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Chapter twenty-four

Danger Zone

Kira

E oghan was sitting with Yuliya Vasilieva when we arrived at the briefing room.

A pang of jealousy hit me then, because Yuliya was tall, strong, and a warrior, like Eoghan.

Like Jericho, Blink, and everyone else in the room.

In the short walk here, Blink had quickly briefed me on her lethality, as well as the personnel we’d be going in with.

Whatever my place was in the inner circle, I apparently would need to know who I was dealing with now.

I wondered if it would have been better to continue to keep Blink as my handler. There were so many people that it was overwhelming, considering everything else that was going on.

So when I saw the highest-ranked woman in Paradigm sitting with Eoghan, the two of them shoulder to shoulder, I saw red.

At least until Eoghan came to his feet, his hand outstretched to me. I took it, and he yanked me against him, our bodies slamming together as he gave me a deep kiss.

“Everything alright, Love?” he asked when we finally pried apart.

“Everything is fine,” I said quietly.

“Jericho looks murderous,” he said.

“That’s just his face, apparently.”

I took his hand and we moved to sit down. Eoghan led me to his old seat, placing me between him and Yuliya. Strangely, that comforted me.

It was always nice to be a buffer between him and others. Call me jealous, but it was a quiet thoughtfulness that made me feel like maybe he still cared.

Blink stood up front with the projector and began to describe the elements.

There would be several moving pieces; the first movement would be me and Blink.

We were to secure the exterior perimeter—lay down distractions, road blocks, checkpoints, and other things, dressed as construction workers.

We were to create a detour to ensure all traffic was diverted away from the attack site.

We couldn’t have civilians, or law enforcement, coming in.

The main effort would be Eoghan and Yuliya. They’d be leading two separate elements to overtake the highly guarded, and incredibly dangerous, Durante compound.

“Cosima is, in effect, in charge. Eugenio is now an impotent figurehead. She has certainly been shrewder than her father,” Blink said, as he clicked a button on the laptop, moving to the next slide.

“We are talking strategically placed landmines, cameras, at least a hundred guards who are always on call, 24/7, and weaponry. She has been building up these defenses for the past year, at least.”

He turned to us, his face somber.

“The lead element will have to very carefully approach, and in a very coordinated attack, eliminate the guards on the perimeter. A team will mark and disarm the mines on the perimeter at these four points, where there are doors and gates. Our hackers here will disarm their security system, so the cameras will begin to loop the same footage, which will render them blind to what we do.” He took a laser pointer and showed a few sections of the screen.

“No one is to cross the perimeter in any other fashion, other than the front. We don’t need the place blowing sky high. ”

He sighed, then went on. “Then the fun truly begins in what we can assume will be an Alamo standoff.”

He turned around, his brows going up for a moment, before he cleared his throat. “This element will be absorbing the riskiest part of the entire endeavor.”

He shook his head. “Due to the sheer numbers, the main effort will need to wait for me and the Paradigm forces to come back you up. The timing must be adhered to at all costs.”

“What are Cosima’s potential courses of action?” I asked.

“Her most likely course of action is that she will barricade herself in the most guarded part of the home.” He used the red laser pointer again, and circled a small office that was on the interior of the house.

“It’s also a heavily fortified office, and I’m sure there are weapons safes on the inside.

This is where our Urban Warfare training comes in, people!

We clear every room, one by one, and we must be meticulous.

All it takes is one rogue element to catch us by surprise, and we open ourselves up for a secondary attack from her men who might not be at the property. ”

“And her most deadly course of action?” I asked.

Blink let out an aggrieved sigh. “Suicide, by fire.”

Shit.

“I’m not familiar with that one,” Flanagan said, a small notepad in front of her.

“It’s like suicide by cop, but we’re not cops,” Blink explained. “Her most deadly course of action is that she fights to the death, taking her, her entire household, and her family, along with her.”

“How do we mitigate that?” I asked because I had read through the overall plan. There were just small details I wanted hashed out before we jumped into this thing.

“Keep her hoping there’s a chance things will go her way,” Eoghan said beside me.

I looked up at him, and he was staring at me.

“She will not use this option if she thinks she can live to fight another day, or if her kids can fight for her,” he expounded. “You heard her yesterday. Vendetta is an Italian word. She will make us pay.”

