Page 59 of Stolen By the Bratva

“Well, yes,” Ivan said. “They will set us up to take the fall for that arms shipment. And the law enforcement will be on us like never before with a shipment that large.”

“Not that large,” Maxim argued. “Pavel never had enough to fund as large of a shipment as he boasted.”

“Regardless, the cops will be there when it falls apart,” Nik argued.

“Which cop?” Dmitri asked, realizing how confident and calm I was. He knew I was on to something.

“Did Mila explain it to you?” Nik asked. “She was working in that office. Their front company.”

I’d dismissed that connection. Sergei never would have directly trusted her with any vital clues. I shook my head.

“But can she help? Can she give us any information?”

I tensed. “My wife is not a pawn to use.”

They didn’t speak up, hesitant at my dark tone.

“She has no information to give me,” I said, knowing then and there that it had to be true. If she had anything to share, she would have. She couldn’t go at this halfway. How could she want to save my life but not help me win this war?

“I don’t need any more information. I’ve got it all. We have it all.” With the medic finished inspecting my wound, I tugged my shirt and jacket back on then retrieved the papers from my inner pocket.

It had taken me too long to realize it, but rereading the coded lines over and over helped me piece it together.

“The Doc,” I said.

“As in the dock?” Maxim guessed. “Referencing the Colver dock that we want from the Kastavas?”

I shook my head. “No. As in the former doctor. The ‘Doc.’”

No one reacted, and I turned to Nikolai. He was most used to this specialty, used to going undercover on assignments. “Remember that rookie who moved up in ranks because he disguised himself as a physician to get closer to his targets on cases?”

He snapped his fingers and cursed. “That fucker.”

“Who?” Ivan asked.

“Stephen Murphy. That fucking two-timing cop. I remember him.”

“He’s involved?” Dmitri asked.

I nodded. Rereading those clues within the emails Maxim intercepted was all it took to jog my memory. Stephen Murphy had always been a thorn in our side. All the cops and detectives wanted to bring the bratva down, and he was the sneakiest of the bunch. He’d once snuck in undercover at a prison, pretending to be a doctor, to get a statement from one of the men the bratva had nearly killed. It was a nasty case of he said versus they said, and on and on, and since that time, everyone knew he would never be trusted.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Ivan asked.

I shook my head. We had to do this right. If Murphy or any other cop was trying to help Sergei Kastava set us up, we had to be just as sneaky and careful with getting them back. “We’re not waiting. We’re planning.”

And we did. With these dozen or so loyalists, I schemed and strategized how to fight back. Nikolai and Maxim worked on the laptop, hacking into surveillance software to find where this asshole cop might be. We’d already put a tracker on Pavel and Sergei, too.

The rest of us tried to think of how we could change the details of the shipment’s arrival so the Kastavas wouldn’t screw us over. Their men and soldiers would have to be at the dock. They would man the crews unloading the goods, but the transportation of the arms from the docks to the warehouse was where the trap would be set. The cops couldn’t find the Valkovs at fault there, but instead, Sergei’s men.

For another hour, we deliberated the best method to make sure we wouldn’t be taken down with the blame for this scenario. If anyone was going to be caught by the law with one of the biggest North American arms shipments ever, it wouldn’t be us.

The longer I stayed apart from Mila, the more I began to consider that I could trust my gut with her. I didn’t want to think that I was missing her. Not already. We’d been thrust together with such close proximity for so long now that it felt weird to be apart from her.

But she’s not the enemy. She had no choice in being born a Kastava, but through marriage, I’d helped her fix her identity. She was a Valkov now. She was mine.

And I felt closer to being ready to trust her.

She hadn’t once asked to see those papers. She hadn’t said or acted in any other suspicious manner.

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