Page 106 of Kingmakers, Year Two

I watched how she took Ozzy’s face in her hands with tenderness, without a second’s hesitation as she offered her life in place of his.

“What did she say to you?”

I have no right to ask, but I want to know all the same.

“She said, ‘I love you, bub. No more violence from this. Go on happy and strong.’ ” Ozzy pauses to swallow. “She didn’t want me to try to get revenge. But I don’t know if I can do that. In five years, ten . . . when it seems unrelated, when nobody remembers but me . . . I want to kill them. Rocco, Jasper, Dax.”

“If you want that, I’ll help you,” I promise him. “Whatever you feel is just . . . I’m there.”

“I hoped you’d say that,” Ozzy says, quietly.

“I’d like a measure of revenge right now—on Rocco. Though I’ll admit, this is self-serving . . .”

“You want to take Zoe from him. You want to go through with the plan.”

Ozzy already knows. He’s been expecting this.

“Yes. I want to do it immediately. Is the server ready?”

“I finished it yesterday.”

“You haven’t been working on it still . . .”

“I knew you’d call. Sooner rather than later. And I needed the distraction.”

“You’re okay with me going forward?”

“ ‘Course I am. If you don’t, he gets what he wants.”

Now it’s my turn to feel my throat swollen too tight to speak. I can barely manage, “Thank you, man. Seriously. I can’t tell you?—”

“Nah, you can’t, so don’t even try. It’s beautiful work. Best yet from yours truly.”

I end the call, then unearth my list of highly hard-to-come-by contacts. Men whose personal cellphone numbers are only known by five or six people in the world—sometimes not even their wives.

When you call a number like that, you always get an answer.

I call two such men. And I set up two meetings, for the same time tomorrow night.

Both parties don’t want to attend. I have to use all my powers of persuasion. I have to make aggressive promises, with catastrophic consequences if I fail to deliver.

Finally, they agree.

Now, I have two more problems to solve, and I think that one single person might just be able to help me.

I’ve gotta find my new best friend, Ares Cirillo.

No surprise,I track him down on the second level of the Library Tower. Even better luck, Zoe isn’t with him. He’s all alone at a large table that looks small with his rangy frame wrapped around it. He hasn’t cut his hair all year—it hangs shaggy around his face as he hunches over his paper. Writing everything by hand is a fucking nightmare at Kingmakers, especially when you’ve got a hand the size of an oven mitt like Ares. I can barely see the pencil eraser poking out the top.

“I knew I’d find you here,” I say, sliding into the seat directly beside him.

Ares looks up, startled and wary.

Ares has always seemed a little jumpy around me. I don’t think he’s ever entirely trusted me. Which shows that he really is intelligent.

“Hello, Miles,” he says, in his deep voice. “I’m really sorry about your friend. I liked Ozzy.”

“Me too. He’s not the one who’s dead though, he just went home, so you can use current tense.”

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