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She dipped thick slices of bread in an egg, cream, and cinnamon mixture while she considered how she could help. She hated feeling helpless while Lyon was so worried, but this wasn’t a problem that could be fixed by inviting all the wives to brunch or setting up a meeting with Ronan Murphy and the Syndicate.
Although…
She flipped the first pieces of French toast and considered the possibilities.
She could talk to Aksana. Lyon’s mother had come here working with Vadim, had been paid handsomely for worming her way into Lyon’s life and passing along information about him.
She hated the thought of having to talk to the woman — she was a truly vile person and an even worse mother to Lyon — but maybe she could find out something that would help, or worst case, catch Aksana in a lie that might be telling for Lyon.
“What are you plotting?” Zoya asked, pausing in her movements to narrow her eyes at Kira.
“What?” Kira affected an air of innocence. Zoya knew her too well, had seen her through too many years of turmoil and secrets. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just making breakfast.”
31
Lyon turned the cup of coffee in his hands, his mind churning as the sun rose over the city beyond the diner’s windows.
He was grateful for the silence of his companions. Anything they said would be a platitude designed to blunt the truth.
Someone was still out to overthrow the bratva.
He took a drink of the coffee and grimaced. It was quite possibly the worst cup of coffee he’d ever had, bitter and mean on his tongue. Maybe the people who had robbed the diner had done so in retaliation for the terrible coffee.
He stifled a maniacal laugh.
He was tired.
Their waitress, a fifty-something bombshell with curly red hair and a name tag that read Sue, stopped by the edge of the table with the carafe in her hand.
“Get you more coffee?”
“Yes, please,” Markus said, his smile wolfish. He was all of about thirty-five, but Lyon couldn’t blame him for his interest in the blue-eyed beauty.
Sue had been there when the place had been robbed but hadn’t batted an eye when Lyon had arrived with Alek andMarkus, unlike the owner who hadn’t stopped sweating and was still cowering in the kitchen like the thieves might return at any moment.
Lyon wished it would be so easy. At least he’d have a shot at identifying his enemy.
But he already knew they wouldn’t return, certainly not with Lyon, Alek, and Markus occupying a booth in the back — away from the window, just in case — and probably not at all.
If history were any precedent, and it usually was, they’d attack different interests next time — but they would keep coming. After talking to the brigadiers at the warehouse, Lyon could draw no other conclusion but that this had been an intentional assault on the Antonov bratva.
“How about you, hon?”
He looked up to find that Sue was staring at him expectantly, and he wondered how long she’d been waiting.
“No, thank you,” Lyon said.
She nodded and sashayed her way back to the counter where a dignified looking man in a suit and tie was demolishing a stack of pancakes in between gulps of chocolate milk.
“We can’t stop them if we can’t find them,” Lyon said. “And we can’t find them if we can’t identify them.”
“We can assign partners to the drivers,” Markus said. “Armed, of course. And we can assign guards to other high-probability targets — clubs, restaurants…”
“We’d need more men,” Alek said.
“We don’t have them,” Lyon said. He could not — would not — ask Roman Kalashnik or the Syndicate for further help.
“We could get them,” Alek said.
