Page 59 of The Bratva's Forced Bride

A small, sleepy smile settled on her lips. “I like it when you call me that.”

As much as I wanted to dwell on that thought, I had business to attend to. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

In a hurry, I grabbed the nearest clothes I could find and pulled myself together. But before I left the room, I went to her side of the bed and bent down to give Grace a quick kiss on her forehead.

“Be safe,” she hummed before tucking the blankets beneath her arm.

“I will.”

Before I could delay any longer, I slipped out of the room and left the condo altogether. Alone in the car, I drove as quickly as I could to the warehouse.

I expected there to be a swarm of men outside, working to assess damages and take care of business before I arrived, but the property was surprisingly quiet.

Confused by the lack of movement, I pulled through the gates and scanned the cluster of buildings, only to find a few of our men posted out front of the nearest one.

Something didn’t seem right. There should’ve been action and chaos, along with bodies on the ground, but it was as still as ever.

Pulling up to the men out front, I rolled down my window and shut the engine off.

The guards looked at me strangely.

“Is there anything we can help you with, sir?” The one asked, moving away from the wall he leaned against.

Furrowing my brows at him, I couldn’t understand why everything seemed so out of place.

“Yeah, I received a text saying a trade here went south. So what happened?” I asked, looking between them both.

But they only looked more confused than I felt, glancing at each other as if I was going crazy.

“Nothing of that nature happened here, sir. There weren’t any trades scheduled here for the night.”

I just blinked back at them in complete disbelief. “What are you talking about?”

They both seemed to scramble, looking for any answer, but there wasn’t much else they could say.

“We haven’t heard anything about any hits here tonight. There must be a mistake.”

He seemed to have a point, but I didn’t yet know where that mistake came from.

Pulling out my phone, I found that message and read it again. I couldn’t see anything wrong with it, until that realization hit me, and the dots seemed to connect.

I never looked at the number who sent it. I had been too tired to pay proper attention to what was going on. There was no contact associated with it and no name to help me discern who had sent it. It was just an unknown phone number.

Usually when something went wrong, Vik or Elias would let me know, or some other higher-rank employee that had my number. But I didn’t recognize that one.

Based on the mystery number and the lack of action around the warehouse, it became incredibly clear that something else was going on. Upon thinking about it further, I realized which location I was at and how there truly hadn’t been any deliveries scheduled for that night.

Those revelations came too late, it seemed.

Before I could say anything to the men, my screen lit up with an incoming call. My ringer shattered my deep thoughts, and I noticed that same number again.

My brows furrowed, and I accepted the call at once.

Lifting it to my ear, I murmured, “Who is this?”

A small chuckle came from the other end. “I bet you’re just now realizing there wasn’t a hit at the warehouse at all, and now you feel like a colossal idiot.”

Anger flared within me, pushing me closer to the edge of rampaging. “Who are you?” I snapped, sick of the games. Of the back-and-forth bullshit.

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