Page 39 of Cruel Bet

“Sorry to interrupt sir, there’s a call for you. I told them you were busy, but they said it’s important, life or death, and that you’d want to know immediately.”

The poor woman looks downright terrified. I do not doubt that she didn’t want to interrupt and that she was worried about what I might do to her for disobeying me.

“Excuse me,” I say to everyone, rising and following the secretary out.

“I’m so sorry, they said…” she starts to ramble fearfully.

I hold up a hand to silence her and take the phone from her grasp.

“Nikolai Kuzmin speaking,” I bark into the phone.

“Pakhan, something’s happened. There’s been an attack at the compound,” I hear a nervous-sounding Lev say on the other end.

“Arianna?” I ask, praying that the worst hasn’t happened. I feel sick and furious at the same time at the thought that harm might have come to her. If anyone dared touch her, I will burn their world to the ground. The thought that she could already be dead twists in my gut like a knife. The seconds Lev takes to reply seem to last an eternity.

“She’s alive but hurt. She’s in the hospital. Ivan was the one who attacked her. I shot him just in time. He’s dead.”

I don’t even have time to register or question why Ivan attacked Arianna or to tell Lev off for shooting to kill. He should have shot and disarmed him but left him alive to question, there could be more moles in our ranks. Not that I can blame him for shooting first and asking questions later, it could well have savedher life. I would have liked the pleasure of killing the bastard myself for daring to touch Arianna. But I can’t think of any of that right now. All I can think of is her.

“How hurt?” I ask, barely controlling my rage. I grip the phone so tightly it’s a miracle it doesn’t break.

“A broken nose and fractured eye socket, he was strangling her when I found them. She was unconscious and she hasn’t woken up since. She’s in a coma,” Lev informs me gravely. “The doctors are running tests now to see if there’s any permanent damage to her brain. It depends on how long she was without oxygen.”

I feel like my world has shattered. The shame and anger that I wasn’t there to protect her, to save her, makes me want to lash out and hurt something. The fact that it was one of my men who did this to her kills me. I wish that Ivan was still alive so I could take my time causing him unimaginable amounts of pain before killing him slowly. He doesn’t deserve a quick death.

“Where is she?” I manage to choke out the words.

“I’ll send you the address of the hospital now. I didn’t want to risk taking her to our guy, figured she’d need more specialist care than the normal stuff he deals with. I checked her in under the name Jane Brown, they think I’m her brother. Mikhail and Andrey are here with me keeping guard in case there’s another attack.”

“You made the right call. I’m on my way,” I say, hanging up.

We have a Bratva doctor on our payroll for the kinds of injuries you don’t want to draw attention to. Things that would flag up on the police’s radar if we were to go to a hospital. Butfor this, Lev made the right call. Arianna needs the best trauma care, not someone who spends most of his time removing bullets and sewing up knife wounds.

I reach into my pocket and check my phone. Seven missed calls. Fuck. I’d put my phone on silent for the meeting. How long have I been in there while Arianna was fighting for her life? How much time have I wasted not by her side?

I stride down the hallway to find my car and drive straight there. I call over my shoulder to my secretary, “Tell them the meeting is over. I have to leave.”

I don’t make it to the elevator before I see Endo, Dimitri, and Kimiko running down the hallway after me. I don’t bother to hold the doors for them, but they make it just in time.

“Boss, what the fuck?” Endo asks.

I explain the situation through gritted teeth, barely able to hold back my rage. With no one to direct it at, I’m like a ticking timebomb and they know it. They share silent looks of concern but say nothing. When we get to the car, Endo opens the driver's side door and gets in.

“I’m driving,” I snap, wanting to race like a bat out of hell to get there as fast as possible.

“No, you’re not, boss. You’re no use to her if you get us in a wreck and kill us all on the way there ‘cos you’re going too fast and were distracted,” Endo says.

He has a point and we’re wasting time arguing so I don’t say anything, simply get in the front next to him as the others pile in the back. To my relief, Endo drives almost as fast as I would. He knows I’d likely do something stupid if he didn’t. We drive in silent tension for a while.

Finally, Dimitri pipes up. “Was it her father’s doing?”

“Must be. Ivan must have been in his pocket for a while now, probably since the attack at the club when I killed Lucchese. If we hadn’t brought in extra men to the house today to keep an eye on Arianna, he likely wouldn’t have known she was there,” I say, hating that by trying to keep her safe, I sent danger her way.

“How much does Castro know?” Dimitri asks.

“That’s what I’d like to know. If that fucker was deliberately there to keep the meeting running long enough to harm her I’ll cut his balls off and shove them so far down his throat he chokes on them,” I spit out.

“I don’t think he was, I think he’s on our side,” Kimiko chips in.

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