CH662 The Check

***

Alex reached into his jacket, pulled out a prepared document, and slid it across the table towards her.

Lady Wintermere picked up the paper and read through it.

Almost immediately, her brows furrowed.

"If we follow this formula, my profits would be lower than what I currently earn through my arrangement with Brock Peyton. You expect me to abandon Peyton and choose you with an offer like this?" she said, shaking her head.

Alex calmly interlocked his fingers and rested his hands upon his thigh.

Then he replied.

"You are viewing this through the wrong lens, Lady Wintermere. Your arrangement with Peyton is already doomed to fail. He picked a fight with me—and worse, he reached for something he never should have attempted to reach. His fate is already sealed.

"With your assistance, he may be able to delay the inevitable for a little longer, but the end will remain the same. The only true difference would be the aftermath... because your continued support would turn us into enemies as well."

His tone remained perfectly composed.

"In essence, what was once a profitable asset has already become a liability—and soon, it will become a non-existent deal entirely.

"On the other hand, I am offering you something real. Something stable. Yes, the immediate profits are lower than what you hoped for, but this arrangement allows you to fulfil your obligations and preserve your standing.

"And more importantly than the profit itself—this binds us together in partnership. A partnership that gives all of us influence across multiple sectors of this city, allowing us to collectively pursue far greater opportunities than Peyton could ever offer you alone."

"So, Lady Wintermere, please understand that this arrangement is only temporary in its current form. As our partnership strengthens and the horizons we can offer each other expand, the profits will naturally continue to grow."

Alex smiled and gave her a small, encouraging nod.

"I understand this is a great deal to consider, so I will leave you the time to think on it. You do not need to give me your answer today. When the castle of sand Brock Peyton has built around himself begins to collapse, your reaction alone will tell me everything I need to know."

He rose to his feet.

"Until then."

Raven Horn and the BattleBane Guild Master also made ready to leave with him.

However, just as Alex reached the door, he suddenly paused, as though something had only just occurred to him.

He turned back, walked to the table once more, and placed a small potion box upon it. Inside was a single potion vial, along with simple usage instructions.

"Consider this a gift. Once this deal goes through, this can become the next business opportunity for our proposed little partnership," Alex said.

Then he returned to the door.

"Lady Wintermere, there is a saying from where I come from—there are rarely permanent enemies, only permanent interests and benefits. If the interests are great enough, even generations of hatred can be turned into intimate friendship."

He paused, then turned his head slightly to look back at her.

"And, of course... the opposite is equally true."

With those final words, Alex left the room alongside Raven Horn and the BattleBane Guild Master.

As they walked through the corridors of the Banshee Estate, Alex’s mind remained occupied.

His proposal had never truly depended on Lady Wintermere’s personal feelings towards Brock Peyton. That was only surface-level leverage.

His true trump card was the pressure Lady Wintermere was already facing from within her own organisation.

According to the dossier Raven Horn had provided on her, combined with the scattered pieces of intelligence gathered by Fortuna’s scouting team, Drumvale was not a monolithic organisation and far less harmonious than it appeared from the outside.

Rather than being a single, unified merchant company as its name implied, Drumvale was more accurately an accidental consortium of powerful merchant houses.

It had originally begun in Afordocia as a group of independent shops entering a cooperative agreement, pooling their resources and influence under a single banner in order to gain a stronger position within the city’s commercial sphere.

Each of those shops still operated independently, managing their own affairs and ambitions, but they did so under the shared brand of Drumvale and in alignment with the greater agenda decided during meetings between the principal parties.

Lady Wintermere came from one of these Drumvale member shops—the Demin Trade Shop, a business that primarily specialised in clothing and cosmetics.

So why would a merchant house focused on clothes and beauty products be representing the Drumvale brand in the Wildlands to secure mineral resources?

The answer was obvious.

Because Demin had lost influence within the greater Drumvale structure and was desperate for a move that could restore its standing.

