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As much as I hate Leland with everything in me, I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s going through. Whatever Ciro did to keep him from sleeping or falling unconscious, it’s just another form of torture like everything else he’s been through—he won’t be allowed to sleep until he gives us everything we want. And even after the men are satisfied they’ve gotten all they can from him, I’m not sure the living hell will stop.
Thinking about my earlier days here as a prisoner, when sleep was my only refuge and escape… I don’t envy him.
But my circumstances were always different than Leland’s.
I may have been a prisoner they didn’t trust in the beginning. Hale might’ve thought I had something to do with the other team of armed men who showed up on my wedding day, compromising everything. But still, I was never tortured, beaten, or sleep deprived. I was given my own room, a bed with Egyptian cotton sheets, a shower with three shower heads, and fresh clothes delivered to my closet.
Then again, I wasn’t a murderer or a double-crossing mole.
“We made a little more progress after you left, but not enough,” Ciro says. “He claims not to know much about the Rook Syndicate.”
“There's still too fucking much we don’t understand.” Hale takes a sip of his whiskey, grimacing. “Information that we may never know unless we talk directly to Camilla—even then, it’s not like she would be so gracious as to give us a summary of everything she’s been doing over the past several years.”
“What confuses the fuck outta me is that on the outside, she hasn’t been involved,” Lucas adds, annoyance coloring his tone. “From what Leland said, she’s not just part of the Rook syndicate. She’s their fucking leader. They’ve been on our radar for years, but we’ve never even had an inkling that she might be involved. For all we know, Leland could be lying to us, trying to pin the blame on the other syndicate—”
“He isn’t lying,” Hale says firmly. “We can spin ourselves in circles trying to figure it out, but until we have more information, we can’t move on it. The Rooks don’t trust us enough to open a meeting with us, and frankly, I don’t trust them either. All we know about Camilla is that she’s cunning and power-hungry, and that she’s got a vendetta against us and Grace. Until we know why, I’m not doing anything risky.”
He grimaces as he speaks, taking another sip of his drink before standing and striding across the room, his expression tight. I know this isn’t easy for him—his father didn’t leave him a simple job to just pick up. Not only was it made messy by Damian’s untimely death, but also by the fact that there were so many loose ends Damian never had time to tie up. Now all of those knots are left for Hale to untangle.
“What if we use Leland as a double agent?” Ciro says at last, breaking the silence. “Or triple agent, I guess.”
Hale turns around slowly, giving his friend his full attention. My gaze snags on Ciro too, taking in his broad features and serious gray eyes. His blue-black hair is mussed, and blood spatters mar his skin, although I know it’s not his blood.
He shrugs, glancing from his best friend to the twins, and finally to me. “His face is fucked up, but we can give him a cover story to explain that. We can invent some shit he got into—it wouldn’t be the first time one of us got hurt in the line of duty. But we still have enough time to return him to his normal duties without her growing suspicious.”
Which is certainly the biggest concern. If my mom suspects that Leland has been compromised, she’ll be quick to end his life, brutally. Ciro’s suggestion is a bit of a risk, considering we could keep Leland around a little longer, torturing him for more information.
She would find out he’d been compromised eventually, but he’d be safe for now, and there’s a chance we could get more information out of him.
“Yeah. I agree with Ciro.” Zaid gives a short nod. “We need to know more about what Camilla is planning, so why not try to use the only contact we have who’s got access to the inside?”
“We know her moves have been more aggressive lately,” Ciro says, and I almost snort. I’ve overheard the men talking about their trouble with the Rook Syndicate often enough to know that he’s putting it mildly. “We send him in and we find out what she’s planning on doing. What does she want? If she wants to take over Chicago, how does she plan to overthrow the Novak Syndicate? And what does she want Grace for?”
His tone softens a little bit at that last part, and I can feel everyone’s gazes shift to me. I don’t have anything to add to the conversation—good or bad, insightful or a curse—so I keep my mouth shut.
“Grace?” Hale asks, his voice quiet. “What do you think?”
My gaze snaps up to meet his. “It’s not my decision.”
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he pushes. Again, not forcefully. But like he really wants to know.
“I’m thinking that I would love to see Leland Bennett dead,” I say. It’s the truth. More than anything, I’d like to see the person who killed Hale’s father and tried to kill me gone. He deserves it. “But that’s not the logical answer.”
I’ve learned that a lot of things are out of my control, this included. As much as I’d love to eliminate Leland and pretend that doing so would end this all, I know Ciro has a point—Damian’s old captain could still prove useful to us. The guys are leaving the decision up to Hale because he’s the head of their syndicate, and he put the question to me because he knows I’ve been hurt by this man just as much as he has.
Leland worked with Brian and tried to kill me.
He killed Damian.
Hale and I both want him dead.
And if I ask, I have no doubt that Hale will go downstairs right now and put a bullet through his head. For both of us.
But I can’t let him do that.
“If there’s a chance he can give us more information about the Rook Syndicate, about my mother… then it’s worth letting him live.”
Because as long as he’s useful in bringing down my mother, he lives. If the way we bring her down is by playing her at her own fucking game, leaving Leland alive long enough to betray her too, then so be it.
