Do they try and stop me and risk the wrath of the Suit or do they let me pass and risk the wrath of their Pakhan? Loyalty is a fragile thing.
One man tries to stop me. He gets in my face and I floor him with a single punch. Once down, he stays down and squeaks as Raven steps onto him as she passes, not even sparing him a look.
I kick open the next door, pull out my gun, and stride the few feet to Kraven’s desk. As soon as I shove my pistol in his face, the guards in the room all pull their own guns with a musical fluctuation of clicks and metallic snaps.
I’m their target, but no one dares pull the trigger, not yet.
Raven stops just behind me, cocking her hip to the side as she rests her weight and studies everyone else in the room.
“Kraven,” I growl furiously. “Youliedto me.”
Kraven finally lifts his head from the papers on the desk and his dark, cold gaze locks onto mine. “Choose your next words carefully.”
“I’m thinking I would rather plant several bullets right between your eyes!”
Kraven’s eyes dart from me to the barrel of my gun. “You come intomyoffice, callmea liar and you think you will be the one pulling the trigger?”
“I know I will be. You sat there on your fat fucking ass and swore to me that you had nothing to do with any of this, that it was all the Italians!”
“I did not lie!”
“Then tell me why my team were picking up Russian garbage from the front lawn of a house our Jack was inside, huh? First me and now Jack? Once can be an accident. After all, I’m new, right?” I lean back, brandishing my gun in an arc. “No one really knows my face, so how could anyone know who they’d kidnapped? But the Jack?” My gun swings back to Kraven. “Everyone knows him.”
“They were your men, Kraven,” Raven pipes up from behind me. “Your men. Your guns. If you’re starting a war with the Suits, then I should remind you that you’ll also be starting a war with the forty-eight families we protect.”
Kraven’s jaw clicks back and forth for a moment, then he glances off to the side. Slowly, very slowly, his guards lower their weapons, but I keep mine raised and firm.
“I did not lie,” he snarls. “I told you the truth.”
“Liar.”
“No! I swore it was not us and I meant it.”
“Liar.”
“Stop!” Kraven slams his hands down on his desk and stands with a roar. “You dishonor me! You spit on me with such baseless accusations?”
“Baseless? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I saw their tattoos, Kraven. The ones you mark all your men with!”
“So what? Everyone knows my family crest! I guarantee if you ask anyone how old those tattoos are, they will tell you they are fresh! So fresh because they are not my men. These Italians, thesesnakescome up with all these ways to throw you off the scent!”
“Bullshit. You really think I will see all this in my face and not know I’m looking at the man trying to kill my team? Trying to kill my people?”
“Your people?” Kraven sneers. “That bitch you protect is no more worthy of that than some random whore off the street!”
I surge forward onto the desk, bracing with one knee as my hand slams into Kraven’s neck. I force him back into his chair and shove the gun against his forehead as the music of weapons raising rings out behind me once more.
“Keep playing dumb and see where it gets you,” I snarl. “You insult her and I take that as a personal insult against me, understand? I walked away once, Kraven. I’m not fucking doing it again!”
“Ace!” Raven’s hand appears at my back, clutching the back of my jacket.
“Three bullets and I bet I never hear from your sniveling family ever again!”
“Ace! He’s not worth it!”
“Take that fancy badge away from you and you’re just a fucking pitbull,” Kraven snarls. “I tell you it is not us, it isnotus! You let the Italians make a fool of you!”
I press the gun harder for a second as the temptation to kill him surges like a wave of bile inside me, but Raven’s sharp tugging at my jacket finally pulls me back an inch.
