Until you {uncompleted}

Chapter 48

Traffic moved at a crawl due to a car accident up a head. I felt grateful. I have a lot to think about and weigh down in my head before talking to Damien again. After arranging a meeting with the Arch. Things will move pretty quickly on from there. It'll be crazy. A lot can go wrong. They needed to raise their defenses. Xavier won't go down quickly. But to get to that point they needed to convince Quinton to be their ally. There was still a lot to do before taking Xavier down.

Liam drummed his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently taking me out of my head. "If this doesn't let up soon we'll get home at midnight."

I laughed. "Liam. Come on! It's not even dark out yet."

He squeezed the wheel hard. "If that traffic light turns red. One. More. Time..." he bit out. "It's the third time. And we still haven't moved an inch. "

I laid my hand on his clenched one. His knuckles started bleeding again. He probably busted them at yesterday's fight. Something was wrong. That much I could tell. And it wasn't the traffic.

"Hey. You know what? I'm kinda hungry. I know of a restaurant right over there. Let's pull out of this traffic and get something to eat."

"It's fine by me." he said looking tense.

It still took us about twenty minutes to get into some side streets then maneuver the car onto a parking spot and continue on foot.

As soon as we had our asses in the booth I went at him. "Come on, Liam. Out with it. What's wrong?"

He gave me the side eye. " I know you know how to be subtle, Babe. Use that, won't you?"

"You're family. My dear husband said that. That means I can be as subtle as an elephant with you." I smiled creepily.

"You decide I'm family! now? " he palmed his face.

"What's bothering you? Is it a lady friend?" I waggled my eyebrows. "Or do you have a gambling debt somewhere? Or.."

He groaned. "Stop play guessing. You're giving me a headache. Okay I'll tell you God Dammit. "

"Yeah. I totally knew something was wrong. You were too quite today."

"I'm just tense." he said. I just looked at him and waited.

Our waitress came and after placing the orders he turned fully to me.

"Okay. Damien will never hear about this.  "

"Ooooh. Confidential. You say. I love these kind of conversations."

"He already knows, there aren't any secrets between us, but he's leaving it to me. I just haven't been telling him about every update." he scoffed. "I have no idea how my brother thinks he's gonna live with your snark."

I batted my eyelashes at him. "One," I counted raising a finger soon to be followed by another, "he married me with it. So he had prior knowledge. And two, between you and me, he loves it."

He laughed, "Yeah, and to be honest. Today proved you two think a like. You handled Torres perfectly. It was like Damien was talking."

I gave him a small smile. "Liam. You're stalling."

"I told you. It isn't much. I'm just tense. Things have been piling up lately. Everyone is tense. Work has been hell. A shipment got blown up two days ago. And I think someone is slipping out information to the Knights.  I'm narrowing it down. But these people I suspect. I grew up with them. I don't want to come out and say something to Damien without being a hundred percent sure. I can't. Loyalty is everything to our people. Nila. You don't know them. They bled for us. We bled for them. I can't go and say you betrayed us to one of them without evidence. "

I reached a hand to him. " Betrayal is never easy but it usually comes from the people we least expect. We call it a knife in the back. You don't leave your back open to someone unless you trust them with your life. It hurts. But you can't close your eyes to it. You can't wait to feel that knife in your back to turn around and see who stabbed you with it. "

We both lapsed into silence contemplating what to do. In that time our food arrived. Liam looked like a sad puppy pushing his food around the plate . I shook my head. I had no idea how a criminal could pull off such innocent looks. Even with his face looking busted. If someone was looking at him from the outside they'd see a cute boy who probably had a fight over a girl. They would never see a mafia family's second who is trying to figure out a traitor to execute.

I took a few bites then it hit me.

" Liam. You said you narrowed it down. How narrow are we talking?"

He looked confused by my question but answered none the less. "Three." he said then added, "Before the last shipment I made sure to tell the location to as few people as possible"

" When is the next shipment?"

"That's the thing. There isn't going to be one. At least for the time being. We're laying low."

"Actually. That might be better. You know what. Arrange for three shipments. Totally fake. Make it seem like there is a deal that was made a while ago but everything around it was kept hush hush. You know what I mean. Then only share the official details with those three a few hours before the shipment. Only give each one a different location. Don't give them any time to talk to each other. And have your men wait at these fake shipment locations. Whoever's shipment gets raided is your guy. "

He was quite for a while then he surprised me by leaning over the table and smacking  a kiss on my cheek. " That's brilliant! "

I laughed and wiped at my cheek. " I know. I'm always brilliant. "

"That's actually a great idea. It needs a little bit of work here and there but it can work " He said rejuvenated, then dove into his plate polishing it off in a few minutes.

"I see your appetite is back." I commented. " But since you're done let's go. You have a trap to set. And I have some scenarios that I need to work on in my head. I don't want to leave anything up to chance after the vote. Xavier will have nothing to lose at that point and he'll try to fight it with all he has before the Arch can get to him. "

After all Xavier's end is just beginning. Our troubles are far from over.