“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” he replies. “But she is a stunner of an inconvenience.”
“She’s too fucking young,” I hear myself say.
Phoenix frowns. “Never stopped you before.”
“Your father talks too much.”
“Yeah, so does my mother.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m gonna have to talk to those two.”
Phoenix smirks for a moment, then his expression falls back into seriousness. Sometimes I worry about the kid. Although I have to stop thinking of him as a kid anymore. He’s a man now. As tall, broad, and imposing as his father. And every bit as serious. Maybe a little too serious.
I worry that the life weighs on him the same way that it weighed on my brother Sean. And we all know how that turned out.
Sean left. Walked out on the Clan and the family. Left it all behind.
I’m not sure Phoenix would do the same. For one, he has parents that would kill for him. His mother, Esme, is as sweet as they come. But even she’s grown sharp teeth in the twenty years since I moved to New York. Running the most powerful Bratva in the United States will do that to a person, no matter how gentle they are at heart.
But there’s also something else about Phoenix. He’s built for this. He’s cut out for the life. When his time to rule comes… his enemies had better run.
“What are you gonna do about Drago?” Phoenix inquires.
I grit my teeth, still furious that the Italian fucker had managed to weasel out of my clutches. It was supposed to be so fucking simple. A one-man job. Go in, slaughter the bastard, get out. It’s all spiraled way out of control. What a goddamn headache.
“I’m going to have to track the gléas down,” I say. “He knows I was in his house. He’s going to want to lie low for as long as possible. I need to find a way to draw him back out.”
“And you think Renata will help do that?”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” I acknowledge. “But I’m not sure.”
“Why?”
Smart kid. Always asks the right questions.
“Because she was already distressed when she opened the door and found me standing there,” I explain. “There was some sort of altercation before I arrived.”
“Between her and Drago?”
“That’s my best guess.”
“You think he ran when he realized you were there?”
“Probably,” I reply. “He’s a fucking coward. But that also means he left his sister with me. He didn’t even try to protect her.”
“So why hold onto the girl?”
“Because she might still be useful,” I say, hoping I’m right. “This has become a bigger problem than either one of us predicted. Sooner or later, it’s going to get around that I have his sister.”
I pause, waiting for Phoenix to fill in the blanks.
“And you think he’ll have no choice but to try and get her back,” he guesses.
I nod. “Regardless of sentiment, he has to at least try. Or else risk losing the respect of his allies, few as they may be. It’s a pathetic fucking don that can’t even protect his own blood.”
“You’re assuming he’s going to act like you would, though,” Phoenix points out.
I nod again. “I’m aware he might not. He’s not exactly don material. We’ll just have to play it by ear. But I need to get a team out there to start the search for him—before he starts the search for her.”