Leopard's Wrath (Leopard People 11)

He had resumed his pacing, that nervous, pent-up energy, the kind that told him his cat was as needy as he was for his female, and as anxious about her safety as he was. “The question here that’s important is, was anything written down that could possibly link us together? All of us sitting here at this table? And did they have proof?”

Technically he wasn’t sitting there—and it was deliberate. The others would put it down to his leopard and his female’s heat, but it was because he trusted his cousins—and no one else. He was the newest member to ascend to the throne of crime boss. He’d taken over Patrizio Amodeo’s territory after Fyodor had killed the man for attacking Evangeline.

He was acutely aware of Ania upstairs in his bed. Alone. She was exhausted and hurting. She needed him and yet he had to be downstairs, conducting bullshit business with others he was uncertain of. In Russia, he might have killed them all and gone straight from a bloodbath to soothe his woman. Hopefully, he was long past that. Evolving. That’s how he thought of himself, but he knew better. He was the killer his father had shaped him into. It took discipline to hold himself in check. He was determined that he would work on strengthening that discipline every single day, so he would never become what his father wanted him to be.

“Absolutely not,” Jake said. “That would be madness. There is no trail leading from us to any of you other than our friendships. Men make alliances all the time. Drake has made it clear that he moves between both worlds because he needs the information and good graces of the various families. Those of you sitting at the table are not the only families he’s friends with, and that’s very deliberate. As for me, I’m known to be Drake’s friend. I am known to associate with men who live and work in the shadows. No one has ever questioned who I become friends with.”

“Someone appears to be questioning it,” Fyodor said. “And they’ve clearly worked and lived around you. There must be damning evidence in that notebook for them to want it so badly.”

Jake shook his head. “There’s not anything concrete, that I can guarantee. They may have suspicions, but half the world is suspicious of what I do.”

“Jake.” Drake spoke quietly. “These people are willing to wipe out an entire family to retrieve that notebook. There has to be something in it. Why not make another copy and send that, or use an electronic version? The Dovers are well-known and off-limits. Whoever killed that family has made enemies if it ever comes out. And that’s another thing. They have to be very powerful not to have a whisper of this on the streets. Your family could be in jeopardy. Mine. Joshua’s. Certainly, Mitya’s is. All of us in this room have a stake in this.” He switched his gaze to Mitya. “Do you have the notebook? Does Ania?”

Mitya kept his face an expressionless mask and his body relaxed. Deep inside, knots twisted in his gut. “No. If I had the damn thing, I would know what the problem was and who was coming at us.” He rubbed the annoying five-o’clock shadow he could get five minutes after shaving. “My best guess is someone became suspicious of Jake and for whatever reason began watching him. What is it that you’ve done that could make someone take a hard look at you?”

“I target companies that launder money,” Jake said. “I buy them up and destroy them, which eventually strangles those needing to launder money.” He shrugged. “I’ve been doing it for years. Drake just helped me focus more sharply on the companies that are suspect.”

Joshua drummed his fingers on the table. “That’s the tie-in, Jake. Before Drake, you probably randomly chose companies to take apart. Now you specifically target mob companies.”

“I don’t make mistakes like that,” Jake denied. “I make certain to do both.”

“If one of your trusted guards is a traitor, could he have overheard a conversation between you and Drake? Something he could note down and show at a later date?” Joshua persisted.

“That’s always a possibility,” Jake admitted. “But that would be like you believing Evan betrayed you, or Sevastyan, Mitya. Would you believe Timur would betray Fyodor? You have to put things in perspective. I trust Trey and Jerico. They’ve been with me for some time now and worked with Drake before that.”

“No one wants to believe someone they care about would betray them, but my own father and my uncles betrayed us. My father had Gorya’s father killed. All for what? And then there’s Joshua’s father. In this room, all of us have seen betrayal by the people we love. It is a sad fact of life, especially in the life we’ve chosen,” Mitya said. “We have a problem and we don’t know how deep it’s gone. If we can’t find the notebook, we have no idea who our enemies are.”