“Here’s how things are right now. I made a deal with Rastus. I won’t protect you and he won’t start a war. You’re still free to pursue my interests, of course, but—”
The ugly, unspoken truth hangs between us:but if you get killed in the process, oh, well. “That’s how it is then. It’s all on me. You’re hanging me out to fucking dry. You’re throwing me in front of the bus.”
“Sorry, Peter. You know how these things go. If you manage to pull this off though, we’ll both be fantastically rich and powerful.”
Rage flows through me. This stupid bastard. If he had a spine, he could make my life a lot easier and this deal would have a much better chance of happening. Instead, he’s screwing me. “You know I should walk away, right? Fuck you and your job.”
“Possibly, but where would you go? Your family disowned you, and if you want a future at all, I’m your only hope. Finish the job and be rewarded, or you can walk away and look over your shoulder for the rest of your life. Rastus might forget about you, but your father and your uncle never will. Your call, but it’s not much of a choice.”
I clench my jaw and move the phone from my ear. The fucker has me and he knows it. I could disappear, but he’s right, my family would never let me go, and without Greek crime lord power behind me, they’ll be able to track me down and kill me sooner or later. Maybe I’d survive for a while, but I’d be a paranoid mess until my last days.
That’s no way to live. I can’t drag Adrienne through it—assuming she’d even want to be with me. But no, of course she wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t let her. My father already admitted she’s not his target, and if I was the one that ran and left her to stay here, they’d leave her alone.
That part’s tempting. But I’m not ready to lose her. Not yet.
Besides, there’s Reina to worry about now too. If I fuck this up, she’s going to get killed or whatever Le Milieu does to failures, and Adrienne would really hate me after that.
Which means I’m fucked and left doing Balaska’s dirty work while he sits on the sidelines and takes none of the risk.
“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?” I say softly and slowly. “I’m going to finish the job, but when I’m through, you’re going to pay me every cent you owe. And I’m taking a ten percent cut on the gross.”
“Ten percent?” Balaska laughs. “You’ll take four and be lucky for it.”
“Eight. And I won’t try to kill you.”
A short pause. “Six percent. That’s a lot more than you deserve and you know it. You’ll be rich if this works.”
“Six percent,” I agree, and he’s right: six percent of the proceeds of a multi-million-dollar-per-year heroin smuggling operation is going to make me very comfortable for a long time. “You better hope this works.”
“I have the utmost faith in you.”
“As though you have another choice.”
I hang up and stand there, seething.
But at least the path forward is crystal clear.
I finish this job. I find a path for the heroin and I get this smuggling operation moving.
Otherwise, I’m dead, Reina’s dead, and Adrienne—
I can’t even think about what might happen to Adrienne.
Time to talk to that pilot.
Chapter19
Adrienne
The pilot is a man in his fifties with windswept salt-and-pepper hair and eyebrows thick enough to house a family of baby birds. He’s sitting outside of a busy cafe drinking coffee and looking like one of a million older Greek men in the city. Peter stares at him from across the street. “That’s our guy.”
“Are you sure?” I lean against Peter’s arm, squinting across the street. “He looks so… ordinary.”
“Did you expect him to have wings? Or maybe a giant neon sign advertising the fact that he owes Le Milieu a lot of money for gambling debts?”
“No, you asshole. I expected—” I pause for a second because it’s absurd. “Pilot clothes.”
He sighs and shakes his head. “Adrienne.”