Page 13 of Married to the Bratva

“Last chance,” I say, crouching down to meet his terrified gaze. “Work with her or die.”

Evan nods his head, blood dripping onto the marble floor. “All right. I’ll do it.”

“Good boy.”

I shove him into a chair and slide a laptop toward him. “Sophie, get over here and do your stuff. Nikolai, get us some drinks.”

Sophie walks behind Evan, leaning over and typing fast, her fingers a blur. “Now your part,” she says.

“Sure thing,” Evan replies, hitting buttons one after another.

“No,” Sophie says, gasping as she looks at the screen. “Wait, that’s not supposed to happen. What have you done?”

“What?” I ask, shoving Evan back from the keyboard, watching as the screen flashes up a warning.

“No, no, no,” Sophie says, typing even faster. She turns to face me a minute later, her face pale.

“What? What did he do?”

She swallows hard. “He knew about my kill code. And he added a timer to it. Oh, shit.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’ve got to decrypt the file using brute force before the timer runs out or the money’s gone forever.”

“You can unlock it, right?”

“Given enough time, maybe. He’s buried it all within itself. Shifting algorithms. This doesn’t make any sense.” She glances past me. “You lose too if the timer runs out, Evan. You can’t get the money out either. Not without help.” She frowns. “Hey, where’d he go?”

My vision shifts to the door which is swinging open. My two guards are on the floor, groaning.

“You useless bastards,” I roar. “You let him escape.” I march up to them, pulling out my gun and firing two shots into their skulls. I spin around, the barrel still smoking as Nikolai walks in, carrying the drinks.

“What the fuck happened in here?” he asks, glancing at the corpses on the floor. “Where’s Evan gone?”

I snarl at him. “Escaped,” I spit, kicking the nearest corpse. “And we’ve got to find a way into that file before that timer runs out or the money’s gone forever.”

9

SOPHIE

I’ve been working on decrypting the file for an hour. I lean back and stretch. “Get back to work,” Maxim calls from the other side of the room.

“My back is hurting,” I snap. “And I’m freezing cold.”

His mouth quirks at the corner, the barest hint of a smile. “Cold helps you focus. Learned that in Siberia long ago.”

“Not for me it doesn’t. It slows my fingers down. I need to be warm so I can focus.” I shift the tone in my voice. “Please. Evan’s nowhere near as good as me. We have a head start, trust me.”

He watches me for a moment, his expression flashing something that looks like compassion. Then he turns to Nikolai and speaks in Russian—low, rapid words that I don’t understand but don’t like the sound of. A moment later, Nikolai leaves.

The room is now empty, save for the two of us.

Maxim steps toward me, hands in his pockets, his gaze fixed on mine. “I admire you,” he says. “You saw me kill two men and you didn’t flinch. You’ve seen death before, correct?”

I shrug. “My mom was a junkie.”

“Mine too. At least we have that in common.”

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