Free Excalibur Rising by Eileen Hodgetts

said.
      “They’ll be with you in ten minutes,” Ryan told her. “And believe me, they’ll look after you.”
      “Is that what it’s come to?” she asked. “Is that what Vegas has done to you? Large men in black cars?
      “Veronica, “he said, “I’m serious about this.  I have something that they want, but it’s me they want, not you, but they could use you or the girls to get at me.  If you don’t believe anything else I’m saying, please believe that these men will protect you. “
     He looked at Mandretti. “They’re on their way,” Mandretti said.     “They’ll take care of it. Does your wife speak Spanish?”
     “I thought it would be Italian.”
     “It’s Florida,” he said with an eloquent shrug of his shoulders.
     “Large Spanish speaking men,” Ryan said to Veronica.
     She was silent for a moment.
     “Veronica?”
     “I’m scared,” she said in a small voice.
     “Do you want me to come there?” he asked. “I have what they want.  I’ll give it to them.”
     He heard and ignored Mandretti’s hiss of disapproval.
     “No,” she said vehemently, “don’t come near us again.”
     The phone was dead in his hands.
     “Are your men any good?” he asked Mandretti.
     “Oh yeah,” Mandretti said with supreme confidence.  “No problemo.  But I think I’d better get some protection for this house as well.  If they don’t find you or the goblet in Marathon, they’re gonna come here.”
     Todd appeared in the doorway, or perhaps, Ryan thought, he had been standing there all the time. 
      “We have our own protection,” he said.  “We try to avoid large men in black cars.”  He looked at Mandretti. “I have printed out a contract.  You and I should agree on the terms while Violet makes her final decision.”
     Mandretti rose from the chair.
     “Mr. Mandretti,“ Ryan said, “will you___”
     He nodded his head. “If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.  Now quit worrying.  My people are good.  Nothing’s gonna happen to your kids, and they ain’t gonna let anyone hurt your ex. Unless you want them to,” he added.
     “No. God, no!”
      “Just joking with you,” he said, and he followed Todd out of the room.
     The weight of the night before hung heavily on Ryan’s shoulders.  He sat in the library chair and tried to clear his mind, but all he could see was the goblet falling from Peacock’s fingers and coming to rest in the midst of the red wine stain on the carpet.  He thought about his children; not children any longer; young women about whom he knew nothing. He thought about Veronica and her righteous anger.  She was right to be angry with him. She had married Erik and Ryan had reacted by giving up responsibility for his own kids.  Erik didn’t need Ryan’s money to raise them, so Ryan stopped paying child support.  The girls had been awkward and uncommunicative on the phone, so he had stopped phoning them.        He had been traveling to the far corners of the world, and he had forgotten birthdays and Christmases.  He had,in fact, abandoned them, and allowed them to become Erik’s children.  And now his latest gift to them was a hired killer, and a car full of Spanish Mafioso.
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
         The one-eyed man sprinted across the platform at Victoria Station and flung himself aboard the London to Brighton commuter train.  As the train rattled past the row houses of London’s inner city and out into the leafy suburbs of Surrey, he made his way along the swaying train corridors looking into every compartment.  He was late. He should have identified his quarry before the man had boarded the train, but he had taken time on the telephone talking to his contact in Florida. Now they were in the middle of rush hour. The traffic had been heavy around