I let out a low whistle. That was a tall order.

Eoghan surprised me as he came to his feet. “I will be in the main element, with Flanagan as my second, O’Malley as my third. We’ve been briefed on our part. Should anything go differently than what we’ve predicted, it is imperative that I be one of the first to speak to Cosima Durante.”

He went up to stand by Blink, and the two of them exchanged a collegial nod before Blink yielded the floor to him.

“The preference is that Cosima and her family are made to surrender,” Eoghan said, looking out at the nearly four dozen faces in seats in the room.

Every single one of us was a leader of something, whether it be Paradigm, the Bratva, which were practically the same thing at this point, or Green Fields Enterprises.

“We do not want to martyr her. For the long-term mission of ending crime, her surrender is optimal. If she is killed, she’ll be made into a saint, and a Durante capo will take up her banner. ”

“You’re leading the main effort?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

I looked through the pages, realizing that no one’s names had really been assigned to any particular element. That wasn’t unusual in a multi-agency movement. At least not based on what Blink had told me. It allowed flexibility within elements to change people, and improvise.

“Aye, sweetheart,” he said, a small smile on his lips, his eyes softening considerably as he looked at me.

I shook my head, flipping through the pages again and again, taking in the whole plan, the elements, the movements, the timing…

“Eoghan,” I said, quietly, “You would be in the house, exposed for—”

I looked up at him, then back down at the pages.

“Your element is the most exposed during this plan,” I said again. “It’s the highest risk endeavor in this whole thing with so many unknowns.”

I kept flipping the pages, as if I had missed something.

“Is there no way to mitigate this?” I asked, looking up.

“Kira, love,” Eoghan smirked, looking down at his feet. “We’ll talk about this after, but the short answer is, no. Jericho, Andres, and I went through this plan, and we’ll just have to take the risk.”

“ You have to take the risk,” I said, my tone pointed. Accusatory.

He’d be in even more danger because if I knew my husband, he’d be front and center the entire time, making himself a target.

“Someone has to.” He shrugged nonchalantly, that charming smile on his lips.

It was cavalier, casual… dismissive.

“Why are the Irish the ones taking the most risks?” I asked, my hands clenching into fists.

There was silence in the room. Blink adjusted his collar, giving a slight cough. Jericho was also rifling through the papers, a scowl on his face.

“I volunteered, Wife,” Eoghan said carefully. “It is my war after all.”

“ Our war,” I said, correcting him. “And I don’t believe that for one second.”

Was Jericho rifling through his papers because he didn’t want to make eye contact? Because he didn’t want to own up to his decisions?

“You’re assigning him that just because you don’t like him,” I said, my eyes hard as I stared down the head of the Bratva, and the head of Paradigm. I wasn’t sure which of those two distinctions was more intimidating.

“He volunteered,” Jericho said, before he moved on, turning back to the screen. “I had nothing to do with these assignments.”

He lifted his eyes to Blink—and I suddenly knew who was responsible. Betrayal coursed through me. How could my friend do this?

“Wife…” Eoghan said with the tone that made me sound like I was a wild animal in need of soothing.

He was thoroughly unaware of the fucking maelstrom that was happening in my chest. A hurricane of pain and discontent. The way the floor had opened up under me, and I was in a free fall.

He volunteered?

That meant he knew. He’d discussed this with them before. They’d decided before I was ever in the room. They knew. Everyone knew except me. Did Blink?

My breaths came in ragged and harsh, as my throat constricted. My heart was in a whirlwind, my heart beating a million miles a minute, as loud as an ocean wave crashing on the shore again, and again, and again.

Then everything went silent, as if the pieces had all fallen into place.

The only thing I felt was… betrayal.

“No,” I said in a whisper. “No.”

I grabbed onto Eoghan, waiting for him to tell me that it wasn’t true. My heart was in my stomach, and I couldn’t…

If I ever became a widow… that’s what he was talking about.

“My love.” Eoghan stepped down from the podium, coming to stand near me. He took his finger, placed it under my chin, and lifted my eyes to meet his. “Don’t contradict me in front of your agency friends. It sends a mixed message.”

He gave me a swift kiss, turned, and left me there, my mouth open.