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35
Lancelot
Corbin glanced around, frowning. “Where’s Tony?”
“They took him too, or he ran off, or…” I sank onto the couch and dropped my head into my hands. “I don’t know.”
Corbin sat beside me and wrapped an arm around me. “We’ll find them both.”
I wanted to believe that, but the odds of them both being alive weren’t great.
The doorbell rang, and I looked up to see Henri ushering in Ambrose and Remington.
“Did it work?” Corbin asked.
Ambrose grinned. “Have you ever known me to fail?”
Corbin shook his head, and Dax laughed. “We got them. We’re ready to proceed.”
“Got who? What are you talking about?” Anger filled me. Julian was somewhere, maybe hurt, maybe… and Remington was just going on with business and leaving me out of the loop.
“Calm down.” Corbin laid a hand on my arm.
“Fuck no.” I shoved him away. “Julian’s out there. We need to find him. We’ve got to move on this.”
Remington held up his hand. “Thanks to Ambrose, we now have leverage. I’m about to make a call to Valentino and demand a meeting. We’re going to negotiate, and we’re going to get Julian back.
“What kind of leverage?”
Ambrose grinned. “The kind that involves knowing where the bodies are hidden and knowing how to jeopardize their most lucrative business.”
“The drugs?”
“They’re running that shit through the swamp,” Ambrose said. “I found some of the links in their supply chain. They may think they’re going to expand their power base, but they’ve got no fucking clue how to destroy evidence.”
“So we’re going to threaten to turn them in?”
Remington shook his head. “No, they’re old school. They live by rules and codes like we do. We won’t involve the police. I’ll tell them I’m going to call their competition and Martin Valdez, their South American supplier. He’s not a man who has patience with associates who fuck things up.”
This was great. Even the Carlottis would be wary of Valdez. “You’ve been working on this, and you didn’t tell me.”
Dax nodded. “You wanted to focus on taking care of Julian, so Ambrose and I focused on this. Remington wanted to be part of the final steps today.”
I looked at my brother. “Don’t tell me you went out in the swamp?”
“I do what I need to when our family’s safety is at risk.”
“You think he’ll agree to a meeting?”
“He doesn’t have any choice. I’ll demand Julian’s return, and he’ll comply.”
“And the necklace? I have access to the replica.”
“What? Did you—”
“I didn’t steal it. I convinced the museum director to give it to me.”
Remington closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Fine. Give them the replica. That was too risky when we had to use the necklace as our primary bargaining chip, but now we’ll give them the fake and return their piece of shit cousin alive. That’s the only concession they get.”
“And you think they’ll go for it?”
“I’m going to have to sell it hard.”
I shook my head. “Not you. Me. I fucked up. I got us deeper into this. It’s my fault Julian was ever involved, and I’m going to fix things.”
“These men aren’t going to fall for any of your antics. They—”
“I can handle this. I need to handle this.”
Remington held my gaze, and my heart raced as I waited for his response. I couldn’t sit still and watch someone else negotiate for Julian’s life. It had to be me.
He laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I trust you.”
My heart stuttered, and my knees threatened to buckle. “You do?”
Remington nodded. “I do. We don’t approach things the same way, but while you might break something in the process, you always sort it out in the end.”
“I won’t break anything this time.” Unless we somehow got the advantage and I could break the fucking necks of the men who’d taken Julian. I wanted blood, but I was going to have to be satisfied with a truce for now.
When Remington returned from making his call, his expression was grim. My heart slammed against my chest much too fast. If I stood up, I’d likely fall over.
“What did he say?” Dax asked.
“He agreed to the meeting, but it wasn’t easy to get him there. He tried to brush off the seriousness of the information we have, but the more details I gave, the faster he talked. He’s nervous.”
“He damn well better be nervous,” Ambrose said. “I don’t bluff, and I know exactly how to get the message where it needs to go.”
I had no doubt he did. My cousin might be a recluse, but that didn’t mean his information network wasn’t top-notch.
“Then what’s the problem?” I asked.
“He wants the meeting to be one-on-one. Our representative and him.”
“No way will that bastard show up without backup.”
Remington nodded. “I told him that was unacceptable, that I wasn’t foolish enough to come to him on my own.”
