The King of Fear: A Garrett Reilly Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

company was on edge. Ten minutes ago the latest gossip had trickled in from accounting: bank regulators had landed on the island that very morning to give the firm a financial stress test.
    “We fail the stress test, we’re bloody screwed,” Leone said in his thick Liverpool accent, as he poured himself his fourth coffee of the morning. “They’ll shut us down.”
    Juliette, from the comptroller’s office, shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. The bank is fine. Just rumors. Because of the 2008 meltdown. Because of Greece. People get nervous. But it will be fine.”
    Juliette was pretty, and French, and both Leone and Abela had asked her out. Both had been rebuffed. Leone didn’t mind so much because she was a brunette, and Leone had a thing for redheads. He’d met one the night before at a bar on the water, a startlingly pretty young woman, and things had gone quite well. He hadn’t slept with her, but they had flirted until two in the morning, and they’d exchanged numbers and e-mail addresses, and Leone had secured a date for this very evening. So even if the bank did go under, Leone had a chance at sex, which, while secondary, wasn’t so terrible. Part of why he’d moved from England to Malta was because the girls were prettier here. That, and the weather.
    Leone watched Juliette strut off in that particular French way she had—a straight, arched back, a slight shimmy of the hips. “The French.” He sighed.
    Abela laughed. “Are you seeing the redhead tonight?” He had been at the bar with Leone and had appreciated that woman’s feline, almost predatory beauty.
    “I think so.” Leone and Abela spoke in English. Everyone in Malta, especially at the bank, spoke English, which was why Leone had never bothered to learn Maltese. “She’s supposed to text me a meeting place. She said she might even stop by the office.”
    “Okay, we like her already,” Abela said with a leering smile.
    Leone had been checking his phone all day, but no word had come in from the redhead, Dorina. At the bar, she had told Leone where she was from—Hungary or Romania or some place East European like that—but Leone couldn’t quite remember through the fog of gin and beer. He still had a hangover.
    “We’ll talk later,” Abela said. “If there is a later.”
    Leone grunted a half laugh, then shuffled off to his desk in the corner of the open bull pen of cubicles. He passed a swath of windows that looked out onto the sparkling blue waters of Valletta harbor and the Mediterranean. Leone waved to a few coworkers, some of whom waved back. Most everyone else was glued to phones or computer terminals. Leone guessed that they were checking the bank’s stock price, or scouring the wire services for the latest bit of news. He thought he’d overheard someone say that a banker in New York City had been gunned down a few hours ago. An important banker—a Federal Reserve president. What the hell was going on in the world?
    Strange times. Very, very strange.
    Leone sat at his desk and waited. There wasn’t much to do—no point in looking over the CVs of job applicants if the bank was going to go under. He checked his Facebook account, as well as his Tumblr and Instagram. He lingered on the Tumblr page. He’d posted a number of pictures of other redheads there, and he liked to gaze at them. He wasn’t sure why he was so obsessed with girls with red hair, but he was. There was something about their eyes, blue usually, or sometimes green, and the fair skin, so often smattered with charmingly light freckles. The entire package drove him into paroxysms of ecstasy, and he didn’t mind if anyone else knew it. He had five hundred followers for his Tumblr page, and almost all of them loved to wax rhapsodic on the virtues of gingers the world over.
    And speaking of which, where was Dorina from Romania? Or Hungary, or wherever the hell she came from. He peered into the next cubicle. Edgar from operations was picking at a salad and