Page 76 of Vow Of Fire

“Only because they want to insert someone on their side,” I reasoned. “But we won’t let them.”

“And how are we going to stop them?” Marco asked smoothly. “The only way is to close down the gallery, which will happen as soon as the cops find out Evelyn is missing.”

“If we send her back, they won’t ever know she was missing,” I insisted. “She’ll be our person on the inside.”

I didn’t know if they’d go for it, but I was going to try to convince them. It was a damn sight better than the alternative.

Valentina studied me for a long moment. “That’s not an altogether terrible idea.”

Marco turned to her. “You can’t seriously be considering this?”

“Why not? He’s right. Everybody knows Los Santos Rotos control all the usual export routes out of Bogotá, but with the crackdown by the administration they’re looking for new options. Ours is attractive because it’s high-end. Less chance of being busted.”

“They want it because we use it to ship Colombian art,” I pressed. “It’s easy for them to utilize.”

“We should have seen this play,” Nico grumbled.

“Well, we didn’t,” Marco snapped, in a rare display of temper. “Now we have to deal with the fallout.”

“And somehow get our money back,” Izzy added.

“We’ll take down the whole fucking organization,” Valentina said, a faraway look in her eyes.

Uh-oh. I knew that look. My mother had a plan. I steeled myself, knowing I wasn’t going to like it.

“What are you thinking?” Marco asked. He too knew my mother.

“You said your gallery owner had a line to Malakov…” She turned to raise an eyebrow at me.

I took a breath. “Yeah. So what?”

“What if we use that to make Malakov think the cartel are muscling in on his territory?”

“You want to set the Bratva on Los Santos Rotos?” Nico asked, incredulous.

“Fucking brilliant,” Marco breathed.

Izzy said nothing.

I felt my stomach clench. “And how do you propose to do that?”

“Evelyn can feed them information. They can start losing out on artwork to the cartel, for one. The Russians get tetchy if they can’t clean their dirty money. Then we’ll think of something else. Something big.” Her eyes gleamed. “We’ll push them into acting. With a bit of luck, they’ll destroy the bastards and we won’t have to lift a finger.”

I had to admit, she was damn good.

A beat passed as we all digested this.

“What about Alberto, the snitch? Any news?” I asked.

Marco shook his head. “Nothing yet. My guy is going to give me the ballistics report once he gets it.”

Huh. “He was shot?”

“Single bullet to the head. Close range.” He prodded his own forehead with his finger.

“Jesus,” I muttered.

“There are signs he was tortured,” Marco continued.