did was wrong! What if you missed? His nose is bleeding!”

“I won't. Do you want to try it also?”

“Where the fuck did you learn that?”

“Yuri Rimsky, my former bodyguard and Massaiev too. Former KGB and former French Army. I can
disarm one of you if necessary. It's the Israeli method. I'm sick of their permanent jokes and be called a sissy or
worse.”

“Yes, we heard it, but you shouldn't do that! What if you would have hurt him? He's Albert von Lintorff's
son!”

“What if he hurts me? Do you think I stand a chance in a fight with a heart condition and my size? He's
1.85 and I'm 1.73! He learns combat training with Goran! But I forgot, he's rich and can be a brat all what he wants,
fucking fourteen years old girls and stomping over all what's beneath him!”

“It's not like that! What you did was stupid and dangerous!”

“All right, next time, I'll shoot someone down,” I retaliated and had to get my pills out because with the
shouting I was feeling worse and in a lot of pain.

“You couldn't get a weapon from any of us!” he said with a lot of self confidence. Well time to try our
Argentinean pickpockets' methods. I learn several things from the children in the school. He parked the car and Milan
was running to us with Ratko and four more bodyguards, almost unable to control their laughter, in tow.

“Should we stop the other two, Mr. Holgersen? It's pretty messy over there,” Hartick asked.

“Of course! Move there!”

“Pity, some more minutes and we would have gotten a winner for this year's XXX Picture,” Milan
snorted. “I definitely would buy it! Where did you learn to hit like that? Right to the centre! Almost my style,” he said
proudly.

“Wait we tell Goran,” Ratko added with great satisfaction. I guess I never saw him so happy.

“Please, I'll get in enough trouble with the Duke,” I said, realising in how much shit I was getting into.

“Not so cocky now, uh?” Heindrik smirked. “He even said that he can disarm us!” he snorted.

“Have you lost something, Heindrik? Something bigger than your mouth?” I asked like a little lamb and
got his Glock from my jacket and offered to him. All of the men there paled.

“Give me that before you hurt yourself, little prick!” Heindrik shouted and advanced toward me and I
knew that that was the moment where I had to draw the line to all those men.

“Stand back or I'll shoot.”

He charged and I shoot to one of the lampposts on the other direction to the Castle—no chance I would
do it against a place full of people. The Serbs whistled in unison when the bulb some twenty-five metres away
exploded. Heindrik stopped when I aimed at his head this time. Without problems, I dismounted the ammunition clip
and threw the weapon at him and then, the rest. “I wouldn't have missed, Heindrik. First place in shooting
championships for four years in a row. Retired at eighteen because I had to work. My medals are still in Russia.”

“Do you want to come hunting with us?” Milan said.

“I can't shoot an animal,” I answered.

“See, Heindrik? You and the Strolch were never in danger!” the serious Ratko chortled. “Go inside
before you kill one of those pricks, although they deserve it.”

I nodded and went inside to be shouted by Friederich for walking under the snow. He said I was almost
blue from the cold and sent me to bed… Yeah, with a hot tea and some apple cake. He never mentioned the shooting
or hitting Armin and I'm sure he knows about it. I went to our bedroom and honestly I didn't care if Konrad was going
to shout at me. I'm sick of all of them! Before they ignored me, but since I'm with him, some of them snicker or despise
me. Not the Serbs or Alexei, of course, but Heindrik and all his boys.

I took a hot shower and I still felt poorly, very cold and changed into my pyjamas. I drank the tea
Friederich had left and I felt slightly better. When he came to pick up the tray, he entered in the bedroom to check if I
was warm.

“About today…” I started, but he shut me up.

“Sometimes, a man has to do things that are not in his nature in order to preserve it. The men learned a
valuable lesson today: don't judge a book by its cover. Don't repeat your actions again because it's not our Lord Jesus
Christ’s way.”

Constantin Repin had never been so furious in his life when Oblomov told him that Lintorff refused to give Guntram back. “It was to be expected,” Lacroix had told him. “Lintorff will not give up Guntram. I've asked around and the youth is everything he always wanted. It's more than the physical coincidence. We must convince Guntram to leave Lintorff. If he comes to the meeting, don't hesitate to tell him the truth. He will be shocked and leave with you.”

Oblomov had returned without the boy and Lintorff had taken the money but returned the interests, showing that he was willing to fight for Guntram. The excuse had been: Guntram has to work with his exhibition in Berlin, has a cold and is studying for his tests in London. He wanted to kill Lintorff with his bare hands!

“Do not worry, Mr. Repin, he's willing to meet his family. He wrote me in November and used the studio as his contact address. Obviously he has told nothing about me to Lintorff and wants to keep it quiet. I know he has given the jewels to him, but keeps the painting with him along with the teddy bear. He's clever enough as to give away what seems to be the most valuable in order to keep the Duke unaware of our contacts,” Lacroix tried to reassure the Russian over the phone after he had exploded to him.

“What was on the letter?”

“Nothing. Just a formal letter asking me if I knew something more about his father.”

“Did you answer it?”

“Not yet. I want to see how things develop between you and Lintorff on the 16th. If he refuses, we have another line to penetrate his defences. I've heard these journalists from The Independent Times plan to speak with Guntram during that charity party the Lintorff Foundation gives for its employees and volunteers. Somehow, a journalist, Linda Harris, was invited.”

“Will it not be dangerous for Guntram?”

“No, I don't think so. They're sent by Marianne von Liechestein, Lintorff's mother. She hates him with real passion and vice versa. Lock them in a room and Hiroshima will be nothing compared to their clash. She has been working together with Roger de Lisle and these activists. A dangerous and stupid strategy as they're unprofessional and believe that making a huge scandal could stop Lintorff.”

“Probably they will get a bullet in their heads when he has enough of their yelling,” Repin smirked.

“Yes, I saw them in London. Lintorff had a very bad time, but it didn't prevent him to do what he wanted.”

“The only way to destroy Lintorff or the Order is to attack him on a personal flank. Before it didn't work because the tool was reluctant to act, but this time Guntram will do his job well. Once he looses him, Lintorff will be devastated and you will let me work alone.”

“With all due respect, you have nothing to go against him.”

“Money is not the only driving force in this world, Mr. Repin.”

But here he was; sitting in front of a large meeting table with Ivan at his side, waiting for Lintorff. And the German was late. The Degas on the opposite wall was a good one but somehow out of place in the seriously decorated room.

“I apologise for my delay, Constantin. We had to take a detour. Some people demonstrating in front of the DAX,” Konrad said peevishly, advancing to the middle of the room, going straight to take the head of the table, followed by Ferdinand and Goran, sombre and grouchy as always.

“I understood punctuality was the politeness of kings.”

“I'm nothing more than a Duke. We were never Electors,” Konrad mocked Constantin's fury.

“Speaking of royals, there's one Vicomte missing in this room.”

“Vicomte? Ah, you mean Guntram. No, he will not accompany us today. He was very tired after flying to London for his tests. All of them passed with flying colours, but you should receive his grades pretty soon. He can start his third year, next spring.”