"Don't tell me to sit down," I snap.
"Sit down right now," he commands.
I don’t want to follow his orders, but Levan possessed a heavy authority in his voice that forces a man to obey. So despite the wrath and sadness in me, I drop into a chair. Levan picks up a fallen chair and rights the furniture. He sits across from me, folding his hands in his lap.
"I listened to the phone call."
"Then you heard exactly what I said to that traitor."
"I heard you call your brother weak. You told him he should have died instead of getting captured. You called him an embarrassment." Levan keeps his expression blank. "That outburst was a foolish mistake."
"He is a weak man."
"He's your brother. Now he sits in the hands of a man who will use your own angry words as a weapon." Levan leans forward in his seat. "You just handed Romanov fresh ammunition, Dato. He will use every single insult you threw at Stanislav to turn the boy against us. He will convince Stanislav that we abandoned him to make him spill more secrets."
"The coward is already talking."
"Then we adapt our strategy. We move the attack timeline forward to strike before Romanov can act on the new information."
"I want to attack his men right now." I jump to my feet. I can’t stay seated a second longer. "We strike tonight. I'll take thirty armed men to his private estate and…"
"And do what?" Levan interrupts, his voice sharpening with irritation. "You plan to walk into a fortified castle with thirty men? Romanov keeps a hundred trained soldiers on that property. He has cameras and armored vehicles guarding the perimeter. He spent a decade building that security infrastructure. His guards will shoot you dead before you ever reach the front gate."
"I don't care about the risks."
"I care about the outcome." Levan stands up from his chair. "If you die in a blind suicide charge, everything I built over the last ten years dies right alongside you. My alliances and plans will vanish. All my hard work will disappear just so my angry nephew could throw a temper tantrum."
"Don't lecture me, old man," I growl.
The tension in the room thickens. Levan stares directly at me, a dark shadow shifting behind his eyes. "What did you just say?"
"I said, don't lecture me." The reckless words slip from my mouth before I can stop them. "You sit safely inside your compound to bark orders while I handle the actual street work. You treat this war like a board game while I bleed for our family name. You hid in the shadows for ten years, uncle. I spent that decade building a criminal operation from nothing. I fought Romanov’s men in the bloody streets. I buried my dead friends and expanded the territory you lost. You shot the old Pakhan and disappeared into thin air to let me handle the mess."
Not a single muscle twitches on Levan’s face.
"You failed your mission." The accusation spills from my lips in an angry rush. "You murdered his father and ran away from the scene. You never finished the job. You left us behind to dealwith the violent consequences. I faced Alexei Romanov’s revenge while you sat in a luxury compound eating hot dinners and playing the grand strategist. You are a coward. You are a failed assassin who couldn't even…"
"Are you speaking to me?" Levan asks in a quiet tone.
The temperature in the room plummets to freezing.
"Are you speaking to me, boy?" Levan takes a threatening step forward. "I am the man who executed a Pakhan at his own dinner table. I built the financial network that funds your little empire. I brought the wealthy Saudis to our negotiating table. Without my money and connections, you would be running a cheap kebab shop back in Tbilisi."
I open my mouth to argue.
"Sit down right now," he orders.
I drop back into my chair.
"You feel emotional right now. I understand your reaction. Romanov captured your brother and threatened our plans. But raw emotion is not a valid strategy. Blind rage is never a battle plan." He straightens his crisp shirt cuffs. "Romanov is waiting for us to make a rash move. He wants us to rush the gates and attack his men blind. He wants us to act angry and stupid. Angry and stupid men die fast."
"Then what do you suggest we do?" I mutter.
"We wait three full days. We need to finalize the inbound weapons shipment and position our men in the proper locations. We will hit his infrastructure first. We strike the shipping ports and the money laundering operations. We cut off his cash supply before we cut his throat." Levan picks up the cracked laptop from the floor and sets it on the table. "We just have to pray your brother lacks the deep knowledge to cause unmanageable damage."
"And what happens if he knows too much? What if Stanislav already told him our entire playbook?"
"Then we adjust our plans to survive. We survived worse situations before." Levan pins me with a hard stare. "But we do not attack his forces blindly, Dato. We won't strike tonight or tomorrow. We move on my command alone. Is that clear?"