Page 110 of Caught in the Crossfire

Okay. We were ignoring the table. Great.

He stood from the table and grabbed a bottle of alcohol from his father’s liquor cabinet. It was unopened, and he handed it to Cas to inspect. Cas nodded, returning it before Max uncapped it and poured a glass for each of us.

“Thanks for the flowers,” I responded when he handed me a glass first. “They were beautiful when I put them down the garbage disposal.”

He smiled tightly. “I thought you liked my flowers.”

“That was before you gave one to me the night you tried to murder me,” I answered sweetly. Obi placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed while Cas tensed. Ryu dug a knife point into the table and gouged an even bigger hole. Darkness oozed from him, and I grabbed his thigh under the table.

“Water under the bridge.”

“Is it?” My tone was biting, yet masked by my smile.

An awkward silence filled the room where our mothers used to sing and dance and eat. The last time I saw his father alive, he was standing in the same spot Max stood now. This room was filled with years of memories. Memories that he had trampled on. My mood soured even further.

He cleared his throat. “Despite what you may think, I didn’t invite you here to harm you.”

“I’ll believe it when we walk out of here unscathed.”

“Let us discuss business,” Obi asked. His deep voice sent ripples of calm through my already taut body.

“I realize we share a common goal,” he said. “For the time being.”

“The Vokshi Clan,” I said.

“Yes. It appears they’re presenting a problem for both of us. As such, I would like to propose a temporary truce.”

A temporary truce. We’d escaped their clutches with a truce, but it almost devolved into bullets. Still, it was what we had expected him to say when we came.

An offered truce meant Max was hurting, and he needed our help. That put the power dynamic in our favor. We could get the upper hand so that when this truce inevitably fell apart, we’d have every tool we needed to end him.

If we played our cards right, New York could be ours by the end of this.

“What do we get out of it?” I asked.

He sat back. “You get the Vokshi out of our city.”

“So it’sourcity now.”

“You know what I mean.”

I drummed my fingers on the table. Next to me, Ryuji still dug holes in the surface—forming a little smiley face—and Max was doing his goddamn best to ignore it. “We can take out the Albanians by ourselves. So why would we need you?”

“If you could have, you would have. That night with Orik Vokshi, I heard how you wanted to torture him for information. I’m guessing the Vokshi keep slipping through your fingers.”

Behind me, Wynn’s voice was strained. “If you would have just let us handle it, things would have ended differently.”

“How are you going to stop them from slipping through our fingers?” I asked.

“I have information you don’t.”

“Like what?”

“We can discuss that after we agree to a truce.”

I shifted in my seat, crossing one leg over the other. “So if we agree, you get us off your backs. We both get the Vokshi eliminated. Sounds like this deal is more favorable to you.”

Max kept his face blank. “What do you want, then?”