“We want to make sure their business disappears,” Eian corrects him. “Kidnapping him is out of the question, and killing him is a last resort.”
I say the one possibility I think will work.
“We have to find evidence and convince the right people to go after him.”
“But we get to deal with Lucian, right?” Rory demands, looking right at Eian, and to my surprise, he doesn’t answer right away.
“Cecilia said she’d deal with her brother on her own when Marco dies,” he says at last. “I’d need to speak with her, explain all of this, and I don’t trust her to not pick up where Lucian leaves off once she gets rid of him.”
“But she’d have to if she wants to join the circle with Aslanov, Chen, Di Leo, and Ricci.” Rory’s clearly thinkingabout the big picture here. “Do you trust them enough to tell them?”
“If I want to stop anyone from coming after us, then I’ll have to at least trust Aslanov and Chen.” Finally, his tough guy facade breaks as he sighs heavily. “I can ask them to meet tonight, and then they can weigh in, but Cecilia and the Di Leo bastard want to take over the three families, make one big organization. That’s a problem for after all of this is done.” He waves that away with his hand.
“And we’d need Lucian to tell us everything about the operation so we can shut it down,” Seamus adds. “Do you think she’ll really give up her brother?”
Eian shrugs. “There’s no way to know for sure but I think so, yes.”
“What if...” I start, then trail off. I’m not sure if my idea’s stupid or not.
“Speak,” Eian commands sharply.
“The first thing you need to do is tell Cecilia she needs to deliver her brother, or give you enough information to get Lucian, then you go to Aslanov and Chen, tell them everything, get them on the same page. If you three force the Italians—all of them—to either give up Lucian or face you, then they’d have to bend, right?”
“Yes.” He nods for me to go on.
“Cecilia can fight about her place in the families however she wants, but if you take out Lucian after you’ve done all that, then none of them can tell any of Lucian’s men. They all have to know about Brent, or at least some of them. If they go to him while you’re interrogating Lucian, then this all goes to shit anyway.”
“What if we make Ricci and Di Leo take care of Lucian’s men? They would know who they are better than we do,” Rory throws out.
“Do you think you can find all the men who work for Lucian specifically?” Eian asks Seamus.
He shrugs in answer.
“It’s not like it’s a registered business, but I can trace phone calls once I have Lucian’s number.”
“Okay, do you have one of those burner phones you tweaked?”
“Yeah, I have a bag of them.” Seamus goes to what I assume is his office and comes back with an honest to god flip phone. “Here.”
“Mac, Duffy...” Eian offers them the phone. “Find Cecilia and put this in her purse without her noticing.”
“Yes, Boss.” Mac grabs the phone.
“I’ll go see if I can find where she is through her social media or something,” Seamus says absentmindedly, thenall three of them leave the room. Mac and Duffy leave altogether I think.
“Blake, you’re driving Rory and me to the meeting tonight, but I need you to sweep the building before I even make the call.”
“Got it.” He nods and stands to leave as Eian turns to me.
“What am I going to do?” I want to dosomething.
“You can’t go to the meeting.” I reel back from the finality.
“But what if?—”
“This isn’t up for debate, Colby. I don’t want Chen or Aslanov getting a good look at you, and if they find out I had a lookout, they’re gonna take that as an offense, so you’re sitting this one out.”
Rory stands and very awkwardly pats my back.
