Lorenzo #2
He's quiet for a moment, glancing down at the beer bottle in his hands. "You've got a leak," he says after a minute of silence.
I don't deny it.
"How tight is the circle on these things?" he asks. "Who knew about all four?"
"That's what I'm working out. The overlap isn't as clean as I'd like. But it’s not just me, Tempest. Daithí and Prior have had the same issues."
“Fuck, you’ve definitely got a leak. But there's someone in the overlap for all three families. We need to figure out who had access to information from not only your business, but the Delaneys and the Kings.”
"Or there's one person with access to information from multiple sources, which is a different problem." I look at him. "It doesn't have to be someone in the room. It could be someone adjacent to someone in the room."
Tempest considers that. "Someone doing the talking without knowing what they're doing."
"Or knowing exactly what they're doing and letting someone else be the liability."
"You've got people watching?" Tempest asks.
"I've been watching for about two weeks now."
"And?"
"Nothing confirmed. A couple of things I'm not satisfied with, but nothing I can move on yet." I look at him. "I needed to say it out loud to someone outside the house."
He nods, understanding what that means. Saying it out loud to someone outside the house means I've been carrying this alone for weeks while living and working with the people who might be responsible for it. That requires a level of compartmentalization that gets heavy after a while, even for me.
"Could it be someone new?" Tempest asks. "Someone you brought in around the time the incidents started?"
"I've looked at that. There were some additions in the six months prior. I'm not ruling any of them out, but the specificity of the financial information in particular narrows it. That wasn't broadly held."
"What about the Delaney connection?" he asks.
I look at him.
"Not pointing fingers," he says. "I'm asking a question. You've got a new alliance forming, that creates access in both directions. Someone in the Delaney house could have gotten information through the arrangement discussions. That kind of thing gets talked about."
"The incidents started before the arrangement was formalized," I say. "The logistics route was two weeks after the Syndicate meeting, before the Delaney marriage discussion was even on the table in specific terms. The Delaney connection doesn't account for the timeline."
"Fair enough." He leans back. "What about the Morozov situation? What if it's not just a romantic problem? What if Rurik was looking to cause instability, and this is part of the same thing?"
I've thought about this. I've thought about all of it. I’ve gone through every scenario in my head, over and over again.
"Rurik's impulsive," I say. "I don't see him running a long-term intelligence operation.
Getting a woman pregnant and hiding their relationship for a year is the limit of his patience for sustained effort.
" I pause. "That's not dismissing the Morozov angle entirely. But it's not Rurik doing the thinking."
"Could be someone using Rurik."
"Could be."
Tempest is quiet again. "So you're watching," he says. "And waiting."
"And waiting."
"How long?"
"As long as it takes to be sure. Moving on the wrong person creates more problems than it solves."
He nods. "You need anything from my end?"
"I need you to dig. With the Delaneys and Kings getting the same situation, we need to see if there’s any overlap. You’re good at digging. I need you to do what you’re best at, Tempest."
He gives me his shark’s grin. “Absolutely. Whatever you need. I’ve got your back.”
“Thanks, man, I appreciate it, but I need this to be kept quiet.”
He shakes his head, like he’s disappointed in me for even saying it. "Goes without saying."
"I'm saying it anyway. If it gets out that we’re looking into this, whoever the rat is could stop what they're doing and I’m not going to keep looking at my men with mistrust. That shit doesn’t work. I need to find out who the rat is and soon."
He raises his glass slightly. "Noted."
I take a steadying breath, glad as fuck that I’ve got Tempest helping me work all of this shit out. I know I should bring in Ciro too, but I’m not sure how my hothead brother will deal with the news that we’re being betrayed once again.
We're on the second drink when Tempest circles back.
"The girl," he says. "Quinn. You met her?"
My brows knit together. Why is he asking about her? "Yes."
"And? What is she like?"
"She's not what I expected."
He waits for me to say more and sighs when I don’t elaborate..
"Is that good or bad?" he asks.
"She came into the meeting knowing exactly what it was," I say. "She told me how she saw the marriage going. No shared room, no expectation of anything beyond the arrangement." I pause. "She also said she expected me to have dalliances, and that she'd do the same."
Tempest makes a sound that might be suppressed laughter. "What did you say to that?"
"Nothing."
He absolutely laughs at that, unable to contain himself. "You said nothing?"
"There was nothing useful to say in the moment."
"Right." He shakes his head. "So she told you how your marriage is going to go. In your own house?"
"She wasn't wrong about most of it."
"And the part she was wrong about?" He’s goading me, and it’s not going to work.
I look at him.
He raises his hands slightly. "Got it."
"She's observant," I say. "She reads rooms well. She handled the dinner at the house. The whole family, my father, the dynamic of it, better than I expected. Better than most people would."
"Useful," Tempest says.
"Potentially."
"You trust her?"
"I don't trust anyone until I have a reason to." I turn the glass in my hand. "I don't distrust her. That's where we are."
"That's practically glowing praise coming from you."
"It's where we are," I say again, flatly, and he lets it go.