Page 112 of Deceitful Vows

The one hundred thousand dollars I had no intention of spending until now, the dirtbox that will ensure I can do it without interruption, and the necklace I’m leaving behind.

43

ANDRIK

“Anything yet?”

Konstantine has been with me for years, so he knows who my query centers around even with me not saying her name.

After a quick breath that flares his nostrils, he shakes his head. “You’ll be the first I inform when I find her.” His next words are barely a whisper, but I still hear them. “Perhaps you should send Mikhail out in the field. It’s his dirtbox making my life fucking difficult.”

I had considered his suggestion. The thought only lingered for thirty seconds. It wasn’t solely jealousy that squashed it like a bug. It was knowing there’s no better man to explain to Zoya why I need to continue with my ruse than me.

As I said weeks ago, betrothed or not, she wants me.

She will have me. There’s just a handful more obstacles I need to find my way around first.

“If she had kept her necklace on, we wouldn’t be facing so many issues.”

Yes, I placed a tracker in Zoya’s necklace. It wasn’t solely to keep an eye on her. It is the fact the diamond would cost over eight million dollars to replace. A tracker lowers its insurance premium.

Yeah, right.

Konstantine only shared the tracker’s brilliance with me after I instructed the jeweler to place it in Zoya’s necklace.

Konstantine hums in agreement as his focus returns to his laptop. After his brows furrow, he releases the breath he just sucked in.

“What is it?”

Mindful there are more strangers in my house this morning than there has been the prior ten years, he twists his laptop around to face me so I can unearth my own answer instead of him vocalizing it.

With my ruse back in full swing, a handful of Arabella’s school friends arrived for her bachelorette party tonight. Although I’m frustrated by how many people are trampling my personal space, this is only one skit of many I’ll be forced to endure while endeavoring to secure Zakhar a new heart. It is by far the least harmful since the festivities are about to move to a hotel not too far from my home base. It is the same hotel I have a meeting at with Maksim Ivanov tomorrow morning, though he may need to postpone if the footage Konstantine is showing me is un-doctored.

Matvei must have gotten word to his older brother. Maksim is as gung-ho for revenge as I was only weeks ago, but he’s gunning for immediate blood.

“Has his body been found yet?”

The murderous gleam in Maksim’s eyes as he guides Dr. Abdulov down an isolated alleyway tells me everything I need to know. Dr. Abdulov won’t leave their exchange breathing.

Days ago, I would have been pleased.

Now I feel the opposite.

Dr. Abdulov was an easy solution to my predicament. I wouldn’t have even needed to blackmail him to find Zakhar a new heart. He, and many of his colleagues, work for one thing and one thing only. Profit.

There’s only one doctor I haven’t been able to lure onto my payroll with a heap of coin. It is the same man I let live because he kept Zoya safe before I took over the role I was born to live.

“Send someone to Dr. Hemway’s safe haven.”

You have no clue how hard it is to send others to do my bidding. It isn’t solely the trust I have to instill that they will represent me in the right manner, but also that it makes it seem as if my contact is more a business endeavor than a personal venture.

This is as personal as it gets—in more ways than one.

“Dr. Hemway?” Konstantine checks, lost.

His bewilderment intensifies when I jerk up my chin. “Dr. Makarand said congenital heart defects are genetic.”

“So Zakhar’s mother couldn’t have been properly vetted by the federation,” Konstantine adds, clicking on. “They would have never let her get this far if they knew she had a hereditary condition.”

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