Page 112 of Marked By the Devil

39

VIKTOR

Wren and I arrived at the mansion late. We were the last ones to get there since the appointment with the doctor ran a little over, but no one was upset about it.

“How is Paul doing?” Adrik asked once we all took our “usual” places in his office.

I didn’t think that my father ever could have counted on so many people stuffing themselves in here like this. With the six of us and now our women included, we were expanding more than I thought we might.

“Paul is stable and doing well.” I smiled at Wren. “He’s excited to come home and experience a promotion.”

“It wouldn’t be a demotion, would it?” Wren asked, smiling right back at me.

“Demotion?” Adrik asked with a frown. “No, no. He’s never going to be demoted. Anyone who would sacrifice themselves for the security of us in this room would never be demoted.” He scoffed, like it was ridiculous to even think it.

“How are you doing?” Maksim asked Wren. He looked at me, as if needing to make sure that I wasn’t beat up over how Smithson had died in my home.

“I’m coping.” Wren sighed. “But I’m curious what can follow now. He’s dead, but he wasn’t the only one being bribed.”

“And he had a hit placed on himself,” Lev said.

Adrik nodded, standing instead of staying seated behind the big desk. “There are lingering questions, and we’ll need to address them all next. First, we need to devise a plan to stay ahead of how else Gregori wants to try to mess with us. He’s putting pressure on us from the law enforcement he pays off, but I don’t think he’ll stop there.”

“He’s already tried to meddle with the smuggling runs,” Carina reminded him.

Adrik nodded. “And I’m not sure I want to imagine what he’ll think of next.”

All of us agreed to scale up any teams we could make to anticipate Gregori’s next plans since we’d proven that he doesn’t have an ironclad grip on the law enforcement angle anymore.

“We also need to identify who his new intermediary is,” Alexei said.

I nodded. “I imagine it’s Kirill Konstantin.”

A few of them bobbed their heads in agreement.

“They are a local family,” Maksim said. “With old ties to us. If Gregori were to become more local, it would make sense for him to seek out someone he knew from before.”

“Then we need to form a task force and crew to investigate whether the Konstantins are behind it,” Adrik said.

Nikolai raised his hand. “Okay, but it’s not like the Konstantins would hire a contractor to take out the hit on Adrik or Smithson. They’ve got their own snipers, and no member of the Konstantin Family was found at the site that night.”

“That could just mean that the sniper got away,” Wren said.

“Would the Konstantins benefit from taking out Smithson, though?” Adrik asked.

“Maybe they could if they thought he wasn’t treating them fairly,” I said. “Remember how they got busted with that major drug sting a few months back? That wouldn’t match with the idea that Smithson or any other agency is trying to look the other way and let them off the hook, which would be the case if Gregori was bankrolling Smithson and the Konstantins.”

Every point we made posed several other questions to address. But this was only the beginning, only the start of our making more preparations and plans to close in on Gregori.

“We also need to give some attention to how Rico Johnson could be involved,” Adrik said. “He still seems to be missing, but that could be a diversion.” He crossed his arms. “With how he persisted and requested a meeting when Smithson came to attack at Viktor’s home…” He glowered and shook his head. “I can’t be sure that wasn’t a strategically planned diversion to throw us off.”

We discussed all those options at length. No one was idle. We all spoke up and contributed. Elena had seemed to be out of her shock about seeing Paul bleeding out because she also offered ideas of where she and Wren could investigate in terms of the financial trails.

It was a productive morning after so many developments, but there were still so many things to go over before we could claim any sense of peace. Or even stability.

This is exactly why I should wait.

I can’t be planning a wedding and have my head in the game of marriage when we’re all planning what else to do to protect our empire.