Page 96 of Arranged Obsession
“I wanted you to feel at ease.”
His lips tug into a sharp smile. “You killed Fyodor.”
“Yes, I did. He was not as cooperative as I had hoped he would be.”
“He was very useful to my family. A magician with numbers. Half the shit he did, I never understood it, but somehow we always came out on top when tax season rolled around.”
“A good numbers man is hard to replace.”
His smile turns sour and sharp. “That’s extremely true. And now we’re forced to try.”
“I wish you the best of luck.”
He snorts a short laugh and leans an elbow on the railing. He seems completely casual and at ease, but I already noted two guns in his belt and a knife strapped to his calf. He came armed and ready.
“What do you want, Ghostman? It’s not every day I go to a meeting with a man of your reputation.”
“Fyodor didn’t enjoy our chats. I think you’ll do better than he did.”
“Perhaps.”
“I’m here because we have a problem.” I pause as a young couple walks past, too lost in each other to notice me and Taras having a serious conversation. “You tried to bomb my wife.”
“Seems it didn’t work out.” He glances over his shoulder. I’m tempted to kill him right then. It would be easy. A knife to the throat, a knee to the groin, and I’d heft him straight over the edge and into the sea. “She’s a pretty one. You must be proud.”
“More than you know. My wife is my everything.”
“That’s adorable. True love is very rare in our line of work.”
“Then you must understand how angry I am.”
His lips press tighter. “You started this nonsense with your hit on Yuri. My father was inclined to leave your organization alone until that happened.”
“Your father has been harassing our organization for years. There’s a reason I was ordered to take Yuri down and you know it.”
He tilts his head side to side. “Possibly, yes, but what does that change? Cousin Yuri was a good man.”
“Doubt that very much.”
“Okay, he was a piece of shit and an annoying asshole, but he was still family. How do you expect this to end?”
“I can give you options if you like.” Bianca’s laugh distracts me for a moment. The Russian girl seems more at ease now. I’m impressed at how my wife is handling herself, but I force myself to concentrate on Taras. “I can kill you and your father and everyone else in your family. I’ll do it slowly, one at a time. Itmight take years, but we both know it will happen, if that’s what I want.”
“You seem overconfident.” Taras shows his teeth in a hard sneer. “But I think you’re in over your head.”
“The other option is much simpler. You can speak with your father. You can convince him that peace is in his best interest. And you can donate five million dollars to my wife’s charity as a show of good faith.”
His eyes widen. His hand twitches to the gun at his belt. “You fucking prick. How insane are you?”
“Very.” I lean in close and my eyes move down. He follows my gaze and finds the knife I had pressed against his inner thigh, right at the artery there. “But I keep my blades very, very sharp. Call it obsessive if you want.”
He stiffens but doesn’t move. One flick of my wrist and he’s dead. We’re close together now, huddled against the wind.
“You fucking wouldn’t. There are too many cameras.”
I shrug slightly. “My family’s Irish. Do you have any idea how many cops we have on our payroll?”
“Motherfucker.”
