But Danny knew a little of Stirling’s plan, and if Kadjic didn’t know now, he’d figure it out in… how long?One minute?Two?
“Think, Andrejevic—I know it’s hard for you.Too much cocaine, too many rent boys—but think.What could I possibly be doing here, on the night your favorite painting in the National Museum of Prague disappears, replaced by a stunning forgery?”
It was wonderful, in its way, watching the parade of emotions cross Kadjic’s face, as he made the final connection, realized that hewasn’tlosing his mind, that Lightfingershadbeen behind the dissolution of his businessesandhis personal ambitions.And that tonight, at a place where one of his biggest business assets had been housed, was where he found Lightfingers himself.
He paled and swallowed.“What… what did you do?”
And suddenly, Danny wanted to tell him.
“LET THEboy go,” Danny said, allowing a small, unpleasant smile to cross his features.In profile, Felix could see it—all the evil Dannycouldhave been.His childhood had been horrific, although he laughed it off when asked.He had literally whored his way to Europe just to get away from the Jersey shore, and then he’d stolen his way out of a rich man’s bed so he could live free and do whatever he’d pleased.
He’d pleased to feed children half of what he stole to survive.He pleased to give Felix a hand out of a tight situation.He pleased to scam Hiram Dormer out of his trinkets to pay for the children Dormer had fathered by assaulting any woman who worked for him.
And when they realized that Julia had been Dormer’s victim more than she’d been his daughter, Danny had pleased to sacrifice himself and Felix to help her.
The Danny Mitchell that Felix had fallen in love withcouldhave been this vindictive demon he showed to Kadjic now, but Felix knew, would know until he died, that the real Danny was the laughing boy he’d taken to bed all those years ago, and the warm, kind, sensual man Felix would not relinquish in a million years.
“Why should I?”Kadjic asked, shaking Grace by the scruff of the neck.
“Well, for one thing,” Danny said, “because his boyfriend is a trained killer who makes this one look like a kitten in a sandbox.”He indicated the man with no neck who had cleared the car first.“I am not kidding, Andres—if you wish to survive the night, you will not give him a reason to come after you.”
Grace—who had been unnervingly quiet, Felix had to admit—gave Kadjic a sunny smile.“He loves me,” he said with absolute sincerity.“That nice man whom I have never seen before is absolutely right.My boyfriend will skin you with a shiv and use your meatsuit as a sack if you hurt one precious hair on my head.”
Felix winced.Oh God.Grace.Every fiber of his being was telling him to stand up, to make himself a bigger target than Danny, a bigger target than Grace, to spar verbally with a monster, to engage him until they could get Liam there, get Hunter or Chuck to fire a lethal shot, get an entire Interpol army to take him down!
But the same reasons they couldn’t do that from day one stood.If Kadjic died before his empire died, the harm would still continue.The entire justification for the past two months was to take Kadjic’s empire down as well as to demoralize the man, to make him ripe for the plucking for law enforcement.To bring him to justice for crimes much bigger, much more destructive than what he could inflict on their small family.
Felix had lost Danny because he’d been thinking about his company—not the money, but that they’d trusted him, the employees, the people who’d invested with him.They’d given him their faith, and he could not let them down.
He’d been looking beyond himself, beyond what he’d wanted, what he’deverwanted, and here he was, about to do it again, lose the man he loved because he was focused on the big picture and not the slight, unassuming, beautiful, amazing god of chaos who loved him.
“No,” he said, not sure he’d said it out loud until there was a rustle in the grass next to him.
“Stay put,” Leon whispered, breathing hard.On his other side, Lucius slid quietly and murmured, “Not yet.”
Felix glanced from side to side, wild-eyed, and Leon caught his expression and chuckled soundlessly.
“I understand this is a family.We can’t get into trouble alone—that’s not right.”
Felix grinned at him, charmed, as Julia must have been.
“The others are heading for the SUV,” Lucius said.“I think Stirling had to take a moment to pack up his personal laptop.”
“Why are we staying put?”Felix whispered, eyes back on Danny and his deadly verbal waltz with Kadjic.
“Wait for it…,” Lucius whispered.
“You wear my name!”Kadjic screamed, shoving Grace aside to lunge for Danny, and Lucius and Leon had to actively restrain him as his muscles shrieked to put him between Danny and the man who’d harmed him.
“Your name?”Danny chuckled.“Hardly.I’ve got some ugly scars, you know, but you didn’t finish it.You ran away for a coward before you could finish the last two letters.However, I’ve got the name of the love of my life tattooed on my ass, and that shit, as the kids say, is going nowhere.”
“Really, Danny?”Felix whispered to himself, both amused and appalled.The tattoos had beentheirsecret.But then, if there was ever a time to tell a secret….
“I’ll rip him from your body as I rip him from your heart,” Kadjic snarled, shaking him.Kadjic was taller than Danny, and outweighed him by a good fifty pounds, but Danny’s mouth was curled up into that evil smile, and Felix would’ve put his money on Danny any day.
“You can try,” Danny said, and Felix realized that this was the long game again.Find Kadjic’s lair.Find the art he’d stolen, squirreled away, blackmailed from the world.
Fuck the long game, Danny.Let us get you out of therenow!
