“Staff Sergeant,” Danner corrected automatically, voice louder as he came into the office. “And I’ve delivered on all of my promise, Irina. You’ve been left alone to your disgusting devices for years. I’m only asking you now to rein it in or relocate because you’re drawing notice from other task forces.”
“You let me worry about those, hmm? You just focus on keepin’ your lovely boys away from my site and keeping The Fallen occupied.”
There was a long pause, but no movement. Finally, Danner sighed. “You said there’d be a bonus in it, if I got rid of Garro.”
“Yes, I did, didn’t I? I thought it would cut the head off the snake so to speak, but I think not. You better take care of a few more of those men, Sergeant, or their wives, whatever will break them the fastest.”
Fuck.
My heart thundered against my ribs, a caged man locked up in a burnin’ room beggin’ to get free. But I had to lie there, lie there and listen as they spoke about offing one of my brothers, one of our women.
Danner hesitated, sighing then slumping audibly in his office chair.
“You’re asking a lot of me, Irina. By the end of it, I won’t be able to stay in Entrance, let alone keep my badge.”
“Oh dulzura, don’t you worry about that, hmm? I’m sure we can make something work.”
“Cressida Irons is marryin’ Garro’s son soon. She’s an option, and obviously Loulou Garro and her twins,” he said slowly, the words draggin’ as he thought of the implications. “Those bastards would do anything for those two or Harleigh Rose Garro.”
“The one dating your son,” Irina said slyly.
“He’s no son of mine anymore.”
“Good, good, well, I’ll leave it in your very capable hands, Sergeant.”
“I do this…I need a bigger cut of the profits.”
A rattling silence like the warnin’ before the strike of a snake.
“Do you?” Irina purred.
“Twenty percent.”
She laughed delightedly. “Oh, what balls you have! And what greed.”
“Got nothing to live for now but myself if my wife doesn’t come back, so I don’t see why I wouldn’t live it rich.”
“Yes, that’s fair.” She laughed again, softer this time, just to herself. “Well, if you bring me one of the girls or those babies, I’m sure we can figure something out.”
* * *
We got out easy.
Danner let Irina go then fucked around for a while before he got a call and left. I lay crampin’ in that bench seat ruminatin’ on everythin’ they’d said.
It was hard not to feel fuckin’ hopeless.
Wasn’t the kind of man to take anythin’ lyin’ down, but what the fuck was I supposed to do? Newly patched in, freshly crowned, and I didn’t have a fuckin’ clue.
We couldn’t kill Danner without one or more of us going to prison and it wouldn’t absolve Zeus guilt and so he’d continue to rot there too.
We could turn Paula and the rookie, got no doubt about that, but toward what end? Couldn’t put a brother on every single woman in the club so they didn’t get fucked by the cops of the Ventura’s, not forever.
There wasn’t anythin’ I wouldn’t do to keep my people safe. Family were the ones who made your life worth livin’, yet the only people you would gladly die for.
We emerged from the hidin’ places twenty minutes after Danner left and ghosted outta the apartment. Bat’s pale face was paler, eyes dark and haunted in his face, while Curtains couldn’t keep still for the reckless, nervous energy thrummin’ through him.
We all knew now just how far Danner would take his vendetta against the club.
He wanted war, and I knew the brothers wanted to give it to him, but I hesitated.
Even faced with the death of my loved ones, I hesitated.
No.
Because I was faced with the death of my loved ones, I balked at the idea of war and all its nay casualties.
I kept comin’ back to the principles of Machiavelli in The Prince, one quote ringin’ out louder than all the rest.
“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it's impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”
I knew The Fallen has the strength to suffer, we’d done it before with Zeus imprisoned, Mute murdered, and Harleigh Rose abused and nearly lost to us.
We could do it again.
But at what cost?
What if there was a steeper price to pay, but only one had to pay it?
And shouldn’t the man to pay that toll be me? The leader, however temporary, of his people?
I sat in the back of the van and then kept relatively quiet in Church at the compound when Bat relayed the news and Priest reported, covered in other men’s blood, that the rookie and Paula had agreed to turn on Danner. I kept quiet, as the quiet man thinks, and when I went home to Cressida at the end of the night, mornin’ breachin’ the crust of the earth and spillin’ through the streets of my gorgeous home, I had the seeds of a plan sown in my soul.