“Drive-by. Two shooters in a black SUV. No plates. Professionals. They came around the corner from Park, hit Max, then adjusted toward me. I took both of them down.”
“Both.”
“The shooter and the driver.”
“So much for an interrogation.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Kolya?”
“Who else? The timing was too precise. Max and I had been in that restaurant for ninety minutes. Someone told Kolya exactly where we’d be and when we’d be walking out.”
“There are very few people who knew about this meeting,” she says.
“I’m aware.”
“And that means you either have a mole, or he’s got you under twenty-four-seven surveillance. Neither of which is good.”
Rage pounds through me.
“God, this is a nightmare,” she says, shaking her head. “Max was supposed to be on our side in this fight.”
“That was the plan. We made arrangements for him to see Thea this evening.”
I clench my hand into a tight fist, hold it for a few seconds, then let it go.
“He was committing to war, he had old-guard Fetisov loyalists standing behind him. He’d been consolidating for nearly two decades, waiting to strike, only for Kolya to take him out like that.”
“All that and now he’s dead,” she says.
The coldness of her tone catches me off guard. She’s right, but there’s something clinical and efficient about the way she says it that doesn’t sit the way it should. Not a moment’s pause or remorse for the man who just died.
Then again, that’s how I’m reacting, too.
“Kolya wanted to stop the alliance before it formed,” I tell her. “That’s the play. Kill Max, scatter his people, and send a message that anyone who sides with me ends up dead on a sidewalk in Midtown. Or worse.”
“And it worked.”
“We don’t know that yet. Max is dead, but his people are still out there. The Fetisov loyalists are in it for revenge and justice. They’re not going to vanish because Max is gone. They’ve been waiting twenty years for permission to fight. Now they’ve got it.”
Amanda crosses her legs and adjusts her coat. “That’s a nice speech. But I worry your lieutenants aren’t going to see it that way.”
I give her a hard look.
“Russo called me an hour ago,” she says. “Before any of this happened. He’s concerned, Gabe. And he’s not the only one. Bianchi, Costello, half the captains… they’re watching you pour Camorra resources into protecting this woman—who most of them have never met—while picking a fight with the Bratva that most of them don’t want. And now a goddamnpakhanwas assassinated in broad daylight three feet from you.”
“Russo’s a worrier. It’s his goddamn defining characteristic.”
“But he’s right to be worried.” She leans forward. “Gabriel, I need you to hear this. I’m speaking as your counsel, nothing else. Your position is more fragile than you might think. The Camorra follows strength. And right now, half your people are wondering if you’re leading them into a war they can’t win over a girl they don’t understand.”
A girl they don’t understand.
There it is. She didn’t call her Thea or even the Fetisov heir. Not even “your woman.” A girl—dismissive and reductive. It reminds me of the way she talked to Thea when she first met her at the mansion, when I walked in on Amanda tearing into her and was forced to put a stop to it.
I say nothing. There are no words that can be useful in that moment.
Amada sighs, sensing she’s crossed a line.
“Listen, I’m not saying you need to give her up or anything along those lines.”
“Then what are you saying? Because as far as I can tell, this goes one of two ways: Kolya gets what he wants, or he doesn’t.”