Page 95 of Broken Mercy
“A simple exchange,” Brenden repeats, clearly trying to refocus the conversation. I’m angry, but I do my best to swallow it. The fear helps with that a lot.
Arsen pours more bourbon into his glass. “It isn’t that simple. What happens if I decide someday that Sam needs to be punished for some other crime? Are you going to come back here, sneak through my walls, and remind me about those ledgers? Can I really trust that you’ve destroyed all your copies? Does this mean Sam can’t be touched? Does this mean your entire family is now off limits, no matter what they do?” Heshakes his head regretfully. “It isn’t as simple as you want it to be. Frankly, you should both be dead already.”
“If you kill us, the documents will come out. They’ll go straight to the DA.”
“I don’t doubt it, and yet you should still be dead.”
My toes curl and I feel cold all over from the looks Arsen’s giving us. “Please, we want to make a deal. We’re here in good faith.”
“Says the woman who helps steal from me. Do you not understand? Youstolefrom me. You robbed me, broke into my house, into my private bedroom, and you took something that’s mine. Do you know how many people have survived such a transgression?”
“None,” Brenden says firmly. “But there’s about to be two. Because you’re right, the ledgers themselves aren’t enough. You need a better reason to keep us alive. You need a target and a scapegoat.”
Arsen’s lips turn down. “How is that going to work?”
“The Davises have done very well for themselves over the years, haven’t they?” Brenden reaches into one of the pockets on his pants. Arsen clicks his tongue, but Brenden ignores it, producing a single folded piece of paper. “Surprisingly well, considering their market should be somewhat small. Nation states, rebel groups, that sort of thing. That’s where you come in though, isn’t it? You’re the middle man between the Davises and all the people they can’t be seen doing business with. You’re their bridge to the underworld.”
Arsen makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. “I’m losing patience.”
“But there are people you won’t sell to, aren’t there? Rivals here in the city you don’t want to see get the arms they’d need to kill our people. You’ve made it a point not to sell to them, but they still somehow have plenty of weapons. Where’s all that coming from?”
Arsen’s expression hardens for the first time since the conversation began. He shifts in his chair, putting his glass down. “Talk faster.”
“The Davises got greedy. I don’t know when, but it’s in their numbers. They found other partners in your line of work, people they trust and who are more than willing to sell to any highest bidder regardless of whether they’re a rival or not.”
“You’re saying the Davises betrayed me.”
“I’m saying that regardless of whatever deal you have with them, they’re selling guns to men who want to kill you.”
His grip on the glass tightens. “Proof. Now.”
Brenden leans forward and places the page down. Arsen carefully unfolds it and reads. My heart pulses and I know what my cousin’s seeing: a photocopied page from the Davis ledger, the most damning entries we could find, though there are a dozen more scattered through it.
“You can thank Tallie for that,” Brenden says and I’m pleased at the note of pride in his voice. “I went through those papers a dozen times and never saw it, but she noticed in a single pass.”
Arsen grunts, snapping the paper down to his desk. “What would you have me do with this?”
“We didn’t steal from you.” It’s my turn to speak. Brenden puts a hand on mine for support. “That’s what you’ll tell people.Instead, we aggressively audited your books by comparing them to the Davis half, and the only way to plausibly make that happen was by robbing them. Otherwise, they’d lie to you. You’ll spin this as a service we performed, and as payment, you’ll forgive Sam this one single time.”
Silence stretches. Arsen’s eyes go unfocused as he looks out across the office. Brenden sits very still like he’s primed for something terrible to happen and I can barely handle the stress. I want to scream, pace, go running for my life, and it’s only Brenden’s touch keeping me from melting down, it’s knowing that he’d do anything to protect me, that he’d die to keep me safe if it came to that.
And I’d do the same for him. I’d throw away everything to make sure my husband walked away from this, and it kills me knowing how much he’s sacrificing in this meeting to protect my younger brother, it kills me that he’s doing it for me, but it also makes me love him in a way I didn’t ever expect I could.
That’s real love, I realize in the depths of the quiet, where my life hangs in the balance. The willingness to give everything to another person and the ability to make it happen. It’s not enough to say it. Brenden’s sitting there is proof that his actions live behind his words, and that’s enough to fill my heart with joy and terror at the bigness of what we’re building between us.
Because this is the end for him, the end of his plans, the end of his freedom. I get the sense he’s been working toward this outcome for a while, even before I came into the picture, and now he’s throwing it away. He’ll never get another chance like this to truly disappear.
He’s staying for me.
“I’ll need guarantees,” Arsen says finally, not looking happy. “Your sister will have to be involved, which means Alexan too.” He rubs his temple. “What a fucking pain in my ass. I’m still tempted to kill you both.”
“What if I sweetened the deal?” The idea hits me hard and I rush to get it out before Brenden can stop me. He already looks like he’s going to jump onto my chair and physically shut me up. “I’ll convince Sam to give the Brotherhood a massive cut on his dealings.”
“He’s already going to do that.”
“But a bigger one and I’ll make sure it’s enforced.”
Arsen’s lips curl. “I can enforce it as well.”
