I need to think more like Dad, and Aron needs to soften up a bit.
“Okay … We have another day and a half, roughly, until Enzo delivers Mom and Emily. Right?”
“Roughly.” His tone is guarded, cautious.
I sit up, putting a hand to my head as the room starts to spin. “We need to think about this from Dad’s point of view.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“I love you, Aron, but no, it’s not. You’re thinking from Aron’s point of view. We need to look at what crimes Emily and Mom have committed against the Syndicate as a whole, not against us personally.”
“Well, Lucinda—I mean, she—The car bomb … and my dad …”
“Uh huh. She left, which is not really unallowed, though it was a dirty, underhanded way to do it. She also remarried, which may be a crime in God’s eyes and a crime against my dad, but not the Syndicate. Next crime.”
Aron frowns, brow furrowed, deep in thought. “Lucinda had you kidnapped.”
I shake my head. “No. That was all Jules’s dumb idea. He thought it would make Mom happy to bring me in, so he did. Besides, that still counts as a personal affront. Next crime.”
“What about the original attacks on the Syndicate? I’m sure Lucinda had a hand in that.”
“Maybe she helped orchestrate them, but Javier and his lackeys actually set off the bombs. There’s no evidence that Mom did anything more than egg him on.” I hold up a hand and startcounting on my fingers. “Conspiracy. I’ll give you that, for now. That’s one. Name another.”
“There’s Emily,” he says with a bitter edge.
He’s still not getting it. “That’s not a Syndicate-level crime. That’s a personal crime. We’re the rulers of the Syndicate, so we’ve got to rewire our brains to think like rulers of the Syndicate. Next crime.”
Aron groans and sits up with me, leaning back against the headboard. “Fine. We’ll say Lucinda is clean—for now. Let’s move on to Emily.”
“Great. First crime.”
“She … she …” His voice trails off, and I watch as realization flows across his handsome features. “Fuck. She hasn’t done anything directly against the Syndicate that I’m aware of. It was all Dad’s orders. Or mine.” He hangs his head and runs his hand through his dark, thick hair. “She didn’t even hurt me when they first had me captive. She left the Syndicate, just like your mom did, and she aligned with Javier, but she didn’t actively act against the organization.”
I rub Aron’s back as he puts his head in his hands. The weight of authority isn’t easy to bear, and I think it’s only just hitting him how heavy it is.
“I ordered Enzo to kidnap two essentially innocent people,” he blurts out.
“From the standpoint of the Syndicate, yes.” And it’s too late now to undo that order, but … “We can still salvage this, Aron. We just need to put our heads together and think.”
“I hate that you’re so fucking logical when you’re shitfaced.”
That actually summons a real laugh from me. “Listen, what orders did you give Enzo?Exactly.”
“Kidnap Lucinda and Emily. Hold them captive for a day or two, then report back.”
“You didn’t order him to rough them up or anything?”
Aron shakes his head. “Nope. Just observe and report, maybe a little psychological warfare. You know, threats and the like. I was hoping one of them would start talking while they were held hostage. Give us some useful information. If not, well … I was just going to kill them myself, anyway. Anything they said in their defense while being held would have been irrelevant.”
“We should probably call off the hits on them,” I muse. “It’s really not sporting of us to put such high prices on their heads, given this.”
“You know that’s going to look bad, especially when you just called off a massive attack on the Empire. People will think we lack conviction.” Aron huffs out a heavy breath of air. “This is so fucked up. How did Tito do it?”
Leaning my shoulder against Aron’s, I rest my head on his with a sigh. “He did it better than the two of us, that’s for sure.”
“Do you think this makes us too soft for this job?”
“What makes us soft?”
