He's Fire and She's Playing with It - Mafia Version

Chapter 43: M.I.N.E (End This Way)

Ally was slung back in a chair, legs crossed, phone in hand. She was ready. She had gone through every possible scenario in her head, drawn every picture, looked at every option. She was still risking a lot, but she didn't do it without a security net.

She didn't know what the others expected by the meeting, but she was sure that they didn't think that she would have a strategic, carefully laid out, political plan to present.

Adryan entered first, followed by William and Joshua. Joshua never seemed to be more than a few steps behind Adryan. She supposed that that came with the job description. She was once again grateful that Adryan had chosen such a good bodyguard. She had asked him a couple of days prior what everyone's roles in the team were. He had given her small details before, but the closer she came to him, the more he revealed.

Joshua took a seat by the wall, where he could see the whole room without moving his head. William took a seat at the table. She kept her eyes at him. Adryan called him The Messenger, the person choosing the right information to share with the guards and then delivering it while pretending that they had everything they needed. If someone was a rat, he would know.

Adryan sat down on the armrest of her chair and took her hand. He gently kissed it. Even he didn't know why she had requested his meeting room and asked him to call in the inner circle, but he trusted her - and she hated herself because of it. His business didn't have just one rat.

Lissa and Yake joined them a few minutes later. During the time they had waited Joshua and William had been chatting casually with each other. Adryan had whispered questions in her ear, and she had shaken them off, telling him that he would know soon enough.

Lissa was the most brutal of them all, aside from Adryan. He called her The Provoker. She was an expert at playing opposite sides against each other. Together with Benjamin and Yake, she could destroy lives only by using a few carefully chosen words.

Yake was The Master of Details. He could find out anything about anyone within minutes. Ally used to think of him as a stalker, but he was so much more. Every piece of information was dangerous in his hands. The first name of her mother was enough for him to tell her exactly what jabs she had been given as a child.

She had heard Adryan call Benjamin The Thinker. The name made her shudder. She thought of Adryan's description of him:

"He's cunning and clever. He thinks things through in half the time that I do. Benjamin's thoughts morph themselves in to the thought process of whoever he wants. He can extract information without so much as lifting a finger. The way he will enter their heads, make himself at home, and slowly break apart everything that a person is... it's impressive."

Somehow she had been sure that 'impressive' wasn't the word that Adryan had wanted to use.

"Cruel", she had said.

And he hadn't protested.

Benjamin was the only one who hadn't arrived yet.

∞

Benjamin entered Adryan's house by key, keypad, and security code. Adryan had the override code that could disable the other locks, but he didn't share that with anyone. His crew were grateful to able to get in at all. Benjamin remembered the first time that he had entered the house by his own measure, how he had played confident and overly comfortable, but in reality been scared as hell. Now he strolled in like he owned the place and felt as home as he did in his own flat. His and Adryan's friendship ran deep, but their concord as employer and employee ran deeper.

He stalked down the corridor toward the meeting room. He had woken up to an empty apartment and with one single text message in his phone where Ally had instructed him to be in the meeting room a few hours later. He didn't know what the meeting was about, but he had his guesses and he hoped that Ally would thread lightly when it came to the subject of Grim. The knot in his stomach told him that he didn't trust her to do so.