Page 39 of The Bratva's Plus-Size Bride

“Well, what happened? How did this happen?”

“We have reason to believe it was the Ivanovs—the trade was happening on our turf they’ve recently been trying to encroach upon. The truck was hijacked and taken elsewhere. I was able to locate the stolen vehicle parked outside of a warehouse I didn’t recognize—it was a new establishment. From what we can tell, the evidence points in their direction,” Lukyan continued with that maintained dutiful tone. “We managed to capture the incident on CCTV tapes, and I’m recovering them right now. As soon as they’re ready, I’ll send them to you.”

Forcing out another breath to temper the rising anger within me, I nodded to myself. “You said they intercepted it—how much did we lose?”

He sighed then, immediately giving away just how devastating it was. “You’ll get a rough idea from the clip. Just give me a minute.”

Tightening my fist at my side, it took everything in my power to not lose it.

I was supposed to be at the helm of that trade, making sure nothing went wrong, but I wasn’t even there. Without a doubt, I already knew Ari was going to lose his mind over it. That was a given.

But there was a small chance I could fix it somehow, which made me glad that Lukyan came to me instead of Ari.

“What’s the ETA on that footage?” I asked, beginning to lose my patience.

“Just another moment…and there. You should have it now.”

Sure enough, my phone vibrated in my hand, and the video thumbnail came up, showing distant footage of our guys pulling into the parking lot.

Bracing myself, I returned the phone to my ear and murmured, “How many guys did we lose?”

“About six. They never even saw it coming.”

His remorse echoed in my mind as I held on to that number, aware that six lives had been taken because I couldn’t be bothered to show up. Closing my eyes for a moment, I drew myself back together.

“Thanks for alerting me. I’ll review this and call you if I need anything. Keep an eye on this while I figure out our next steps. If it really was the Ivanovs, then we can’t let them get away with this—they need to remember their place.”

Even after Ari and I gave them an ultimatum before, it didn’t seem to have the desired impact. It wasn’t enough—not after I took the first swing through Gemma.

“No problem. I’m taking care of some things behind the scenes here. I’ll let you know if any more information comes to light.”

As we said our goodbyes and hung up, I turned the phone back around and pulled up the footage. Already able to feel my blood boiling, I hit the play button and watched closely.

The scene unfolded like any trade normally would, but as another vehicle pulled up to meet them, figures that had been hidden nearby jumped out and opened fire on them. Our men tried to deflect the shots and fire back, but they were quickly overpowered. Once the last guard dropped, the others filed in and collected the payload.

Closing my eyes again, I sighed, aware that they took quite literally everything that had been on that load. It wasn’t a skim off the top—everything being shipped out was taken, and as Luk said, it likely went straight to their warehouse.

Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to keep moving as I went up the stairs and pushed my way inside my office. Dropping into my chair, I ran a hand through my hair and urged myself to keep it together.

I didn’t want to lose my cool, but it was hard not to. That load was worth a sickening amount of money, and if the Ivanovs did take it, then it meant all that supply was now in their hands. We basically gave that power to them for free.

My hand twitched at the thought as I leaned back in my seat and tried to go over it all, but my angry, frustrated thoughts raced too quickly to truly analyze.

It was a devastating loss, and I knew Ari would have my head for it.

I mauled over the idea of recovering the truck. Lukyan said he knew where the payload ended up, and if we stormed in there without thinking twice, there was a chance we could repossess it all and have it all wrapped up before Ari ever found out.

It didn’t seem like too bad of a plan, but another thought came in and cut it down immediately.

Think. Don’t be impatient. Think it through.

Letting go of a deep breath, I knew that my subconscious was right.

I spent too long acting impulsively, and it had already landed me in more trouble than I wanted to deal with.

Regardless of how badly I wanted to knock the Ivanovs down and make sure they couldn’t do anything else to threaten our operations or my wife, I knew we couldn’t just run in.

Ambushing and attacking someone’s home base, especially when they were anticipating your next potential attack, immediately put you in a bad position. Given how they were gearing up for something worse, I could only imagine they had tricks up their sleeves that we were completely unaware of.

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