Doc frowns. “Why?”
Apparently, I do need to tell someone. “You think the girl will let us touch her once her sister is dead?”
“We’re not the ones killing the bitch!”
“No, Parker is. And we’ll be responsible for exacerbating the situation with Parker.”
Doc swivels his head from side to side as though looking for a way around this. “I don’t want to be a scumbag, but by that logic, January’s Zia died because of us…” Doc does a quick sign of the cross. “…and January was still giving me sex eyes this morning. I’m not saying Iwanther sister to die, but—”
“Her Zia was old,” I snap. “She smoked heavily. I imagine January accepted her time was coming sooner rather than later. Her sister on the other hand—”
“Is twenty-four,” Bobby finishes. “January’ll never forgive us if she knows we could have done something to save Margot.”
Doc’s face hardens. “We’ve all lost people to Parker. People who should still be alive now.”
“Then you shouldn’t want January to go through that!” Bobby glares at him. “There’s being a selfish prick and there’s what you’re suggesting Valente. It’s beyond the fucking pale.”
Doc looks to me. “Option three?”
“We contact January’s stepmother—”
“That cunt,” Doc says darkly. “I wish Parker wanted to shoot her. Talk about two birds, one stone.”
“We contact January’s stepmother,” I say loudly, “And tell her to take her children into hiding. To relocate somewhere until we can gain access to Parker and kill him.”
“That won’t work,” Bobby says glumly. “That woman wants Parker to marry January. She’d sell us out as soon as we hung up the phone.”
“Exactly,” I say. “And she’s already traded one stepdaughter to get out of debt. Who’s to say she’d be moved by a threat on another. So, there’s option four; as discussed, we send a team to Vegas to infiltrate Palm Casino.”
“But we know that’s a suicide mission,” Bobby says. “We don’t have the manpower to stage an assassination while he’s on red alert.”
“Agreed. Which brings us to option five.” I drum my fingertips on the table.
“What is it?” Doc demands.
I open my mouth and find the words won’t come. My heart is hammering against my rib cage. The solution arrived as I paced the rose garden at sunrise, so obvious it was impossible to see it before. There is one way to keep January, save her family, and end the conflict with Parker, but it will take everything the four of us have. Doc, Bobby, Adriano, and myself. Everything we’ve worked for and fought for since we were teenagers. But when the alternative is January Whitehall dead, raped, or broken into a million pieces, thereisno alternative. The others, Bobby and Doc want her too. They’ll have to understand. I inhale. “Option five, the only viable option I can see, is a contract.”
Doc stands so quickly his chair topples back. “A contract? You can’t… A fuckingcontract?”
Bobby presses his palms over his eyes. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s the only—”
“No.” Doc says. “Never. I’ll go to Vegas and kill him myself. That’s our option. I’ll leave now, I’ll be back by tomorrow.”
“No you won’t,” I say. “I’m sorry, I really am, but we don’t have time to wallow in groundless emotions. Both of you need to listen. Parker is insane, and his resources are almost bottomless. I want him dead, I want him dead more than anything, but revenge is no longer a viable—”
“It is because I’ll kill him.” Doc picks up his chair and slams it back into the ground. “I’ll kill him in Vegas.”
“You’ll be shot through the head as soon as you get on the strip. We almost lost Adriano, I am not losing you,idiota del cazzo. Sit and listen.”
“Fuck you! Fuck you and fuck Adriano. It’s his fault we’re in this shit.”
“Agreed. But here we are. We need to play the hand that’s been laid in front of us.”
Doc tosses his chair into the wall. It crashes to the floor with a splintering crunch. “God fucking damn it!”
Neither Bobby or I move.
