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‘I— Thanks.’
He’d always left Damon out of the loop when it came to the work he’d performed. He’d always left Damon out of the loop, period. If Jared were to hazard a guess he’d say that he’d always thought of Damon as too young and unpredictable to take part in any wild scheme he and Lena had dreamed up as teenagers. But his brother wasn’t that kid any more.
Courtesy of that damned psych report, Jared now had more than a passing acquaintance with the slights he’d bestowed on his younger brother over the years and the underlying reasons for them.
Damon alive. Their mother dead.
Resentment.
‘Yeah. I could probably use your help if you want in,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘Celik Antonov is a sweet kid. A good kid. He doesn’t deserve this.’
‘Do you have a plan for once you have him?’
‘Antonov has a sister. He set her up with an alias and enough money for a simple life twenty years ago and then he left her to it. No contact whatsoever until three months ago, when a Romanian woman contacted him about donating a kidney to his son. A kidney with a high chance of being a match for the kid. Her name was Sophia and Antonov had her on speaker phone. He cut her off. And then he broke down and wept.’
And then the story had come out.
‘Did she give the kid the kidney?’
‘She never called again.’
‘What makes you think she’ll take the boy?’
‘She offered him her kidney.’
‘Do you know where to find her?’
‘No, but I know she’s a schoolteacher in a small village in Romania and that she’s childless. Also that she was worked over by thugs when she was twelve and Antonov was eighteen. Antonov had got on the wrong side of some dangerous people and that was their warning to him. Care to do a bit of sleuthing?’
‘Sophia … schoolteacher … Romania … childless and her age,’ Damon replied dryly. ‘Good thing I’m brilliant.’
‘Ah, modesty. Guess it runs in the family. Call me when you have something.’
‘You taking anyone with you when you go to get him?’
‘Wasn’t planning on it.’
‘Will you tell Trig where you’re going? Or Lena? Anyone?’
‘Are you insinuating that I need to share more with the family?’
‘Yes. Save yourself a repeat of Lena going after you. Again. Because she will—and she’ll drag us all into it.’
‘Consider them told.’
Somewhere in the past two years Jared had lost control of his family entirely. Something to rectify. Eventually.
‘Hey, Damon?’ Jared considered his next question carefully. ‘I’m going to need a handler on this job. I need someone to plan ahead with. Someone to talk me through the options once I’m on the ground and steer me in the direction that’s safest for the kid … Would you do it?’
‘Are you asking me?’
There was something in Damon’s voice that sounded a whole lot like hope. Willingness—that was in there too. Need, even.
‘Yeah, I’m asking you. And I know exactly what kind of responsibility it entails, so if you don’t want—’
‘I’ll do it,’ his brother said gruffly. ‘Who better, right? It’s not as if I’d want anyone else doing it.’
‘Okay.’ Jared cleared his throat. ‘Okay, thanks.’
This family.
There was silence then, while their relationship settled into new territory, and then Jared took a deep breath. ‘This Amsterdam canal house? Where do I find it?’
‘I’ll send you directions. You going to ring the kid?’
‘You going to give me the number?’
The answer to both was yes.
Rowan hated it when someone else’s plan went awry and landed on her desk. She’d been keeping tabs on Antonov’s son from a distance, touching base with the officials responsible for placing the boy with his mother. So far she didn’t think much of their decisions. ‘Set and forget’ being their preference.
The child’s mother was a high-class courtesan who’d held Antonov’s attention long enough to beget him a child. He’d paid her handsomely for her trouble and she’d given up the child without a backward glance.
That was then.
These days Celik’s mother worked even more selectively, operating out of her own home in the middle of Amsterdam. She wasn’t a criminal, and she enjoyed a comfortable standard of living. She didn’t take drugs and didn’t drink to excess. On paper, sending Celik Antonov to live with his birth mother once his father was dead had seemed like an obvious solution.
Until one started factoring in the late arms dealer’s enemies and alliances.
