Page 93 of Jetmir

“God help me if I ever fall in love.” Her expression softened for half a second. “But if I do, I sure as hell hope he won’t be as romantic as you are with Anya.”

Then she noticed the open folder beneath my hand and she leaned across the desk.

“What is that?”

She looked at the file and I closed it immediately.

Her eyes lifted to mine and the mood shifted. “I’ve been doing my own digging into the Triad too.”

I shouldn’t be surprised. Elira could tease and joke, even go to the bookstore to buy smutty books, but underneath it all, she was deadly and dangerous. It was embedded into our genes. It was who we were at the core.

I gestured toward the chair. “Sit.”

The office was quiet except for the faint ticking of the clock on the wall. She leaned back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other.

“What did you learn?” I asked.

“You first, brother.”

God, save me from the stubbornness of women.

“The Triad is changing their patterns.”

Her gaze sharpened.

“In all areas?”

“Yes.”

She nodded slowly.

The Triad had spent years operating like a machine. Predictable because machines were predictable. Money came in one door, weapons through another, information through a third.

We had been dismantling those systems one by one.

Now the machine had noticed the missing pieces.

“That was the goal,” she said. “They know you. They know it’s you who is eliminating them.”

“You don’t seem surprised about any of it,” I remarked.

“I’m not,” she answered slowly.

“Why?”

“I alerted them to it.”

I straightened up in my chair. “You did what?”

“Hear me out before you lose your cool, brother.”

“Oh, I’m all ears, sister.”

Elira leaned forward. “You’ve been eliminating and damaging their business,” she started. “But even you said, they’re like a Hydra. You cut one head, two more come out. So, I had an idea.”

“Which is?” I asked, even though I was so fucking scared to hear it.

“I can get inside.”