Chapter 43

• I wiped down the back of my neck with a towel. Really, I hadn’t meant it to go that long. I’d decided to tell my security team what happened to Vladimir. Not all of them were sworn in but they knew my job and why people were out to get me most times. That level of trust was hard to come by and I looked at each one of them, giving them an ultimatum. Either they would be officially sworn in or I would provide them a glowing recommendation letter to their next place of business with three months of severance pay.
• When I was thinking about Keenan and swearing him in to protect Rosaria, I realized that I wasn’t about to split my trust between my family and my guys. Most of these men had been with me for over ten years. The new guys looked up to them but I needed them to know I was serious. The consequences for betrayal were far worse and there was more on the line. There was a sense of loyalty and weight to your actions. One that should never be bought and if it was, then the full weight of being a traitor to your family came down hard. Not just on you but those around you.
• At the end of the day, they failed. All of them failed. The mercenaries had climbed up not just the windows that you could see from the middle floor but their sleeping quarters as well. Nothing was caught. Nothing was checked. Nothing was done and that was unacceptable. So, after confirming the eight men who turned in their badges and sending over the information to Aleksei, I decided to dole out a little punishment of my own.