“Both,” I say. “But if you make me pick, I’ll pick her.”
“I appreciate the honesty,” Lukas says. “It’s going to make what I say next easier.”
But bracing turns out not to be enough for what he says next.
“Hear me out. I did not interrupt you, so pay me the respect of doing the same.” Lukas waits for me to agree to his terms. Reluctantly, I close my mouth and nod. “If, at the end of seventy-two hours, we have a name, an address, a face—something we can put actual f*****g hands on—then we can move to cut off the head of this snake. But if that time expires and we still do not have any of those things, then we go to ground and prepare for a long-term war of attrition. I won’t have my men killed chasing a ghost. Are we understood?”
But inwardly, I’m in turmoil. Three days is not nearly eno
