Percy eyed the man’s ever-hidden face, the inability to read his enemy’s expression another obstacle he must overcome if he was to gain the Merrys’ cooperation. Unfortunately, Percy never stopped to think before he spoke. “You scarred under that hood, Syd? Or just ugly?”
Syd twirled the blade in his hand, showing a level of deftness and skill that had Percy swallowing audibly. “Too damn handsome is the problem. Couldn’t get anywhere without a mob forming.”
The humor took a moment to register. Percy felt his jaw slacken. The Merry leader had left the stick up his ass home today.
He licked his lips to moisten them and prayed the rare show of humor meant the bastard would hear out his proposal before the stabbing started. “I need your help.”
Syd snorted. “Your duke friend told Pops you were coming. You here for an update?”
“Something like that.”
Syd sighed. Probably disappointed he must stall his plans to use Percy as a pin cushion. “The Greens’ raids started two days ago.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how you got them riled up, but they’re encroaching on our territory as planned.”
Ah, so victory had assuaged Syd’s normalkill first and cooperate latermentality.
“And your response?” Percy asked.
A flash of teeth in the dark hood and then, “Have them holed up in a warehouse by the docks they think they won from us last night.”
The warehouse Percy had instructed Markus to ‘lose’ in a brawl with the rival gang, the same warehouse that secretly sat on top of a network of underground tunnels that connected to the Merrys’ den.
“Say the word,” Syd said, voice laced with violence. “We’ll crawl up through the sewers like rats to the feast.”
Percy flinched. This was where the stabbing would start if he weren’t careful. “About that... Plans have changed. I no longer need the docks out of commission.”
Syd was too smart not to read between the lines. Knife rising, he leveled the tip at Percy’s chest and accused, “You promised us the Greens’ territory.”
“And you’ll have it, I swear.” Percy inhaled a steadying breath and took a bigger risk stepping close, his hands upraised. “But the distraction was for a bigger catch, the destruction of a mutual enemy. An enemy that needs a tighter net to snare.”
Syd snorted. “Backpedaling now, Percy? Can’t deliver on your promise and now you’re making excuses—”
“Nic Brandt is back on the streets, alive and unfortunatelyalive.”
Syd’s growl was rough and followed by a string of curses that left Percy wishing to cover his manhood.
Syd turned sharply back to him, knife angled at his throat. “No more games, Percy. If this is another ploy—”
Percy pressed his neck into the knife tip and felt the sting as the metal bit into his skin. “I’m dead serious, Syd.” And because Percy had no hope of winning favor without offering everything, he said, “The bastard is after the woman I love.”
Percy had to have heard wrong. The man—heartless bastard and leader of the most ruthless gang in Dockside—couldn’t have sighed.
“The woman from the alley?” Syd asked.
Percy nodded, his head spinning from the man’s out-of-character outburst. “Help me stop him, and Nic Brandt is yours.”
Voice going back to its usual bland hatred, Syd asked, “How?”
“I know where he’ll be three days from now.”
Syd’s hand shook, anger at the man they all had a score to settle with or the anticipation of exacting revenge, Percy didn’t know.
After a tense moment where Percy had real concerns he’d lose his head and a rather underappreciated singing voice, Syd retracted the knife and hid it in his waistband.
“Talk fast, Percy,” he said. “I already sent word to my men there was a hare in the streets, and my wolves like to come in teeth snapping.”
Percy swallowed again and stepped into the dark doorway and out of sight of anyone passing by.
This was going to work. The fact he hadn’t been skewered was a good sign.
Gaining the Merrys’ cooperation was imperative for his plan to succeed, especially now when every position of defense counted. The Merrys’ identities may have been compromised, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be useful, a lesson good old Ridley had reminded him of.
Old hurts and grudges meant nothing if it kept Danny out of harm’s way. He’d get Syd on his side if he had to dispose of every Green within the rookeries.
Either that, or he was wolf food.
He extracted the plans from his coat and passed them to Syd, knowing this gamble was bigger than the rest. One didn’t like to hand over the exact layout of one’s mansion to known criminals without a bit of trepidation. But for Danny, he’d invite his second-worst enemy into his home. He’d serve the whole lot of bastards from his own plate if that was what it took. “Take a look at these and tell me what you think.”
Syd glanced at Fellow Hall’s architectural prints and frowned. “What does an old house have to do with Nic?”
Percy pointed to a spot on the drawing, the perfect place on the estate to trap a monster. “Everything.”
