Page 48 of Angel's Share

Her gaze wandered upstairs, to the kids, then to the living room. “She was in the house here with us. She’s been around Angel dozens of times.”

“Which was probably how she knew he could drive,” Jamie said. “How she helped her brother and uncle set him up.”

“Exactly when I was in town,” Aidan said. “I’m so sorry, Izzy.”

She shook her head and squeezed his hand back, hard. “This is on her, not you. She and her brother tried to kill my son.”

“She didn’t succeed.”

“Because his godfather is a smart man.” She reached out her other hand, taking Jamie’s. “And so is his husband. So you two geniuses tell me this—how the fuck are we going to stop them? Because I need this to be over. Now.”

TWENTY-NINE

“I don’t like this,” Aidan said on this ninth—tenth—loop around the loft area.

“I don’t like it either,” Jamie said. “But we have an invite to the party at Maryanne’s house, we’ll have teams on us there, and the kids will have a team on them here.”

“We’ll keep them safe, Aidan,” Mel said from where she sat across from Jamie on the other couch.

“And even though she is more than capable of doing so,” said the blond Madigan in head-to-toe leather beside Mel, “I’ll also make sure of it. Teenagers are kind of my specialty now. I am the best stepmom to ever stepmom.”

“I’m not worried about the teenagers,” Aidan said. “I’m worried about the mobsters.”

Helena threw her head back and laughed, the bright sound a sharp contrast to what Aidan knew of the assassin queen’s skills with blades and other sharp objects. “Oh, my dear sweet FBI man, you have so much to learn.”

Aidan changed tactics, still trying to talk himself out of the plan they had spent all day nailing down with Matt, Rick, and Berat, who were at the office putting said plan into action on the law enforcement side. “I’d rather Izzy not be there.” He turned his gaze on Jamie. “Or you.”

“I’m going,” Jamie said. Aidan opened his mouth to no doubt protest, and Jamie kept talking, not giving him a chance. “They don’t know we’re on to them yet. Assuming William or Michael are planning to move on Angel and Bev, they need to think protection is short-staffed.”

They’d been careful when bringing Mel and Danny and Helena and Celia in today. The two couples had arrived at separate times, dropped off by nondescript rideshare vehicles via the underground garage. And they’d likewise been careful to avoid the balcony where they could be surveilled, staying inside and meeting up here in the loft.

“Martino and William will expect Maryanne to report in that me, you, and Izzy are at the party.” Jamie flicked his gaze toward the rail, toward the area below where Izzy sat at the dining table with Danny and Bev, who were comparing accents, and Angel and Celia, Helena’s wife, who were going over truck mods. “As for Izzy, do you want to tell her to sit this one out? Because I sure as hell don’t. And if you do try to tell her that, you might be the one not making it to the party tonight.”

That stopped Aidan in his tracks, and he hung his head back on a heavy sigh. He knew Jamie was right. Battle won, Jamie held out a hand that Aidan finally took, letting Jamie draw him down onto the couch beside him. “Fine, y’all win,” Aidan said, resignation in his grumbled acceptance. “Let’s go over this one more time.”

Jamie squeezed his knee, then launched into the plan detail for the umpteenth time that afternoon. Giving Aidan what he needed. “We go to the party with Izzy,” Jamie said. “We let Maryanne report that we’re there, then we isolate her from the rest of the party crowd, reveal that we know who she is and what she’s playing at, and we extract a confession. Then we turn her over to the backup team there.”

“And William?”

“If he’s at the party, then we isolate him next. Same procedure.”

“And if he’s here instead,” Mel said, “then we take down him and Martino. Question William first, as he’s more likely to confess.”

“In either case,” Jamie said, “we already have charges against Martino for hacking TE, orchestrating the cargo thefts, and for issuing the kill order on White.” While it had appeared the email to Russo’s inmate who’d done the deed had come from Pudge on Russo’s orders, it had in fact been a spoofed email address and message that Jamie traced back to the same IP address that had hacked into TE. To Michael Martino.

“Do we expect interference from the other half of the Mafia equation?” Helena asked. Keeping the actual case details light, they’d focused their earlier brief to her on the parties involved, most of whom she was already familiar with. None of them would be happy to find the Madigans involved; more firepower for his and Jamie’s team.

“Russo wants no part of it,” Aidan said. “That was the message to Martino at the game yesterday. Same was relayed to Matt by Russo’s messenger. Russo’s pissed this was made to look like him. Not the kind of business or attention he wants.”

“So no Mafia back up?”

“Not from Russo, but Martino had muscle with him at the game.”

“And he’s got a profitable, high-end operation going,” Jamie said. “He’s got more firepower in his pocket too.”

“Except this particular matter is personal for him,” Mel said. “He wants revenge for his brother. He’ll be here or there to handle it himself.”

That was the consensus they’d all reached that afternoon. Which only made Aidan’s knee bounce faster under Jamie’s hand. He squeezed it again. “We should have them outnumbered,” Jamie said. “Two teams on us, two teams on the condo, plus Mel and Helena inside here.”

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