Page 83 of Beautiful Ruins
Fear.
Not for myself.For Izzy.
“She is being discussed,” Archie added, choosing each word with surgical caution.“As leverage.As currency.As a means of solving a Bratva debt… and destabilizing you.”
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.Internally, something seized.
“She is being discussed,” I repeated, the words tasting wrong in my mouth.“Like an object.Like a transaction.”
“Yes.”
“Does this fucking punk even understand who he’s dealing with?”I snarled, the volume sharp enough to scrape the walls before I forced it back down.
“It doesn’t matter what he understands,” Archie stated.“He is desperate.Opportunistic.Cornered.And he has shaken hands with men who possess substantial resources.”
My jaw tightened.
“The Chernov outfit wants their money back,” Archie went on.“They know they will not recover it if Azzopardi is dead.A dead debtor pays nothing.”
The implication settled like poison.
“You’re telling me that they are… assisting him.”
“Incentivising him,” Archie clarified.“Indirectly.Strategically.The bottom line is repayment.And dominance.”
I let out a short, hollow breath.
“The dumb fucker stole from them,” I surmized.
“Yes.But he is also useful.A desperate man with access to proximity.To information.To a vulnerability point.”
My stomach turned.
Izzy.
“They see an opening,” Archie informed me.“If you are destabilized, distracted, or removed, Chernov consolidates influence in the region while recovering his loss.Two objectives.One manoeuvre.”
“They are funding his survival.”
“They are preserving his usefulness,” Archie replied.“There is a difference.”
I laughed once under my breath, but there was nothing amused in it.
“He was standing at my gate,” I said, more to myself than to him.“Looking at this house.Breathing the same air as her.”
The image alone made my vision darken.Archie didn’t respond.
“She is acivilian,” I stated, the word full of restrained violence.“She should not even exist in their operational awareness.”
“But she does,” Archie told me in a low voice.“Azzopardi made sure of that.”
Silence stretched.Thick.Oppressive.Calculating.
“You know,” I lifted my gaze back to him, “as well as I do that this ends only one way.”
Archie’s grip tightened slightly on his cane.
“Yes.”
