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Lyon forced himself to remain calm. “I wish you’d told me it was an assumption, Ivan. You made it sound like an inevitability.”
“I’m sorry, Lyonya.” The sound of his full name coming from Ivan made Lyon think of his father. His father had never called him Lyon. “I am working on it. Give me a little time.”
“I’ve been exiled,” Lyon said. “Time isn’t something I have.”
“And yet it is the only way I will be able to resolve this,” Ivan said. “What of Musa? You said he came to the lake house?”
Lyon sighed. “Blew through like a hurricane, destroyed my shit, threatened my wife.”
“But you are still alive. That is something,” Ivan said.
“Yes, but only because the Spies haven’t put out a contract on me yet.”
“I will work the Spies.” Ivan’s voice was soothing. “Take this as an opportunity to lay low.”
Laying low wasn’t possible while Lyon was at war. Control of the bratva would be decided by those fighting in the arena, not those in hiding, but he sensed he’d come to the end of the assistance Ivan could offer him on the matter.
“Work them fast,” Lyon said. “We don’t have much time.”
“Of course. I’ll be in touch,” Ivan said.
Lyon slipped the phone into the pocket of his jeans and looked up at the sky. The stars stood out in sharp relief, a blanket of shattered glass shimmering in an inky sky. He looked at the boat in the middle of the lake and envied them their view, wondered if their life was as simple as it looked from afar.
Probably not. Nothing was truly simple.
He let himself sink into the stillness of the lake, the whisper of the wind in the trees, the lapping of the water. Sometimes working a problem wasn’t useful. Sometimes the best thing to do was to let the answers arise in the stillness of one’s mind.
He didn’t know how long he sat there before the knowledge came to him. One minute his mind was blank, and the next, he saw his next move.
He rose to his feet and made his way back down the dock to the house. He needed to act quickly. Musa had the advantage of being in Chicago, of being in the bratva’s good graces.
That put Lyon in check. His next move would be crucial.
He found Alek and Kira in the living room, nursing what looked like a fresh pour of the bourbon Kira had found in the kitchen. They looked up when he entered.
“Let’s move out,” he said.
“Are we going back to Chicago?” Kira asked.
“No,” Lyon said. “We’re going to New York City.”
