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“You want to make a deal with the bratva?” Hawk said.
“The Feds do it all the time. Why not us?” Logan asked.
“What are you proposing?”
“I approach Lyonya Antonov, offer to have the murder case dropped if he gets rid of Yakov Vitsin. That gives him something to trade with Baranov in exchange for a bigger role in the organization.”
Hawk shook his head. “No way will Gabriella agree to that. She’s out for blood, now more than ever.”
“That’s a wrinkle,” Logan admitted. He’d thought of little else, knowing how important Gabriella’s job was to her, knowing how ambitious she’d always been.
Letting the bratva off the hook for Bayard Owen’s murder after everything they’d done? Impossible to imagine.
On the other hand, her son had been kidnapped, and that was the most powerful motivator in the world.
“A wrinkle?” Hawk repeated.
“It’s not that different from a plea,” Logan said. “Baranov takes care of Vitsin internally and guarantees Gabriella and Leo’s safety forever. In exchange, Gabriella moves to drop the murder charge. Thing is, Baranov might take Vitsin out anyway now that it looks like this thing is really going to trial, which means Gabriella wouldn’t have a defendant. She might as well get something out of the situation.”
“You can dress it up however you want,” Hawk said. “She’ll never go for it.”
“I would have agreed with you three weeks ago. Now? I think it’s worth a shot,” Logan hesitated, almost afraid to say the next thing. “I can go, scope it out, see if it’s even an option before we present it to Gabriella.”
Hawk sighed. “She’s going to be so pissed if she finds out you went behind her back.”
“I know, but she’s more likely to agree if there’s a deal on the table. Then it’s real. She has to consider it.”
“I’ll defer to you on this one,” Hawk said. “You have more at stake than I do.”
Logan nodded. “I’ll reach out to Ronan Murphy.” Murphy had recently taken over the Chicago territory for the Syndicate, the bratva’s Italian counterpart. Imperium had worked with Murphy in the past, when he’d been running an assassin-for-hire outfit in Boston with his brothers. “He’ll know how to get word to Antonov without tipping off Vitsin.”
Hawk stood. “It’s your funeral.”
Hawk wasn’t talking about the bratva, but that didn't change anything.
Logan was all too aware that he was risking his relationship with Gabriella. But if it came down to her love or her life, Leo’s life, Logan would choose their lives every time, even if meant letting them go.
31
Gabriella smiled and laughed her way through Laurel’s baby shower, amazed by the family Hawk and Logan had amassed in her absence. Most of them weren’t blood, but there could be no doubt how much they cared about Logan and Hawk, and about each other.
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but not the mix of men and women laughing and talking while music played softly in the background, a handful of children running through Hawk’s house and across his lawn.
It had taken a half hour to introduce her to everyone, and she’d spent a long time after that catching up with Sarah, Hawk’s mom, who had always been good to her when they were kids.
Hawk’s house had been a surprise too. She’d seen it when it was profiled in Architectural Digest, but then it had been sleek and sterile, a mostly glass box outfitted with glossy marble, steel, and black leather.
Now Gabriella noted the plants that rested on countertops, shelves, and side tables, the patterned throw pillows that adorned the leather sofa, the cashmere blanket draped across the back of it.
Laughter caught her attention and she followed the sound to the tall blond woman standing in the kitchen.
Laurel Bancroft had been a surprise too. Gabriella hadn’t known much about the reclusive heiress other than what she’d read in magazines, but the heiress part had seemed to say it all. It had made sense: Hawk had always been a striver, and Laurel came from Hollywood royalty.
But as soon as Gabriella saw them together she’d felt ashamed. Hawk was clearly head over heels in love with her, and she looked up at him with naked adoration that shone from kind green eyes.
Gabriella had expected Hawk to be with someone like him, someone ambitious and driven, a conquerer. Instead, Laurel had softened him. She walked barefoot through his perfectly designed home, told the kids not to worry when they spilled, waved away any suggestion that guests should take off their shoes.
It should have made Hawk crazy, but he just smiled, agreeing with everything she said like someone had bodysnatched the real Hawk McGregor.
