Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“Do you want a fire?”
She shook her head and sank into the wide-armed leather chair facing the seat he preferred. He took it and leaned forward. “You know that no matter how many times the head of the snake is chopped off, another crime lord rises and takes his place. There is no way to stop that. There will always be criminals, people who want to take from others. There will always be gunrunning and illegal activity of some kind.”
She nodded, pressing her hand to her churning stomach. She detested this. Detested that he was going to make excuses for what he’d become.
His gaze dropped to her hand and then came back up to her face. “There are bosses like Bogomolov who are extremely violent. They are always greedy, hungry for more power and more territory. The Bogomolov family are Amur leopards from Russia. The man known as Alonzo Massi is actually from Russia and was a part of the bratya there. He is also leopard. There are a few leopard lairs in the bratya. They are the cruelest of crime lords.”
She knew Nikita was cruel. She had seen his orders carried out when men had come to kill her father.
“In their lairs, they refuse to find their true mate. They take a woman capable of giving them a leopard and when she does, they kill her as a sign of loyalty to the bratya.”
“Nikita’s wife?”
He nodded. “He murdered her. He’s looking for Alonzo. He’s looking for you. He doesn’t get either of you.”
She touched the tip of her tongue to her lips, trying to moisten them. “What about you, Joshua, do you think because you aren’t killing me that it makes you better than him? You’re still committing crimes.”
He nodded. “I know I am. I’m not denying that. It’s necessary to keep up the illusion of being in this business. I can only shut down the worst of the criminals. I do it quietly and slowly from the inside, so it isn’t really noticed. I have an explanation ready if any of the other bosses question me. What we’re really doing is looking to take down the worst of the bosses. Men like Nikita. If the crimes are kept to the underbelly and the killing stays there, we let it go. If it leaks out and a man like Nikita goes on a killing spree, we take him down and replace him with one of our own. Just telling you this can get a lot of good men killed.”
She frowned, trying to process what he was saying. “An undercover agent?” She wasn’t certain she could believe that, although Drake Donovan’s agency had sent him in more than once undercover if his stories could be believed.
He shook his head. “No, taking down a crime lord that way leaves the territory open for an even worse boss. We prefer to make the rules as best we can and keep the worst out.”
“I still don’t understand. Are you saying that you and some others are taking over territories mafia have and trying to weed out the ‘bad’ ones?”
He smiled at her and leaned back in his chair, resting his head against the leather, his eyes on her face. “Put like that, it sounds silly, but the reality works. We have someone taking apart the companies for laundering. He does it legitimately, although we find the companies in a not-so-legitimate way; usually we hack them. We disrupt the pipelines for drugs and gunrunning. We shut down human trafficking wherever we find it, and that is a moneymaker, so everyone wants in. We create pipelines through other territories and that makes it easier to monitor them.”
“Essentially, you’re working both sides of the fence.”
He nodded. “Exactly. We have to appear, at all times, as if we are the head of a territory to the other bosses. We work with them, get to know them, and learn what we can safely take apart by disrupting shipments and hitting them in their businesses and books. We can weaken territories. The most difficult thing we do, and the most dangerous, is take down men like Nikita.”
“The cops think you’re dirty.”
“We are dirty.”
“But if the other members of the syndicate realized what you were doing, they’d kill you.”
He nodded slowly. “Without a doubt. I won’t lie about that.” He kept his gaze glued to hers.
She felt the intensity of that stare right to her core. Every word sounded like the absolute truth, but who would be that crazy? Both sides, criminal and law, would hunt Joshua.
“It’s a risk, baby, but something has to be done. Human trafficking has gone through the roof. The violence is escalating. Someone has to find a way to stop it. In any case, there will always be those rising to power. Power corrupts. Greed, violence, drugs, alcohol, all of it feeds into a pool of criminals. We fill any void and control the borders, so to speak, keeping the criminals as much in their own world and away from civilians as we can.”