Season 3 chapter 16
The Inheritance Loophole
Leon took another deep breath, desperately trying to get the interrogation back on track. He turned back to Filoska, leaning over the mahogany table and glaring directly into her eyes.
"Listen to me very carefully, Filoska," Leon hissed, his voice trembling with genuine anger. "If you dared not to tell us the real location of those two trillionaire bastards... then I will personally ensure that we annihilate your parents from this world. We will completely erase your family tree."
Filoska's eyes widened slightly. Finally, an actual, competent threat.
But before she could even formulate a response, Muntari the assassin raised a single finger in the air.
"Actually," Muntari spoke up, his tone completely practical, "that would be a really great opportunity for you, Vice President. Because if he assassinates your parents, you will instantly inherit all the lands and other liquid assets they own. You would become incredibly rich at this point."
Filoska paused. She looked at the assassin. Then she looked at Leon. The ruthless corporate logic of Kavilson Steel immediately kicked in.
"Yeah," Filoska agreed smoothly, crossing her arms with a sarcastic smirk. "It would actually be super beneficiary for me. Please, go ahead. Assassinate them. I would love a massive real estate inheritance."
Leon's jaw dropped. He looked back and forth between Filoska and the assassin, absolutely baffled by how quickly his terrifying death threat had turned into a casual financial planning session.
"No! No, you cannot do that!" Leon panicked, furiously pointing at Filoska. "If we kill your parents, we will explicitly NOT give you any piece of land! The crown will seize it! We don't want anyone to get the benefit of this thing! That ruins the entire point of the threat!"
"Why are you going after my parents anyway, my Lord?" Filoska sighed, dropping the sarcasm. "It is not good business. They have nothing to do with Kniya and Malesh."
Muntari wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and raised another major, highly complex philosophical and legal question.
"In this way, Mr. Head of the royal family," Muntari noted dryly, acting more like a corporate lawyer than a hitman. "You really need to know that if the crown officially orders the assassination of a noble-affiliated family, all the outstanding loans that her parents currently owe would be legally transferred directly to the royal family. The royal family has to pay that debt under federal estate law."
The Trillion-Credit Crisis
Filoska's eyes lit up with pure, unfiltered joy.
"Oh my god, yeah!" Filoska cheered, practically clapping her hands together. "It would be a really great relief! Because my parents actually hold a huge amount of crippling debt from bad investments, which accumulates to exactly one trillion credits!"
Leon stopped breathing. The color completely drained from his face.
"One... one trillion credits?!" Leon stammered, his eyes bulging out of his skull. "Oh, fucking idiot! Why do we have so much loan liability in the royal family network?! Who the fuck allows them to take so much loan?!"
Leon spun around, completely abandoning the interrogation, and sprinted toward the heavy wooden doors. He yanked them open, screaming out into the hallway.
"GUARD! GUARD! GET YOUR ASS BACK IN HERE!" Leon shrieked.
The disrespectful guard slowly strolled back into the meeting hall, looking highly annoyed. "What now, sir?"
"Okay, guard! Tell me right fucking now!" Leon demanded, grabbing the lapels of his own expensive suit in a panic. "How much total loan liability do we currently have on the royal family members across the entire Republic?!"
The guard casually pulled a small digital tablet out of his pocket, tapped the screen a few times, and looked up.
"Sir, it is approximately twenty trillion credits from all the royal families combined," the guard stated bluntly.
Leon staggered backward as if he had just been physically punched in the chest.
"Twenty trillion?!" Leon gasped, clutching his heart. "And from that twenty trillion credits... one trillion is only coming from Filoska's family?! It is really, really weird to see that! How are they spending so much fucking money?!"
Leon began pacing frantically around the room, completely forgetting that he was supposed to be threatening a Vice President and ordering a highly classified assassination.
"I think so... I need to legally pass a new federal bill immediately!" Leon ranted, waving his arms in the air. "I need to prevent the rise of this! I need to prevent people from taking massive loans in the family network! Because they basically think so that if they die, or if anything legally happens to their family... the royal family's main head is automatically responsible for paying their fucking debts!"
Leon stopped pacing. He looked at the assassin. He looked at the guard. He looked at Filoska, who was smiling brightly at the prospect of the royal family paying off her parents' massive trillion-credit debt.
"Okay, fuck this thing," Leon groaned, violently rubbing his temples. "Fuck this thing. Literally. I am not assassinating your parents, Filoska. It is entirely too expensive."
The Coordinate Verification
Leon Debestez took a deep breath, smoothing back his perfectly styled hair as he tried to completely forget the fact that his royal family was currently floating on twenty trillion credits of debt. He turned his attention back to the piece of parchment Filoska had written on.
