“You’re right,” Lucas agreed. “He wouldn’t honor these at all. Even with his seal, he’d probably be able to argue in court that he never received goods or services for the amounts claimed, and we’d never win. But that’s not the point. I’m not making contracts that have him buying things from us, I’m saying he sold things to us in these contracts and that he already received the money.”

“What? Why would you do that?” Bonnie pressed. “I don’t get it. What’s the point of saying he sold stuff to us?”

“He’s making them to legitimize a fake ledger,” Nick answered for him. “If you’re going to be a merc, you should know how this stuff works. You might be asked to do this for another client one day.”

“Yup, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I plan to make several dozen contracts that show Kegan got a ton of money from other sources. In the Imperium, if he received money, he should pay taxes on it. It’s no different than real life. Even if it’s not true that he received funds, all we have to do is prove that he didn’t pay dues on the money he earned to make his original books look like they were cooked and the fake book we’re going to make look real. So, if I take these fake contracts along with the fake accounting book that I’m going to make to Dray von Maidbanger, Kegan will be in hot water, and we’ll have freed that annoying Dwarf’s friend in the process,” Lucas explained.

“And then . . . Then we can kill Kegan and take this stuff to sell?” Bonnie asked.

Lucas nodded, leaving the other half of the question unanswered. “Then we can kill Kegan.”

“Sounds good to me, boss. I’ll be looking forward to killing my first noble.” She stepped away so that she was no longer leaning over his shoulder as he worked, pulled out a dagger, and began spinning it around on the palm of her hand. She looked incredibly cool when she did it at first, like she was a real professional, but then she messed up. The knife flew out of her hand and clattered against the floor.

Nick laughed, and Lucas had to stop himself from joining in as he watched her quickly bend over to pick it up, covering her cleavage with one hand so that she didn’t spill out of her top. She straightened up and gave them a “nothing to see here” look.