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I had to hand it to Crow. He knew how to hustle pretty damn well.
Rush raised an eyebrow. “No one could pull that off.”
Crow turned back to them. “I already have men in Hungary, Russia, and Romania, your main ports of operation. I know you funnel the women through those channels. If I pay the right money and tell the right people, your entire operation will be undermined. I’ll retrieve every woman you sell, distribute all your secrets to your enemies, tell all the authorities where you auction your women. This income is easy for you to streamline, and all I’ll have to do is interrupt the food chain. Yes, I can pull it off, asshole.”
I tried not to grin.
It was the first time I’d ever seen Rush speechless.
Crow didn’t blink. “So, do we have a deal?”
Tony glanced at Rush before he nodded. “If every cent is put in our account, then yes, we have a deal.”
“Good.” Crow turned back to the laptop, typed in the information, and then hit the enter button. He stared at the screen and waited for the funds to be transferred. It took almost a full minute for the transfer to go through because of the size of the funds. When it was completed, he turned back to Rush. “Check it.”
Rush pulled out his phone and logged in to his account. “It’s there.”
Crow immediately packed up his laptop into the bag. “It’s been a pleasure.” Like nothing happened at all, he turned his back to Rush and Tony and walked out, leaving his back exposed as he left the Underground.
I stayed behind, wanting to make sure this was really settled. “Sounds like a fair trade.”
Tony looked at Rush’s phone before he met my gaze. “He paid up. That’s all that matters.”
“We’ve got more important things to do than chase him around,” Rush said in agreement. “Let the Barsettis disappear. They must be scared of us if they paid us all that money.”
“And you must be scared of him,” I reminded them. “As you should be.”
We didn’t say a word to one another until we were outside of Milan. The light shone in the rearview mirror, and then we were on an empty road leading to the south of Italy. Crow kept up his indifferent persona, like he wasn’t relieved that the tense confrontation was now behind him.
When we were far away and certain no one was following us, the conversation began.
“They won’t be a problem,” I said. “They’re happy with what they got and ready to move on to the next thing.”
“That’s the impression I got too.”
“And you said all the right things. Defused the situation without sounding like a pussy.”
He looked out the window. “Not my first time.”
“It just sucks that you’re out that much cash…it was a lot.”
“I don’t care about the money,” he said honestly. “I’m just glad this is over. I’m grateful my son can have his child without looking over his shoulder, that my wife isn’t scared about our kids. And besides, Conway and Carter are paying back every single dime. I cleaned up their mess, but I won’t pay for it.”
I grinned. “That’s fair.”
It was late into the night, so Crow rested his head against the window and closed his eyes. “I know I should call my wife, but I don’t want to. She’ll cry…I hate listening to her cry.”
“She didn’t cry when you left.”
“She always tears up when I tell her I’m okay,” he said quietly. “She holds her breath the entire time I’m gone, and once I’m back, she releases all her pain. Instead of feeling it at the beginning, she feels it at the end. Her tears don’t annoy me, they just hurt. I hate it when she hurts.”
I understood that feeling all too well. I pulled out my phone and called Vanessa, my elbow resting on the windowsill. She answered before the first ring finished.
“Are you both okay?” she blurted, breathing hard like she’d been marching around the apartment with her phone clutched tightly in her hand.
“Yes. Both of us.”
“Oh…” She breathed into the phone, her eyes probably closed as she stood in the middle of the living room. “Thank god. I’m so happy to hear that…you have no idea. I haven’t been able to sleep. I’ve just been staring at my phone all night.”
I felt the same pain Crow described, feeling like shit for scaring her. “We just left Milan. We’ll be home in a few hours.”
“And it went well?” she asked with hesitation.
“It went better than I expected. They took the money. There were a few bumps and some hostilities, but your father handled it well. We both parted on good terms. They stopped thinking about us the second we walked out…which was what we wanted.”
“Good…I’m relieved. When will you be home?”
“Not for at least five hours. I’ve got to drop your father off first.”
