I spread my arms. “More power to you. What do you want from me?”

Bob scooted forward. The chair groaned. “Solomon, you, and Mark are the only people with any sort of official designation other than Guild member, except for the clerk and the payroll ladies. You were the first of us to make it into the Order and you did good work as a liaison. People remember that. And now you’re the Beast Lord’s…” He groped for a word.

“Mate,” Ivera told him.

“Yes, that. You have street cred. The mercs will never follow Mark. You know it, I know it, Ivera knows it.”

I glanced at Ivera. “What do you think?”

“What he said,” she said grimly.

I leaned back. They wouldn’t like it, but it had to be said. “Three mercs go on a gig. One bails midway through the fight, the second dies, the third loses a hand. Are they eligible for Guild disability pay?”

Bob thought about it. “The guy that ran off gets nothing, that’s abandonment in progress. The dead guy’s next of kin gets thirty percent. The guy without a hand gets disability.”

I sighed. “The first question to ask is how long any of them have been in the Guild. You have to hit the five-year mark to qualify for disability and do seven years to qualify for the death benefit. Until then, you die, your family gets a flat ten grand from your standard life insurance. The next question is, when did the first guy take off? If he did it once the fight started and the danger was evident, the Guild is entitled to garnish his wages, because his abandonment in progress becomes abandonment in imminent danger. How much do we garnish, Bob?”

Muscles played on his jaw. “I don’t know.”

“Then we move on to disability. How much do we pay? What’s a hand worth? Does it matter if he was right- or left-handed?”

“I don’t know,” Bob said again. His eyes told me he didn’t like where I was headed.

“Neither do I. But you know who does? Mark. I can call Mark right now and he’ll rattle it off the top of his head. Let’s talk contracts. Who provides the ammo for the Guild supply room? How much of a discount do we get from them? The Guild has a deal with Avalon Construction to clear the magic hazmat at their prospective construction sites. It’s a sweet contract, so you know there were perks. Bribes. Gifts. How much and to whom?”

Bob growled a bit. “All this stuff can be learned.”

I nodded. “Sure. But how long will it take you? The Guild has been without a leader for what, six months now, and you still haven’t learned any of it. Would it even matter by the time you finished learning?”

Bob crossed his arms. “You could do it.”