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Fifty years old but had vast knowledge that served different purposes. That was the only reason I kept him around.
“I'm here for something else.”
The cigar stick dangled lower between clenched teeth as he focused on the cards spread on the table. He flipped a card. “You don't say.”
“I do say, Benjamin.” Another fly buzzed over his head. The newspaper had been discarded but he managed to catch it with a whisk of hand. Again, impressive.
It reminded me of times in the old shack, back in Moscow, when I'd listened to the different sounds of creeping and crawling insects continuously until I mastered each sound and knew how to trace them. And when I did, I smacked the shit out of them.
“And you know what I want…”
He gave me a lazy stare, and after a minute, I finally had his full attention. “It's about the fucking Irish, isn't it? Cian Sullivan?”
A smile formed on my face. “Yes. It's him. I want you to cut his supply.”
“Cut his supply…” Benjamin repeated slowly, looking at me as if I had lost my mind. Maybe I had, but if I did, it was certainly a long time ago, when I decided to never let any fucking idiot trample on me or my family.
“Yes. Cut his supply.”
Folding his arms, he leaned back on the rickety chair, with a brow up. “By half?
“I want you to close the fucking tap, Benjamin. Everything… cut every fucking thing that links the asshole back to you.”
Benjamin didn't bother hiding the frown on his face. It made the wrinkles on his forehead more prominent. “But doing that means making him weak…” his eyes suddenly went bright. “That's the fucking point, isn't it?”
It was.
Cutting off Cian's supply from the best supplier was, in fact, a strategic way to destabilize him and watch him grow weak. It was simply dealing them a big blow that could crumble the entire empire if I hit right, and when they were at their lowest was the exact moment, I was going to strike.
Perplexed, the man placed leaned his flabby arms on the table and shrugged. “But why, Viktor? The peace with O’Sullivan has been kept for almost two months now. Why do you want to strike all of a sudden?”
My reason had a name. Ava.
“They have something I want,” was all I said, and Fedor's voice resurfaced in my head when he'd walked into my office, disrupting my session with some whore called Lydia, to break the news of Dicklan and Ava's engagement.
I was livid. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. And that was what made me even madder. That was the reason I didn't mind visiting Benjamin in his stupid convenient spot. My desire to go to any lengths to get her back was beyond anyone's control. Even mine.
But I had to be smart about it. The Irish empire was powerful, undoubtedly. Going in there to snatch her might have worked, if I was ready to handle the backfires it was going to come with. Taking another route was the best bet, and that meant slowly making them weak until I got what I wanted.
What belonged to me.
I got up and started him down. “Can you get it done?”
“You know I'm your guy, Viktor. Anything for my best client.” He nodded. “But it's going to cost you.”
Smiling, I ambled toward the door with my jacket draped over my arm. “When has money ever been a problem?”
Fedor was waiting by the car, leaning against it with his eyes shut and a cloud of smoke covering his face. When I got to him, his eyes snapped open, and he crushed the stick on the curb. We got into the car, but I could tell something was up with him. He was unusually quiet.
“You're going to make me ask, aren’t you?”
He shot me a glance and exhaled. “You went into that cockroach-infested place to prove a point, didn't you?”
He knew me well.
“It's about the girl. The Irish one.” He turned the wheel, avoiding a truck on the side of the road. “You are going after her still.”
I took my eyes off him, annoyance flickering in my chest like the fluorescent tube light back in Benjamin's office. “It's not like it's any of your fucking business, but yes. I am going after her. I am going to claim her.”