Diversifying and expanding into mineral resources was a calculated gamble by the Demin Trade Shop—especially when the mineral in question was something as valuable and politically significant as Theolonium.

That desperation was precisely why Lady Wintermere had allowed Brock Peyton to casually throw Drumvale’s name around.

As long as they could secure rare and valuable strategic resources such as Theolonium, the damage to Drumvale’s reputation was considered an acceptable cost—particularly since all of this was happening in the savage Wildlands, which was far from polite society.

However, should the venture fail, that same "minor" stain on the Drumvale name could very easily become the final nail in the coffin for the Demin Trade Shop.

That was why Alex had intentionally presented such a star-studded lineup before her.

Compared to Brock Peyton and his Lost Heathens, the combined presence of Fortuna, the BattleBane Guild, and the Black Scar Syndicate created a far more stable and threatening alternative. Alex hoped that when weighed against Demin’s already unfavourable position and the internal pressure they were under, Lady Wintermere would be forced to reconsider how much support she was willing to continue giving Peyton.

’I do not need her to completely withdraw her support,’ Alex thought. ’I only need hesitation.’

His eyes flashed faintly.

’With how rash Peyton is, he will make his move long before she finishes deciding whether to help him or not. That hesitation alone will be enough for me to capitalise.’

And if she ultimately chose to support him anyway...

’Then I would not mind ending her as well.’

Of course, Alex did not mean killing her.

Unlike Peyton, Lady Wintermere would simply be acting in the interest of business. He could not condemn her for that alone. But that did not mean he would spare her from consequences. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Even without taking her life, he could still bring her entire world crashing down.

And he would not even need to resort to anything particularly underhanded. He would simply do exactly what she was doing—act in the interest of business.

All he had to do was sell the Theolonium elsewhere.

Whether to a rival faction within Drumvale itself, or to another major merchant power entirely. After all, Drumvale was far from the only major commercial force in BloodIron, in Afordocia Free City, or even across the greater continent of Verdantis.

There were at least several other members of Afordocia’s ruling council he could sell to.

As long as Lady Wintermere failed to secure the Theolonium needed to fulfil her agreements with the Temples and the clergy, both she and the Demin Trade Shop—and perhaps even the wider Drumvale Merchant Company, depending on who ultimately acquired the resource—would find themselves in very serious trouble.

And trouble with the Temples was not something anyone on Verdantis wished to invite.

The Temples and their clergy stood as the true ruling powers across much of the continent. In many places, they held influence that surpassed even Imperial and Royal families. Kings ruled nations, but the Temples ruled faith, legitimacy, and fear.

One could easily imagine the fate of those who crossed them.

Alex almost felt as though he could see invisible chessboards laid out before him, with both Lady Wintermere and Brock Peyton already placed in check.

For Lady Wintermere, he was still willing to take a step back and allow room for cooperation.

But for Brock Peyton... there was only one move left.

The final piece.

The Checkmate.

"Oi, why didn’t you tell me you already had the BattleBane Guild on your side? Do you know how nervous I was coming here?" Raven Horn suddenly said, pulling Alex from his thoughts.

Before Alex could answer, the BattleBane Guild Master gave him a silent nod.

The next moment, his figure blurred and disappeared without another word.

Alex shook his head with a faintly helpless smile.

"It is always good to have backups. Still, I am glad you came," he said.

Raven Horn immediately read between the lines and realised Alex had no intention of explaining how he had secured the BattleBane Guild Master’s cooperation.

He simply shrugged and let the matter go.

Alex smiled thinly.

That was one of the things he appreciated most about the man—his tact. He knew exactly what to ask, and more importantly, what not to ask.

’Perhaps that simply comes with the territory, considering the kind of organisation he belongs to,’ Alex mused.

Raven Horn’s question was not merely something Alex did not want to answer.

One could argue it was something he should never reveal to anyone at all.

Because everything traced back to an event, one of many important others, from about a week ago... only a few days after the ambush on the raid party.

***