"Okay. I am not talking about this debt thing anymore," Leon stated, violently waving his hand to dismiss the conversation. He turned to his disrespectful personal guard. "Can you please check the location that is given by Filoska? I need to know right now if it is true or not."
The guard sighed, pulling a thick, encrypted burner phone from his pocket. He punched in a few numbers, holding the phone to his ear.
"Yeah, it's me," the guard muttered into the receiver. "Check the Seistain Main Hub. Top floor. The executive suite for Kavilson Steel. Are the targets there?"
There was a brief pause. The guard nodded slowly, listening to the informant on the other end.
"Uh-huh. They just threw boiling coffee on each other? And pulled out guns over a flatulence article? Yeah. That sounds exactly like them. Thanks."
The guard hung up the phone and slipped it back into his pocket. He looked at Leon. "Sir, the intelligence is one hundred percent accurate. The two Managing Directors are currently exactly where she said they were. We can officially trust her."
Leon's posture immediately straightened. His arrogant, terrifying royal aura returned in full force. He looked at Filoska with a sinister, approving smile.
"That is really great, Filoska," Leon praised, his voice dripping with condescending elegance. "Now we can trust you even more. Which brings us to your actual mission."
The Romantic Assassin
Leon walked slowly around the massive mahogany table, stopping right behind Filoska's leather chair. He leaned down, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper.
"The task is incredibly simple," Leon instructed. "You are going to take both of them—Kniya and Malesh—and you are going to lure them to the Grand Royal Park in the central district. And you are going to do this by the end of next week. If you fail to do this..."
Leon paused, letting the heavy, dramatic silence fill the room so his threat could land perfectly.
"...I will break up with you," Muntari the assassin whispered emotionally from the corner of the room, staring deeply into his half-eaten sandwich.
Filoska squeezed her eyes shut, completely exasperated.
Leon's face turned violently red. The veins in his neck literally bulged against his expensive collar.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Leon roared, spinning around and pointing a trembling finger at the assassin. "JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! GET OUT! AND DON'T EVEN TRY TO SPEAK A SINGLE FUCKING WORD AGAIN, YOU IDIOT!"
Muntari shrugged, casually taking another bite of his sandwich as he slowly shuffled out of the meeting hall, clearly unbothered by the screaming.
Filoska let out a long, heavy sigh. She was totally annoyed by this entire situation. What was literally happening in this estate? Leon was desperately trying to be a cool, terrifying mastermind, but he was failing miserably. Every single member of his staff was acting like a weird, insubordinate freak, and the royal family's most humiliating financial secrets were just getting spilled out into the open for absolutely no reason.
"Okay," Filoska said, rubbing her temples. "But what happens, my Lord, if I don't follow your orders? What is the actual consequence?"
The Zero-Liability Threat
Leon's furious expression slowly melted into a deeply wicked, terrifying grin.
"Ah. Yes. That was the question," Leon purred, walking back to the head of the table. "Well done for asking. So, if you try to cross the crown... if you try to deceive us..."
Leon reached inside his tailored jacket.
"...I will kill the most precious person of your life," Leon threatened, his voice completely devoid of any humor. "And I have learned my lesson regarding financial loopholes. I am going to target the one person who is not going to grant you any inheritance land, who holds absolutely zero debt for us to inherit, and who is really, really close to your heart."
Leon pulled a glossy photograph out of his pocket and violently slammed it face-up onto the table right in front of Filoska.
"Your precious little brother," Leon sneered.
Filoska gasped, her corporate stoicism instantly shattering.
She stared down at the photograph. It was a polaroid of her younger brother, tied tightly with thick ropes to a metal chair in a pitch-black room. He looked absolutely terrified, a blindfold resting around his neck and a fresh bruise on his cheek.
"He is currently under our strict arrest," Leon whispered darkly, leaning over the table. "And I know that you are not a cruel, heartless sociopath like Malesh and Kniya. I know you actually care about your brother. And that is exactly why you will do this task without question. And one more thing... if you think you can somehow get out of this by running away? I will completely strip your family of its remaining noble status. You will have nothing."
Filoska's hands started to tremble. The complete absurdity of the assassin and the disrespectful guard vanished from her mind. The threat was real. Leon Debestez had an entire royal army at his disposal, and he had her blood sitting in a dark room.
"Y-yes, my Lord," Filoska stammered, true fear bleeding into her voice. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. "I will do that. I will bring them to the park. Without any failure. Just please, do not hurt him."
"Excellent," Leon smiled, thoroughly satisfied that he had finally managed to properly intimidate someone today. "Yes. You may leave now."