“If you could get at her.”

“I know where she is. She’s under surveillance. Your move.”

“Take a look.” Gora tapped his cell phone again. “This one was taken ten minutes ago, just for you.” He reached out and showed the photo to Dominic. Katherine was talking to a colleague in the office. “My cousin is a mail boy at CX Capital.” Gora smiled. “It’s a brand-new job. Probably temporary, but he likes it. All kinds of pretty girls, he says.”

Dominic sat silent for a few moments, then looked at Gora with an empty, dispassionate expression. “Let me tell you a little story, Gora. When I was young my mother sent me to psychiatrists because she thought I wanted to kill her.”

“Did you?”

“Why would I tell you what I never told any of the psychiatrists?”

“Is she still alive?”

“This isn’t about my mother, Gora. One of the psychiatrists was a pedophile. So I anonymously notified the authorities of his illegal activities like any good citizen would. I told them where his files were. I told them where his photo collection was. I sent them a sample because the stupid shit showed me all that like I’d be interested. You get my drift, Gora? I wasn’t quite ten and I’d already learned that you do whatever it takes. Always. Period. So if you harm a hair on Katherine’s head, if you even frighten her, if one of your idiots shows himself and frightens her. Okay? Is that clear? I’ll take you down, I’ll take your wife’s family down, I’ll do it from the fucking grave. And before you get all blustery on me, your security’s not the best. I can get to your little girlfriend. You fucking hurt Katherine and I’ll do it. Bianca—right? I’ll strangle her with my bare hands. Still want me to marry her?”

Gora gave him a considering look, breathed in and out, choosing his words. “I thought we were going to make a deal.”

Dominic said with mild annoyance, “I thought the deal was money. Mine to you. If you need a bridegroom, add the price of some gigolo to stand at the altar with your babe. I just need a fucking number.” He tapped his phone in his shirt pocket. “The money will be in your account in five minutes.”

Gora hurt people for a living, but he still looked like a skinny accountant in an expensive suit that didn’t quite fit him right. And his face had lost some of its badass arrogance now that he was trying to save the deal he needed to please the babe he didn’t have sense enough to put on the pill. Although, Dominic thought, after his out-of-control week with Katherine in Hong Kong, he was the last person to talk about sensible birth control. “Look, Gora, I’m as interested in a deal as you are. Only it’s gotta be money. And I’m probably going to be sorry I said this, but name your price. Let’s get this done.”

Gora slowly shook his head. “You know I can promise not to hurt Katherine. My word is good. I’m sure you also know that my Bianca comes from an aristocratic family. So I need you, Dominic, as much as you need me. I play chess too. I know you’re protecting your queen.” He sighed. “So that said, I need your status, your wealth. Just anyone won’t do for her husband. That’s why I have men watching your girlfriend. It’s the only leverage I have. And I’m not asking you to do this for long. You can have any prenup you want. I don’t want your money. After three months, the child is born with a good name; you get a divorce.” He smiled faintly. “We know it’s a boy. My wife only gave me girls.”

Dominic prided himself on his deal making but he was starting to get a bad feeling about this one. Like maybe he was going to get burned. He’d had those feelings before and always walked away. But he couldn’t this time. Not with Katherine’s life on the line. Not when Gora knew he wouldn’t allow her to be hurt. “Jesus, Gora, I expected this to be survivable. Marriage? Christ. Can’t you find someone else to take your place as the bridegroom?”

“With the people I know?” Gora shrugged. “Not possible.”

Dominic suddenly stood, walked behind the bar, grabbed a bottle of brandy, cracked the seal, poured a slug down his throat, then stood there for a few moments, running all the possibilities through his mind like a Vegas bookie, processing information, calculating tactics and constraints, determining objectives. Gora’s people were dumb but they swung a lot of weight. Especially with the factory in Bucharest. Especially in sheer firepower. He could maintain a chain reaction of Mexican standoffs: first him, then Gora, then him, threats on top of threats to infinity—all while trying to keep Katherine blissfully unaware and out of danger. But juggling all of these retaliatory balls in the air was going to be a nightmare.

A part of his brain was telling him this might be a good time for a break. He could make a one-stop solution, solve all the myriad problems with a single, unemotional fix. Placate all parties involved and keep Katherine safe. Sometimes taking the weaker side of a deal in chess, taking a tactical loss for a greater strategic gain, was a useful move. A good chess player instinctively knew that.

And he’d always been a numbers guy. Numbers before emotions. That’s how he’d made it to where he was. And recently emotion had been reconfiguring his algorithms and fucking with his head.

Maybe he should just put everything on hold. Give things a chance to calm down. See if he really wanted what he thought he wanted. Focus on the strategic whole rather than the individual parts. Three months wasn’t so long.

It was a decision made by a man who had come to view life as explicitly calculable.