“Excellent,” Danny said.“Does everybody have their dessert of choice?Take a few minutes and gather, because as soon as I’m hooked up here, we’re on the clock.”
There was a quiet mingling then, and Julia, Liam noticed,didmake a quick dash to the washroom—there was one in Stirling and Tienne’s bedroom suite, which was adjoined to the basement den with a door.
He caught his breath as something occurred to him, and then he glanced at Josh, who appeared to be oblivious.
He caught Danny’s knowing smile, though, and the other man raised his finger to his lips and mouthed “Later” softly.
Liam’s eyes widened, and he glanced at Josh again, thinking of the sober way he’d carried the burden of being the family’s hope.
Would this event set him free, Liam wondered with a painful swallow, or would it rob him of things he knew were true?
And on the heels of that thought came another, more pressing thought.
They absolutely positively had to put Kadjic behind bars—but more.Like a snake, Kadjic’s venom was potent enough that not even death would render him harmless.If Danny was to keep his promise to the family and not disappear, taking the risk of Kadjic’s wrath and an all-out war with him, then they absolutely had to come up with a strategy to destroy him, and they had to do it on a timeline.
And suddenly Liam understood why Josh had been sidelined and Danny and Felix looked so tired.
Josh had been wounded, and he and Liam had shit to sort the night before, but everybody else, it appeared, had been all hands on deck, because if all handsweren’ton deck, the coming storm would sink the bloody ship.
Three minutes later a bowl of pudding dessert was thrust into Liam’s hand by, of all people, Carl.
“Hang tight,” he murmured.“It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
The big man disappeared, aligning himself with Chuck and Hunter near the bottom of the stairs so they could act as sentinels and guardians to the rest of the group, and Liam turned to find Josh glancing down at an absurdly large napkin full of cookies.
“Phyllis gave them to me,” he said.“Which was weird, because she hasn’t forced me to eat cookies since I was ten years old.”
Liam opened his mouth and then realized he had absolutely nothing to say, and he was relieved when Felix, this time, called the group to order.
“Carl, hit the lights,” he said, and in a moment the big projection screen at the far end of the room, which had hosted video games that afternoon, now held the image of a man they were all well familiar with.
“Andres Kadjic,” Felix said.“Age fifty-five, started as a street thief in Russia and grew to gang leader, and then, being unusually clever andveryruthless, he had his street gang at the time—Nozh, meaning ‘knife’—literally kidnap the head of the underground cigarette trade in Russia.The man was released and allowed to run his own company, but Kadjic is suddenly a twenty-percent partner, and boom.He has gone from street thug to businessman.He has grown in myriad ways, which we will discuss further, but never forget that he started off as a street fighter and he will continue to be one until the day he shuffles off this mortal coil, hopefully sooner than later.”
“So a people person then,” Hunter said, surprising Liam with a bit of snark.
“Oh definitely,” Danny said dryly.“He loves people.He loves them hurt, trafficked, addicted, and bleeding—and he’s got his fingers in all the pies to make sure that happens as often as possible.”
There was an injured silence in the room.
“Too close to our hearts, beloved,” Felix said softly, and Danny gave a brittle shrug.
“We know what he is, we know what he’s done.And after last night we know exactly which pies he has his fingers in, and that’s what we’re here to talk about today.”
Everyone in the room took a collective breath, and Liam remembered the fragile, broken thief he’d found bleeding in the alleyway ten years earlier.I’ve been trying to drink myself to death for a year now, and I finally found a shortcut.
Danny Mitchell, healthy, happy, and shored up by the love of his family, was worth every law Liam had violated, every blind eye he’d ever turned.
“Well, then,” Felix said, his voice gruff, “let’s continue.We’ve got a lot to cover.”
“I think,” Danny said, “that Liam will back me up on this.The hardest thing about bringing Kadjic down has been not just his lack of visibility—he’s uncanny about staying hidden when his operations are going down—but also the sheer number of businesses he’s working on.If we take out one business, for example, saygun running”—they all nodded, remembering when they’d put a considerable dent in his operations that January—“he can easily rely on his other businesses to fill that hole until the first one is up again.He’s literally a hydra.Cut off one head and it grows back three-fold.”
“That’s, uhm, bleak,” Carl muttered, and the rest of the room was with him.“You got any good news for us?”
Danny sent his friend a droll smirk.“If all I had was bad news, I would have left already to throw myself on his mercy,” he said acerbically.“I’m only giving you background here.Kadjic isn’t simply a villain with awkwardly shiny shoes—”
“And deeply in need of a skin-care regimen,” Julia added.
“And somemanners,” Grace added.
