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“That’s good, Alex.”

He was staring out the window. “I don’t know what good it’s gonna do.”

“Probably nothing right away. Her job is to untangle the knots in your head and help you cope, and that’s a good thing because whatever you’ve been doing this past year isn’t that.”

His hazel eyes met mine. “She was my world, Danny and she was killed on the same day I vowed to honor and protect her. Protect her!” he shouted and I motioned for him to lower his voice. “I couldn’t even do that.”

“I won’t sit here and spout lyrical; I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone you love and honestly, I hope I never find out. But I do know this—Mila would hate seeing you being destructive with your life.” It was a dangerous road to take, using Mila to get through to him, but anyone who knew her knew she’d have hated seeing how Alex has been “dealing.”

“I know she’d hate all this bloodshed and danger.”

“So why do it?”

His expression dipped into anguish, and he was about to speak when his eyes flicked to my left. “They’re here.”

I looked and…wouldn’t you know, a fancy SUV pulled up and two men that were clearly the Smirnov brothers got out. Fortunately it was only the two of them. I’d been told to call Gideon if they had protection; he had men on standby nearby.

“Wait until they get in the house, then I’ll puncture the rear tire enough that it’ll leak slow so after they leave they’ll get down the street. You keep an eye out for me,” I told Alex.

“Don’t we want to at least see what they’re doing here?” Alex gestured toward the dilapidated drug house.

“We’ll find that out. Right now we need to grab them, and I don’t know if these squatters would side with them or us, so we need to make sure they’re away from the house.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Once Sasha and Ruslan went inside the house, I was glad to see any stragglers that were outside followed. It would make it easier to get to the SUV if no one was hanging out.

Alex followed behind me, his eyes sharp as I crouched to make myself smaller. There was a technique to deflate the tire a tiny bit so that it wouldn’t draw attention to anyone at first glance, but as soon as they drove about a mile or two, the tire would be flat and the indicator light would go on.

I worked as quickly as I could, Alex standing sentry at my side. The street was quiet, no shouting going on within the house, so whatever they were doing it wasn’t hostile to any of the parties.

“Okay,” I whispered, and we rushed to our van.

The brothers exited the house about twenty minutes later. Alex and I waited for them to get to the end of the street. They ended up driving farther than I’d anticipated, but they finally pulled to the side of the road. I shut off my lights and did the same.

They were too distracted by the flat to see us, giving us an advantage. The easiest way to capture the brothers was to knock them out. I opened the glove compartment and pulled out the syringe box.

“Inject one now; once they’re in the trunk, give them the other.” I handed Alex his syringes.

“Got it. Which you want?” he asked, indicating the brothers.

“I’ll get the smaller one; you’re bigger than me.” I smirked.

“Yeah, yeah.”

We opened the doors quietly. The men were arguing in Russian, paying us no mind. The shorter one, Sasha, moved to the driver’s side while Ruslan crouched to touch the flat tire. I nodded to Alex, and we came up behind them at the same time.

When I impaled Sasha with the syringe, he shouted something I didn’t understand, but I was sure he wasn’t thanking me. The stuff was fast acting, but he was able to buck me off and take a swing before he fell flat on his face.

I peered over my shoulder to see Alex carrying Ruslan to the trunk of our car.

Sasha wasn’t too heavy, but dead weight was no joke. Once I dropped him into the trunk with his brother, we injected them again and closed it.

“What about the SUV?” Alex motioned to the vehicle.

I reached into my pocket. “AirTag. Gideon said he’d have someone come and get rid of it.”

He nodded and got into the car while I attached the AirTag to the wheel well. Then I texted Gideon and informed him we had them, were going to the crate, and that the AirTag was in place. He’d make sure that after we were done with the brothers, it would look like a gang-related crime.