“I’d rather see him dead. Or at the very least, in prison.”
“Prison isn’t always the best solution for my associates,” King replied dryly.
“Right. How do you want to work it, then?”
“We could have him arrested,” Kael mused. “And arrange for an accident as soon as he’s in custody. Hands clean, no risk of dirty laundry being aired.” King and I were quiet, letting him sort through the possibilities in his head. Kael was a tactician. He had a way of seeing every angle, how every potential might play out, and planning for it. “All right, then,” he said finally. “Yes. I have a man in the FBI. We’ll set him up. We’ll arrange a drop where Brodie here shows him a video of Emery being killed to relax him, make him happy, make him pay the remainder.”
“Hold up, now…Emery being killed?”
“Relax. It’ll be a well-done fake.” He paused and stepped to the door, shouting for Shannon. “Fix the coat in the storeroom with a blood pack, please, then give it to Liam.” Shannon left to do as commanded. “Brodie will wear a wire so the feds will know what’s happening. Once money changes hands, they’ll enter and take him.”
“And then your man will make sure he doesn’t last the length of the transport.”
“Exactly.”
“Set it up,” King said, rising from his desk and moving to a cabinet against the far wall. “We’ll do the girl now.” What the hell did he mean, do the girl? My question was answered a moment later when he turned and placed a gun in my hand. I raised my eyes from the gun to King. “Blanks,” he said. “The coat Shannon’s fixing will have a blood pack. We’ll take her out in the alley and give her a coat to keep her warm…the impact will burst it, make it appear as though she was truly shot. But son…” He gripped my shoulder. “You can’t tell her what we’re doing. It has to look real, and that girl may think she’s a closed book, but her face is a megaphone.”
I looked back at the gun. “So you want me to make her think I’m going to kill her.” He was right, damn him. I could read Emery’s every emotion without her even aware that she was broadcasting. She’d never be able to pretend the outrage, the hurt, thefearthat would be necessary to convince our audience. “Why me?”
A cold smile touched King’s lips, and in it I read all the irritation and anger and frustration he’d held in reserve. “Because it will make you sweat, and her fear greater.”
Understanding this didn’t make it any easier. I wiped my hand across the back of my mouth and bit off a curse. “Let’s get this over with, then.”
