“What’s our next play?” I ask him.
“About that…” Vas trails off. “We can’t target Cartwright yet, but we’re working on it. Your wife has a business date tonight and she fired me, but otherwise we’re doing pretty good. The entire restaurant will be filled with?—”
“Did you say date?” I interrupt him. “Why the fuck is she going on a date?”
“It’s not a date, date,” Vas explains. “She’s meeting with Joseph O’Neill’s son, Conrad, to discuss merging our assets.”
“Conrad O’Neill is a narcissistic abuser,” I growl, the corner of my lips turning up in a snarl. “Why the fuck are we talking about merging our assets?”
“We aren’t really going to merge our assets.” Vas’s eye roll is audible. It doesn’t take a genius to realize he’s irritated that I’m not catching on quick enough for him. “We need him to believe that so he would go to dinner with her.”
“The only person she should be going to dinner with is me.”
“Well… you’re dead,” Vas deadpans.
“If he lays one fucking hand on her…”
Vas chuckles. “She’ll go straight for his kneecaps, trust me.”
“Vasily…” I warn.
My brother sighs. “We needed a way to get to him and dangling her out there was the only way to get him to bite,” he tries to assure me. “She can handle herself and she has been for more than a month now.”
Sighing, I pinch the bridge of my nose and blow out a breath. “I know.”
“Plus, I’m a little hurt that her date was what you focused on first,” he sounds affronted. “I tell you she fired me, and you don’t have one ounce of pity for your best friend.”
“She didn’t actually fire you,” I point out.
“Well, she sure as hell thinks she did,” Vas grumbles. “All because I won’t tell her where Dima is. Something about trust. Okay, maybe there are a few other reasons, but still. I’ve never been fired before.”
“I heard McDonald’s is offering a fairly competitive wage,” Dima crows. “You’d look so cute in that uniform. Maybe even Wendy’s. We could dye your hair and give you pigtails.”
“Hm, I could also smash your face in and make you look like that man from the Goonies.”
“Hey,” Dima gasps. “Don’t knock Sloth. He was the best part of the movies.”
“Children,” Kenzi groans. “Can we please get back on point.”
“Since when does Nikita get to butt in on conversations?”
“Jesus,” I groan. “We’ll be there in about ten minutes. Make sure everything is ready.”
“Got it, boss.” Vas pauses before hanging up. “Are you going to see Ava or…”
Am I?
I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. My mind is focused on other things than how I’m going to approach Ava about the fact that I’ve been alive this whole time and hunting down Kirill.
She is going to be pissed.
I want nothing more than to take her.
Make her mine all over again.
But something is stopping me, and I don’t know what it is.
“We’ll talk about that later.”