“And the ledger?” Fiorenzo asked as he quietly reentered and returned to his seat. “We could go after it again. Send more men this time.”
“It’s already going to be used against us,” I said. “We don’t need it back in our hands to have to keep following it. I remember enough of what’s inside to keep playing hard ball for now. Bringing the book back here only gives Roman another chance to get a look if someone gets sloppy and fumbles it again.”
I tapped a finger lightly on the table and jerked my chin at the still bleeding corpse in the room.
“Roman,” I said. “That’s where the pressure belongs. That’s where we direct our focus.”
Yashida inclined his head. “He’s building a new monument to himself at the end of that strip,” he said. “Casino. Hotel. High-profile. High-risk. We burn his future. Destroy his hopes. That will send a statement.”
I smiled slowly. “We drown him in the water he thought was watching his back,” I said.
“That’s loud,” Nico said. “Very loud. We hit it while it’s still a skeleton or wait until the glass is up?”
“Skeleton,” Yashida said. “Less public casualties. Less uncontrolled chaos. More insult. You kill a man’s dream while it’s still halfway built, you show him you were inside it before the walls were even finished. It’s like a home invasion. It takes away that sense of security. Replaces it with a deep-seeded fear.”
Isabella shifted in her chair, interest sharpening. “And how do you plan on getting his eyes there?” sheasked.
My mind was already there.
“Vladimir,” I said.
Three heads turned. Yashida didn’t look surprised. Isabella’s mouth curved. Nico blinked once.
“Roman’s Russian,” I went on. “The one we’ve been feeding from. He’s in charge of that build day to day. Concrete. Wiring. Design meetings. Roman trusts him with the bones and the curtains. All the domestic shit the old man pretends he doesn’t care about.”
I took a sip of my drink finally.
“Vladimir will call the family in,” I said. “Tell Roman’s wife they want her opinion on the ‘family suites.’ On the restaurant that’ll carry her vineyard’s name on the wine list. Tell the daughter there’s a private floor dedicated to her favorite retailers. Make it sound like a tribute. Roman likes to let them feel like they have a say in the pretty parts. Vladimir knows exactly which words to use; he’s been watching those dinners for years.”
Nico frowned. “Seems… risky,” he said. “Getting them all in one place. Roman’s not stupid. He might smell something’s up.”
“That’s why Vladimir does it,” I said. “If the Russian says jump, Roman asks how high the concrete should be poured underneath.” I smiled thinly. “The old man thinks having one foreigner at his table makes him cosmopolitan instead of compromised.”
Yashida nodded slowly. “We use Vladimir to gather the family at the site. Then we strike,” he said. “Construction makes for good accidents. Fires.Collapses. Unfinished stairwells. Plenty of places to make a point and call it a tragedy.”
Isabella’s voice cut through before he could diagram it further.
“Let’s not kill them,” she suggested.
We all looked at her.
She uncrossed her legs, leaned forward, eyes bright the way I had seen men’s eyes get before a fight.
“You want Roman to move?” she said. “You want the Devils and those women to fling themselves headfirst into a fire for him? You don’t just burn his building. You do what my cousins do to their enemies. You take leverage. You take something that breathes.”
“A hostage,” Fiorenzo said.
“A few,” she agreed. “You hit the site. You take one. Two. You leave enough bodies to make the message clear. You make sure the world knows Roman Giorlando’s family isn’t safe in the shadow of his own monument. Then you tell him where to come if he wants to try and fix it.”
“Use the construction site as both the wound and the hook,” Yashida murmured. “He’ll have to show up. So will the Devils. So will the Vipers if they really consider themselves allies. We can build the kill box ahead of time. Rig it up.”
Fiorenzo’s eyes lit up. “We could take his wife,” he said. “She’s always at his side at those charity things. Or one of the sons. Valentino, his eldest, maybe. He’s next in line. Makeit personal.”
“No, not his wife,” Nico shot down.
Isabella tilted her head. “Explain.”
Nico swallowed once but didn’t back down.
