Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
I felt Bronwyn stiffen in horror. Then she said, “If he doesn’t listen to The Eight, that makes him the one person who might help us.”
I opened my eyes. She’s right. “In theory,” I said slowly. Then I sighed. “But he’d want something in return, and we don’t have anything he wants.”
“Tell me about his business,” she insisted. “Every detail.”
I looked round at her in surprise. And then I closed my eyes again and lay back against her breasts while I told her everything I knew about Konstantin, his empire and his network of allies. When I’d finished, she said nothing. She was silent for so long, I eventually twisted around to see if she’d fallen asleep. I found her staring into the corner of the room with furious determination, her red-brown eyebrows tilted sharply down. I could feel her brain working. She was trying to find a solution and she was doing it for me. For us. I felt my chest swell. God, I love this woman. It was useless, of course, there was nothing we could offer Konstantin. But just a few weeks ago, she’d hated my world, my empire. The fact she was fighting, even futilely, to save it was—
“I think I know what we can offer him,” said Bronwyn. And she laid it out for me. Now I frowned. It sounded crazy, it was too...big. But as she talked me through it, quiet and persuasive, my perspective started to shift. Bronwyn had broken down Konstantin’s operations using her analytical business brain. I’d always thought of Konstantin’s and my empires as opposing cities, towering blocks of black and white facing off against each other. But now the blocks seemed to flip on their sides, the opposing blocks sliding together like a key into a lock.
“Chyort,” I muttered. “That’s clever. But he’ll never agree. People like us don’t make those sorts of deals.”
“If I persuaded you,” she said gently, “maybe we can persuade him.”
I thought about it. It was a desperate play. But a desperate play was better than no play. “I have no way of contacting him,” I thought aloud. “We’d have to go to New York. Ambush him and hope we can get him to talk to us.” I felt a cold, hard knot form in my stomach. “It’s risky. Spartak’s looking for us.” The thought of putting her in danger to save our empire made me want to throw up. But not trying her plan wasn’t an option, either: Spartak wasn’t going to stop until my whole family was dead and that included her. I twisted around to look at her. “I don’t suppose there’s any point trying to convince you to stay here while I go alone?”
She gave me an as if look and I felt the emotion well up in my chest. I loved that she was the one person who always stood up to me.
“Gennadiy won’t go for this,” warned Bronwyn. “He doesn’t want us to even leave the house.”
“Then we’d better not tell him we’re going.” I stood up, water sluicing off me. I felt energized. There was hope, however small, and it was thanks to her. I took her hand and hauled her up. The smile she gave me hit me right in the chest. It was nervous and hopeful and proud, and…
It felt like we were a team. I squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back.
“Pack a bag,” I told her. “We’re going to New York.”
52
BRONWYN
Radimir left to make some phone calls, trying to figure out where we could ambush Konstantin. I got dressed and sat on the bed, thinking. Are we really going to do this? Gennadiy was going to be pissed. Radimir might be the boss, but Gennadiy did most of the day-to-day running of things, sort of like a Chief of Staff to a President. And he’d be rightfully mad when the President ran off with his new wife on a secret mission in the middle of a freakin’ war to try to strike a deal he knew nothing about. He might blame me for leading his brother astray. I sighed. I’ll worry about that when we get back.
If we get back. My shoulders slumped. That was the other reason this was a bad idea. Spartak’s men were hunting us and even if we made it out of Chicago alive, we’d be in a strange city with no backup.
But my crazy plan was our only hope. We had to do this. I straightened up...and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror.
We had to do this...but I couldn’t do it like this, in jeans and a t-shirt. I was going to be negotiating with one of the most powerful mafia bosses in the world. If I was a mafia wife, I had to start looking like it.