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“What changes if he’s using someone else’s resources to hide?” I ask, trying to figure out how that makes any of it easier.
She bites down on her bottom lip as she stares at me. “Not easier, just two birds, one stone.” I can still sense her hesitancy and I’m getting the feeling more and more that it has to do with me specifically.
I narrow my eyes on her. “Pretty girl, stop worrying about how I’m going to react and spit it out.”
She grimaces but doesn’t respond to me calling her out. I knew I was right. She takes a deep breath before diving into what she’s thinking.
“We need to find Romano and he needs to die. We all know and agree on that. I’m just thinking about the possibility of instead of holding back, we go balls to the walls with everything we have. Hit him everywhere we can. All at once. Tear him down completely and totally with every step of his retaliation. He wants to make a show of strength? Let’s use that to our advantage, show how much stronger we are. We beat him down at every turn. Leave him no choice but to tuck tail and run to the people that are our true targets anyways.”
She pauses to look over us all, but everyone stays quiet. It’s clear we all have questions but want to give her the chance to finish her thoughts before we ask them.
“Instead of wasting time and playing this game of cat and mouse with Romano, we push him into backing off. We wanted to use him to lead us to the men who hurt me, we can still do that. Just cutting out a step. We don’t need him to tell us who they are to lead us to them.”
“How do we use him to track them if he disappears?” Luca asks after several moments of silence.
She rolls her lips as her eyes flash to me. “Well…” she hesitates. I give her a look and her body sags in defeat. “We already know that Declan’s old connections are connected to Romano.”
Ah, now I understand. She was worried about asking me to step back into the role of Declan James. Last heir of the notorious James dynasty. “You want to use my father’s old connections.”
She flinches even though I did my best to keep my tone as even as possible. “Your father did have the photos,” she reminds us all.
“It’s not the worst idea,” I agree. '“Will probably save us some leg work in the long run. Gives us somewhere to start too.”
Luca hums as he contemplates the idea. “I like using Romano to make a strong statement. It solidifies our place in this world. We could use it to put us above everyone else.”
Ryder nods along. “Buys us more security in the long run.”
Scarlett smiles as we all start to see the benefits of going this route.
Kade claps his hands together, his signature grin stretching across his face. “So how do we become the biggest threat that goes bump in the night?”
Surprisingly enough, it’s Noah that answers first. “We hit his safe houses. We just felt the sting of that. We have a long list of Romano’s. He likes fire so much, let’s give it to him then.”
Everyone grins at his words. Even I find myself smiling with the rest of them. There’s a lot more satisfaction to be found in this plan of Scarlett’s.
“If we are careful about what we release,” Scarlett starts slowly, contemplating as she goes, “we can start back in on destroying his business with the data I was able to retrieve. As long as we make sure we don’t piss off the wrong people. Yet.”
We’ve discussed this in the past. We will never stand for the skin markets and always do our best to work against them. But if we are going to keep our foothold in the criminal world, we will never be able to openly stand against it. Too many in our world will rebel against that. It will always have to be kept a secret to keep us safe.
“I think with the right timing we can make a big hit against the skin markets as a whole,” I muse aloud. “Frame it as taking a stand against anyone that is still supporting Romano’s business.”
“When he makes his show of strength,” Scarlett exclaims, a wicked glint in her eyes. “It’ll most likely be an auction.”
“I think we kill all the informants we know about,” Ryder adds. “We know he will only send more, but makes a bigger statement, takes away his safety nets.”
“We should pull Adam back then,” Kade points out.
We spend another half hour going over some of the finer points of putting this new plan into action and discussing what we need to do to protect ourselves. I watch as some of Scarlett’s buzzing energy begins to fade and can see the toll this day is taking on her. It has been a long one.
“Come on, pretty girl,” I call out during a lull in the conversation. “I’m stealing you tonight.”
The other guys flip me off, but I just grin back at them. I know Scarlett and I have more to talk about if we are going to do this. I owe her several secrets.
I lean backagainstthe pillows of my bed as I watch Scarlett undress. Her movements are slow and sensual. I smirk, knowing she’s putting on a show for my sake. Not that I’m ever one to turn down the chance to watch my pretty girl.
The air around us vibrates heavily with the secrets still between us. I’m the biggest hypocrite of us all. For all the times I’ve pushed her to trust us, to open up to us, to give all of herself to each one of us, I’ve been holding so much back.
It’s not that I don’t trust her, or even the others, with my secrets. I just don’t like to think back to that time of my life. I settled the war with my demons a long time ago. I’ve always felt leaving the past in the past was the only option that made sense when it came to my history.
