Page 88 of Property of the Bikers

“And if we move first?”

“We remove the variable,” I say. “Permanently.”

The office is quiet.

Cade looks at the desk. “End it,” he says. “Clean. No exposure, no blowback, no ripple into the club’s operations or into her life after.”

“Understood,” I say.

“Ghost?”

“Already planned to bring him in,” I say. “I need his logistics capability for the disposal side. The elimination itself I can handle.”

Cade looks at me. “You don’t have to,” he says.

“I know,” I say.

He holds my eyes for a moment and then nods once and goes to the door.

“Cade,” I say.

He stops.

“Thirty-six hours maximum,” I say. “If Viktor is preparing a personal move, he’s already started. We need to be ahead of it.”

“Thirty-six hours.”

He leaves.

* * *

Ghost comes in at five. He sits across the desk, and we build the plan.

Viktor’s pattern over the last eight weeks has been consistent in one respect. He moves through legitimate channels when they’re available and through his own network when they’re not.

With his contractor team gone, his shell company structure compromised, and his legal team’s filings on record with federal agencies, his legitimate channels are significantly narrowed.

What he has left is his own presence and his own resources.

And a reputation inside the Bratva that requires him to resolve this personally if he’s going to resolve it at all.

“He’ll come here,” Ghost says.

“Yes,” I say. “Not to the compound. He knows he can’t reach the compound. But he’ll come to Montana. He’ll try to find a leverage point outside our perimeter, somewhere we have to respond to, something that forces us to come to him rather than him coming to us.”

“Which means he shows himself,” Ghost says.

We look at the county map on the screen. The compound at the center, the rural roads running out from it in four directions, and the businesses and properties that connect Ruthless to the surrounding area.

“The auto shop,” Ghost says.

“Rebuilt,” I say. “And he already used it once. He won’t repeat a method that’s been identified.”

“Supply chain.”

“Disrupted and restored. He knows we closed that vector.”

Ghost looks at the map. “He’ll use a person,” he says. “Someone is already in our orbit. A supplier, a business contact, someone whose presence near the compound doesn’t raise flags.”