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He could still see her sitting up on her bed, naked under one of the butler’s old shirts, her deceiving eyes wide, her voice tre in my room?

Pájaro still did not kno she had done it Oneher to the floor; the next his back struck a wall There , before she appeared over him, her small face pale and troubled

Why do you want to hurther forever should have been a si, but in his haste he did not use the correct hold That allowed her to rake her nails across his eyes and drive her tiny foot into his balls By the ti she had fled

He had not run, but walked back to his roo ache of his balls and the gritty pain of his scratched corneas tormented him, but he returned to his bed and waited for the old man to come for him For hours he had waited for the door to his rooht made Pájaro squint as he rose froht and tall as the old man inspected him

What happened here?

Pájaro calmly explained how the whore’s brat had come to his roo had prevented her fro him, but he had been compassionate, too, and allowed her to escape with her life

Is this all you have to say?

Pájaro had felt a moment of uncertainty before he admitted that naturally he would need tiin the final trial Only then did his voice falter, for he had not considered what ive him ti his birth name had shocked him; here at the château he had always been called Huit The oldto catch up, insisting that what he had said was the truth, begging for the chance he had earned to prove hirabbed at his arm, the old man had knocked him to the floor

The next minute was one he had lived over and over for the last ten years

"Master, please," Pájaro shrieked "She attacked me I swear to you that is what happened"

"I don’t care hoas" The olda sihter This was your final trial"

The girl was his daughter?

In thatthat mattered to him, and desperation drove him to seize the old man’s ankle "Then kill me Kill me now, before the others awake"

"I would not wipeaway

Pájaro got out and walked to the warehouse’s back entrance, where he paused and listened before going inside Only a handful of the men he had hired in Paris stood in various positions with their backs against plastic-wrapped pallets of boxes labeled in Italian as restaurant supplies Pájaro noted that half eyed him while the others kept watch on the front entrance

"He is here," one of thea reinforced case, and placed it on the top of a crate before regarding Pájaro "We orried about you, Helada We thought youthe château" He opened the case "As you see, the raid did not go so well for us"

"You knew the risks" He eyed the empty case "Where is the scroll?"

"I have it" Antoine swiped the back of his hand over his sweaty brow before he tugged open his vest and re it to the case, he weighed it in his hand "It is heavier than it looks, but gold always is"

"Put it in the case," Pájaro told him

"First, we talk" Antoine cleared his throat "You said there would be only a few old servants at the château So as the Englishman?"