Page 82 of The Pakhan

He had something for me, information he wasn’t able to discuss. He also wanted me to meet him at his apartment. That meant Vadim had been right. The hacker was in serious danger. Fuck. I was honestly shocked the location was in the heart of Brooklyn and not far from where my apartment had been.

I’d tried a few times to find him but the man was damn good at keeping everything about him, including his real name off the grid.

When he mentioned he’d hidden a jump drive in his apartment in a special compartment, I knew he was running scared.

Fuck. What was I supposed to do? Could I believe Vadim would protect him? I hated myself that at this point I wasn’t entirely certain. That was a sad statement given our level of passion. But other than what I’d seen, I had no idea how he handled business. If the other night was any indication, he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

Including murder.

Well, I refused to be the reason Joshua was killed. Whatever the case and perhaps against my better judgment, I knew what I had to do.

Find a way off this goddamn estate by myself.

Damned be the consequences.

However, I had to admit to myself that I was in a terrible habit of making very bad decisions, including coloring my hair pink.

I’d been fighting so hard to get away from my parents’ suffocating control that I’d lost myself completely along the way. Maybe I’d hoped doors would open for me bursting with sunshine and unicorns. Instead, I’d learned how much corruption there was in the Big Apple and beyond, including around my father.

All those hacker abilities I’d fine-tuned had only enflamed the curiosity I’d always had about how my father made his money. I hadn’t needed to delve too far into the man’s world to realize there was very little difference between his methods of handling his business and what I knew about Vadim’s austere, posh world.

Had I been searching for a father figure this entire time?

Oh, dear God. That made our passion seem reprehensible, icky as hell. No wonder Daniella had slapped me.

Time for a shower and a fresh change of clothes. Who knew. Maybe I’d become the heroine in this twisted love story for a change, besting even a ruthless man like Vadim.

Someone I craved.

Someone who’d set my soul on fire.

And someone I shouldn’t surrender to ever again.

Yeah, a hero who faded into the sunset like the good guys in movies.

Or maybe, just maybe I’d end up dead.

CHAPTER 21

Caroline

I’ll never forget the first time I’d snuck out of my parents’ house. I’d been fifteen, longing to be twenty-one, determined to go to a party with my friends.

That had included Sofiya at the time.

Even then she’d been a bad influence, a girl who got away with far too many things in her life. But God, I’d admired her spunk and her methods of sneaking around behind her father’s back. I’d always wondered how she’d managed to lose her bodyguards, who seemed attached to her at the hip.

Today I was going to try to find out.

The night at my parents’ house had turned out to be a mistake.

And a disaster.

Maybe part of the reason I hated storms so much was the fact that on the night in question, a raging storm had been going on outside. I’d believed, like the stupid girl I’d been, and likely still was, that the noise and severity of the storm would keep my parents from finding out I’d crawled out of my bedroom window onto the roof of the front porch.

What I hadn’t counted on was that given the heavy rain, the shingles would be slippery. The moment my foot had given way, I’d fallen hard on my ass before tumbling toward the edge of the porch where I’d attempted to grab the gutter.

Well, they certainly hadn’t been attached securely. While the fall I’d taken hadn’t been life threatening, only my ankle receiving a painful sprain and bumps and bruises covering parts of my body, it had been my father’s reaction that had been a stark reminder he was master of the house.

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