“They threatened to hurt me.”
“‘They threatened to hurt me,’” I mimicked. “Jesus, do you hear yourself?”
He flushed. “They said they’d cut off my hands!”
“Bullshit. Why would allies do that?” I snagged him by the collar. “You’re a treacherous, duplicitous piece of shit, Brackton. Being your father’s son was enough to protect you before, but Daddy was murdered and you don’t know who paid the tab for that, do you? I can tell you it wasn’t us. That leaves a whole host of enemies gunning foryou.”
His eyes, desperate and full of fear, darted around the room. A mastermind he was not. “Isn’t anyone going to stop him?!”
“Why should we? What do you have to offer us?” Aidan rumbled, hands in his pockets as he propped his ass on the desk and kicked out his legs.
“I don’t know! What do you want from me?”
Luc’s eyes gleamed with triumph. “For you to be our bitch, of course.”
His mouth gaped in horror. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. Deadly. You think the worst we can do to you is cut your hands off?” I barked out a laugh. “You do as you’re told, jump when we say jump, and not only won’t you die but you won’t be poor either.”
I flicked a look at my brother, who steamrolled past the fact I’d derailed this conversation with:
“What return will he see on his investments if he stays true to us, Finn?”
“On top of avoiding tax on his KinoBit stake, there will be a nine percent return on his bonds.”
“Generous.”
“We’re generous people where our allies are concerned.”
Brockton gulped. “I-I’ll help if you sort out my finances and don’t hurt me, but there’s something else I want?—”
“Before you start bartering, you should prove your worth first.”
He blanched then, hilariously, stepped from side to side like my niece did when she had to go potty. “My uncle is the head of the Russian Bratva?—”
“I knew that already. Uninteresting. What else?”
Brackton gulped. “He’s already developing a new establishment to replace the one you took over in Nolita.”
Luc stiffened then, smoothly, prompted, “Tell us more…”
After five minutes of nonstop talking, he managed to piss even the Triads off—the Krestniy Otets had a warehouse earmarked on their turf.
“Is that enough?” the dipshit rasped.
Zhao answered for me, “That’s enough.”
He sagged with relief but only for a handful of seconds before spite twisted his features. “My wife recently went missing. I want you to find her and bring her back to me.”
I arched a brow. “That’s it?”
“That’s a part of it,” Brackton conceded. “I can’t find her. I want her back.”
“Wives aren’t like socks. They don’t go missing unless they choose to be misplaced,” Finn grated out.
Luc lifted a hand. “How about this for a deal, Graham? We’ll find her and ask her if she wants to come back to you.”
“No. I want her here with me,” he snarled, and this time hedidstomp his foot.
