Page 10 of Vengeance

“I know you are. And if that’s what you decide to do, no amount of begging and pleading is going to change that, and I damn sure can’t fight you,” she says, not taking her eyes of whatever TV show she’s watching with her curly brown hair pulled up in a messy bun wearing a pair of tights and a t-shirt as she scrolls through a food delivery app.

I snatch the phone out her hands, click off the television, and lift her up by her neck. Briefly, I wonder if this is what it’s like to have a younger sister.

“Start. Talking.”

Cres sucks in a choked breath and says, “That’s what she said. That if you wanted to know you could find out for yourself.”

“I don’t care what she said. Dele says a lot of things that are irrelevant to me getting what I want from her. And it’s certainly irrelevant to the job I gave you. So tell me, what did those observation and people skills you’re so proud of glean when you snuck into New York to see her?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying,” I say squeezing her neck tighter.

“I’m not.” She tries to say something else, but has to preserve what little of her airway isn’t constricted to breathing. I loosen my grip. She continues, “Dele’s hard to read. She’s got a poker face as good as you or Stephen Pray. So all I have to bring to you is what she said. And that’s what she said.”

Cres is still lying. If she were lying to keep the secrets of anyone else, I’d kill her for her disloyalty. But more than loyalty to me, I appreciate the loyalty to Dele. Dele is my number one priority, and those loyal to me know that to be loyal to me is have my priorities as their priorities. So while it may be frustrating that Cress won’t give away Dele’s secrets, it’s to be commended.

I let her go. She falls back onto the couch with a sharp gasp and glares up to me to say, “Asshole. You didn’t have to choke me.”

“I didn’t drown you in the Pacific ocean.”

Between coughs, Cres says, “That’s all you’re concerned about? Just Dele and her secrets? Not that the Russians think she killed their boss and that this might start another war?”

“Not in particular.”

The situation with the Russians, while unfortunate and inconvenient, matters little in the grand scheme of things. The Italians have been at this for a lot longer than they have and are a lot more well-connected. At the end of the day, they can pull a few strings to get the weapons Dele is going to need even if it’s harder to get their hands on than it would have been if the Russians allied with them.

The important thing about the Russians in this conflict was having them on our side so they wouldn’t be on Pray’s. But since they aren’t inclined to be on his side either, we can deal with what they plan to do about their thoughts that Dele killed their fuckingpakhanat another time. Dele’s and the Uccello’s people can thwart whatever pathetic attempts they try on her in the meantime.

And in a way, Isaac Vorobev dying, regardless of who was or wasn’t responsible for it, is a boon for us. They’ll be dealing with their own crisis as power is transitioned to his youngest son. Because this kind of power is never transitioned peacefully. Vaughn is going to have to make a show of strength to prove his worth to anyone thinking they might be able to cede power from him.

I leave Cres to her devices and head to my office.

While Dele is more than capable of getting her hands on another source of weapons herself, I can arrange a weapons deal for her faster than she can without dealing with the Russians.

I pick up my phone and shoot off a text to my contact, dock it onto a stand and mentally prepare myself to be thoroughly irritated by the time I’m done with this conversation. Either I’ve caught him at a good time, or it’s a bad time, but he didn’t care after figuring out who was messaging him.

The phone immediately begins to vibrate for a video call, and the latter is immediately proven to be true. My contact is sitting on the edge of a pool completely naked and with both a two women practically fighting over his cock with their mouths. I don’t know why the hell I’m even surprised.

“Adrian Blake. What do I owe this pleasure to?”

The mahogany-haired man suddenly throws his head back and groans.

“I’m guessing to one of the women sucking your dick right now,” I reply.

“Hold on a minute.”

I sigh and count for patience as the view of the phone is suddenly of the clear blue sky at wherever the hell Hudson is and suddenly all I hear is the sounds of his moans and groans as he finishes getting sucked off. Stupid bastard didn’t even have the fucking decency to put the fucking phone on mute.

“Fuck!”

I’ve gotten to seventy-three, far longer than a minute, by the time Hudson picks up his phone and comes back into view, this time with a towel around his waist and sitting in a chair at the side of the pool.

If I ever see him again, I’m going to shoot him as soon as I see him for the indignity of this. But Hudson doesn’t give a damn. He never has. Which is the reason I’m contacting him right now.

Back during the first war Pray started, Hudson was neutral and sold weapons to everyone who could pay for them, including the Soles. He’d only ever negotiate with me, though, since we had a long history even before the Soles took me in. That and he liked my temperament. He eventually became more of a liability than a boon, though, seeing as he continued to conveniently turn a blind eye when he knew our enemies were laying traps and ambushes for us during our dealings under the excuse that the beef of his clients were none of his business.

Hopefully, he still lives by that philosophy. Because even though his neutrality was always a danger to us, that also meant his neutrality was a danger to our enemies because he wouldn’t tell them what we were planning either.

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