Page 42 of Irish Reign

Just like I let Madden go too soon.

“Think about it,” Samantha says. “You and Russo had a truce. He couldn’t act directly, not without starting a war. Not without getting his own boss to weigh in. That’s what happened at the Rittenhouse. Those were the rules he was working under.”

I pinch my lower lip. She’s right. Russo’s hands were tied.

“But when has Antonio Russo ever shown an ounce of patience?” she asks. “He used Madden. He tried to kill me. It was Russo all along.”

She looks at me. She stops fiddling with her sleeves, stops pacing like a junkie, stops rolling over her own words like a child telling the plot of a movie.

“You can strike back,” she says with perfect poise.

“Russo’s wife is dead.” As if I have to remind Samantha. Russo shoved a gun up his wife’s cunt and pulled the fucking trigger. But I don’t say that. Samantha doesn’t need her mind filled with that image of her murdered cousin.

“You could go after one of his mistresses,” she offers.

“That isn’t the same.”

“One of his capos, then.”

“Not even the same playing pitch.”

She nods, and I have the strangest feeling I’m making her arguments for her. She says, “What if I found you the perfect target? You strike hard, and you succeed where he failed. What happens next?”

I don’t answer. I don’t want to believe her. I don’t want to hope.

When I don’t play her game, she picks up the thread again. “Russo hits you again. That’s what happens. And that’s not all. He bankrolls someone to head up the GIU. He convinces the other captains you’re not fit to run the Fishtown Boys. He uses everything Madden told him, every truth, ever lie.”

My hands curl into fists so tight my knuckles stand out like commas. A tic twitches beneath my right eye, and my jaw aches. I force myself to count to ten.

“But it doesn’t have to be that way,” she says, her voice low and soothing.

“What do you want, Samantha?” I sound like a man staring at my own grave.

“Let me invite him into the freeport.”

I make a strangled noise, but she goes on before I can interrupt.

“We’ll set up a gallery for him. Give him a trading account. Get him into the Diamond Ring.”

“Over my?—”

“I’ll meet with him,” she says, not letting me build up a full head of steam. “The same way I meet with any client. Always at the freeport. Always surrounded by security.”

“Freeport security is shite.”

“It’s better now. You know that. And I’ll have Liam with me. Along with any other guard you say I need.”

My jaw works, but I let her go on.

“I’ll collect information about Russo. About his business. About his plans. I’ll do presentations for him the same way I have for you.”

“Not the same way,” I growl. But God help me, I’m listening to her. I’m considering every word she says.

“I’ll learn where he’s vulnerable, domestically and internationally. That book you’re going to auction by month-end exposes you to what? A hundred years in prison and a million-dollar fine, if you’re caught breaking Ireland’s antiquities laws? We’ll get leverage like that on Russo.”

“It’s too risky.”

“I’ll get tax documents. Bank account information. You’ll fund the Fishtown Boys for a decade.”

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