Chapter 53 Borrow Her #2
“Wait!” I grated, voice rough from panic. In unison, C?lin and Cockerels Cap turned to me. I was viscerally aware of the gun at my head, but I was not letting them walk out of this room with my wife. “You said you need her to come with you. Why?”
The man cocked a brow at me. “Because I paid for her.”
I swallowed, hating everything about what I was about to say. “I have money … how much would it take for you to lose interest in taking her?”
C?lin’s amused laughter pierced holes in me.
“Oh, you young people … money isn’t everything.
Your money can’t buy me the kind of power I’m after.
” He stroked his beard. “I suppose it could go a long way towards bribing certain key players to turn a blind eye … but at the end of the day, Irina is the sole inheritor of the entire Rusnac empire … and whoever controls her is in charge. So no, your money is not enough to barter for Irina.”
I dug deep into my panicked mind, sorting frantically through all the titbits of information I had about Irina and her family, to puzzle out how to extract Irina from this situation.
“What if she was to relinquish her interest in the … the empire?” I asked, eyes darting to where Cockerels Cap now had my wife in a bride carry.
I swallowed back bile. “I know she has no desire to be involved in the family business in any way.”
C?lin tilted his head in my direction. “Ah, but I would still need to be married to her, would I not? For me to be able to take control. If she takes over from her uncle, and then renounces her position as head of the family, it would go to her husband … or in the absence of one, the next of kin of the Rusnac line.”
“Stefan,” I surmised thoughtfully. I caught C?lin nodding. “And Bogdan remains a problem, I’m gathering.”
“You’re a clever one, aren’t you?” C?lin remarked, taking a seat on the chair Irina had been tied to, resting his ankle on his knee and peering down at me.
“I find myself interested to see how your brain works through this conundrum. Point that gun elsewhere, Atlas, you imbecile. I’m trying to converse with the intelligent member of the Tickle duo. ”
I let out a tiny breath as the pressure of the barrel disappeared from my forehead, thinking fast. “I’m surmising that Irina’s father willed the … the empire to his offspring upon his death. With his brother to caretake in the role should he die before his child was old enough to take over.”
C?lin nodded again. “Of course, Bogdan never intended for Irina to take control. Her father’s will states that Bogdan is to oversee things until she is willing and able to take over, but I believe she was never given the details of her father’s will.”
“Willing being the key word.”
“Indeed.” C?lin’s eyebrows rose appreciatively.
“I will marry her, have us take control, with me as her husband, heading it up.” He leaned closer, elbows on his knees, peering at my face.
“I had also thought, several years ago, to ensure an heir out of her, but I’ve since changed my mind.
Family members are too likely, in my line of work, to stab you in the back from their position at your side. ”
With a sigh, he leaned away. “I’m not an unnecessarily cruel man, Henry. I’ve done what was necessary to shore up my legacy. I bought Irina from her uncle, because marrying into the family seemed a solid step towards my goals. I have very little use for a wife outside of what she represents.”
He leaned back, stroking his beard. “Some might say it’s arrogant, to aspire to being the powerhouse responsible for joining Romania’s two biggest organised crime empires, but there you have it.
I’ve done as much as I can, making Bogdan financially reliant on me, but it’s not enough.
I want it all to be mine. Marrying Irina seems the only way I can make that happen. ”
He tutted. “At least, without a bloodbath, which is such a waste of resources. Too many men die in the crossfire, and I need those men for the future I envisage. Besides, I’d prefer my hands to stay completely bloodless—you have no idea how difficult it is to get men to trust you when you go about murdering their colleagues willy-nilly. ”
The politeness, the conversational tone, his genuine belief in his grandiose, villainous plans, somehow made it all even more horrifying. I tightened my jaw, trying to keep a neutral expression.
“So, you’ve made yourself indispensable to Bogdan, and his …
enterprise. For you to take control—without needing a marital link to the Rusnac family—who stands in your way?
” I counted them on my fingers. “Bogdan, Stefan, and Irina, am I right? There are no other stakeholders in the Rusnac clan who might challenge you should those … roadblocks be removed?”
I hated myself for reducing his criminal coup to a business deal, but a solution to all of this was forming in my brain. If it worked, Ri could walk away from this nightmare.
“There are no others,” C?lin confirmed.
I lifted my hands carefully. “If you’ll permit me to reach into my pocket, I’d like to get Stefan on the phone now. I think we can make this work for you.”
C?lin’s eyes lit up, his smile white and beaming. “By all means. Solve this problem for me, Henry. If you can figure out how I can have everything without getting my hands dirty … I might just let you keep your wife.”