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“First of all, Alex didn’t know a lot of what I was planning.”

“I could have stopped you if I really wanted to, Danny.”

Danny snorted. “Sure, you could’ve.”

I turned to face him. “Are you saying I couldn’t?”

“Sorta.”

“Will you two knock it off!” Gideon snapped. “The instructions I gave were to observe Maksim, find out where he went, who he talked to. Something tangible that could be of use to us.” He motioned to the bedroom where Maksim was currently tied up. “Instead you do everything I said not to do. Explain.”

I held up my hand to stop Danny from talking. “Danny thought if he tied Maksim to the bed and we questioned him this way, it would stop me from doing something crazy…which doesn’t track, seeing as this is also a crazy idea.” I sighed. “He thought if he was present, he could control it.”

Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose and looked at Danny. “How’s that working out?”

Danny shrugged. “I mean, we got some things out of him.”

“Like?”

“He has an older brother, Sergey, who is married. The fact that Maksim is the only other son of Vladimir’s means Mila was supposed to marry him. Maksim claims he never knew any of that and said he’s gay, which we knew. I think we can all agree that Vladimir would sooner kill his son than let him be with another man,” I answered, my stomach roiling as I thought of my beautiful Mila having anything to do with the Ivanovs.

“Anything else?”

“He told us that he had heard of someone going around killing Russians. Which means Vladimir knows as well. But Maksim said they didn’t know who was behind the killings.” Danny rubbed the nape of his neck. “Sir, I know we overstepped, we disobeyed, but whether or not Maksim knows his father’s thinking, we did discover that Alex’s killings got back to him, and I don’t think it’ll take him long to figure out who is behind them.”

“Well, yeah, Danny, because you both kidnapped his son!” Gideon argued.

I stepped forward. “He doesn’t know that.”

Gideon glared at me. “If Danny is right and Vladimir is able to figure out you’re the one killing Bratva, and with my involvement with pasting the blame of that massacre on the Russians, he will figure out we have his son soon enough.”

“He doesn’t know he’s missing,” Danny offered.

“Ha!” Gideon raised his hands. “So tell me this. When Maksim doesn’t show up wherever he was supposed to tomorrow or the day after, what do you think will happen?”

“So we find out where he was supposed to go, the plan, and infiltrate it. If we damage this operation to the point that it’s irreparable, Vladimir himself will show up, and then I’ll have him.” I could feel my blood boil just at the thought of that man dying at my hands.

“Oh, you’ll get the pakhan’s attention, Alex. Problem is, I needed more time to fortify my territory so that no one I care about gets killed. Now, because of this vendetta, that’s all gone up in smoke!”

“I’m not going to apologize for killing even one Bratva. Regardless, whether they were part of Vladimir’s faction or not, I’ll wipe them all out to the point that the word Bratva becomes extinct.” I was livid. I got why Gideon was upset, but I didn’t believe he understood how deep my rage went.

“I’m not asking you to apologize, Alex. I’m asking you to understand how delicate all this is. If this goes sideways, and right now it really is, the risk is high. My kids, Penn, Toni, Rita, Dean, Matteo, Danny, you, I could go on and on, you’re all in serious danger. Don’t you see that?” Gideon looked from me to Danny. “I needed you to keep this situation calm; instead you added gasoline to the fire.”

“Gid.” We all turned at the sound of Penn’s voice. “We can’t change what’s been done. You all standing there defending your argument gets us nowhere now. We’ve been in situations where we’ve had to readjust, so let’s sit, deal with the new situation, and figure out a solution.”

Penn leaned against the archway, his arms folded, appearing calm and cool. Of course this wouldn’t faze him. He had a gene mutation that gave him the inability to feel pain or fear. While it didn’t stop anger or any other emotion, fear was a huge thing and without it he saw things clearer than most people I knew.

“Yeah.” Gideon released a breath. “Let’s assess.”

We gave Maksim a sedative so he’d be out for a bit; then the five of us sat down and figured out what the next steps would be. No more finger-pointing, yelling, or lectures.

“Have you been able to find anything out about Oleg Trudov yet?” Danny asked Toni.

“No, but that’s definitely something we should see if Maksim knows anything about. If he doesn’t recognize the name, we’ll know it’s not related to the Ivanovs.”

“You think he’ll tell the truth?” I huffed. “He’s been lying since he got here.”

Toni placed a syringe on the table. “We’re going to help him along.”