Page 89 of Ruthless Daddy
Dante nodded once.
“Tell me what you need.”
She did not hesitate, listed technical requirements.
“I will run the team,” Sal said.
He said it without lifting his head. He said it to the folder in front of her, the way he had said the apology in Sicilian. The bruise at his jaw was already darkening.
“I will run the data,” Marco said. “I have what you need or I can get it inside three hours.”
“I will run the perimeter,” Tonio said. “The Carriage House is mine to keep clean. Nobody in or out for forty-eight hours that I have not personally cleared. Olimpo agrees.” Olimpo, on cue, thumped his tail once against the floorboards.
Santo, against the brick wall, uncrossed his arms.
“I will handle the Marseilles crew,” he said. “If they move on her before we move on Enzo, they will not get within a block. That is mine.”
Angela looked at him. She looked at him for a beat longer than at any of the others. Santo held the look, and did not soften it, and did not need to.
“Thank you,” she said.
Santo nodded, once, and crossed his arms again.
Dante had been watching the assignments go around the table without speaking. Now he spoke.
“And the Marseilles crew.”
He said it to Angela.
“Let them wait,” she said.
The room did not react. They were past reacting.
“Let them sit in the motel,” she said. “Let them watch the apartment. Let them follow the patterns they are looking for and let those patterns get boring, because Pietro and I will not be at the apartment, and there will be nothing to read. Marseilles crews are paid by the day for surveillance and they have an upper limit on how long the contract is worth running. If we move on Enzo through the money before they move on me through the routine, then the contract goes dark. Enzo will be in a position where he cannot pay them. He may already be in a position where he cannot give them new instructions. They will eventually pack up and go home. Some of them are likely already bored. They will not stay forever, especially in Chicago in January, without payment confirmation and without target movement. We do not need to engage them at all.”
She paused.
“You can if you want,” she said. “After. For information. But you do not need them to get to Enzo. They are the foot soldiers of a contract that you can starve by going after the man who funded it.”
The room sat with it.
I watched it sit. I watched Marco’s face do the small private thing it did when a plan landed in the shape he liked. I watched Sal’s hand, still on the folder, finally relax. I watched Dante consider her, and consider the plan, and consider the table, and not say anything for a count of ten that felt much longer.
“It’s elegant,” Marco said.
“Itiselegant,” Dante agreed.
“It is also slower,” Sal said. Not as an objection. As an observation. “We could be looking at ten days from start to finish instead of two.”
“Yes,” Angela said
“Good,” Dante said.
Sal looked up.
“Good,” Dante said again. “I would rather have ten days than two. If we don’t need to rush, let’s not rush”
Sal did not argue. He nodded.
