Page 44 of Twisted Vows

“Military-grade. Untraceable. Whoever’s buying is smart—they’re routing everything through dummy accounts in three different countries.” She doesn’t look up from the screen, her brow furrowing. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone’s gearing up for a siege.”

Nonna sips her wine, unbothered as ever. “It’s the quiet before the storm,” she murmurs, her voice almost too soft to catch. “They’ll try to break what they don’t understand.”

I glance between them. “You think Sal’s ready to test the alliance?”

“Could be.” Carolina shrugs, but her eyes stay fixed on the tablet. “Or it could be someone working for him. Either way, the timing’s too perfect to be a coincidence.”

Her words land like a stone in my chest. My mind races back to everything Maxsim said about the Cartel and the risks we’re facing.

“And the Bratva?” Nonna asks, her tone casual, but I catch the flicker of steel in her gaze.

“Grigory is still insufferable.” Carolina’s fingers hover over the keyboard. “Seems having a stick stuck somewhere runs in the family.”

I picture Maxsim’s genius brother and smile. “You know he’s on the spectrum, don’t you?”

“So am I,” Carolina snaps back. “it doesn’t mean he gets a pass for being an arrogant ass.”

“Have you two been spending a lot of time together?” I sip my wine and notice the color in her cheeks is high. Perhaps the youngest Volkov isn’t completely reprehensible.

“Lately, we’ve been communicating almost non-stop. I discovered chatter coming from a Bratva IP address. At first, I thought someone was being sloppy or feeding Sal info from the inside, but we dug deep enough and found that it was all a setup.”

“Does the Bratva have a mole, or do we?” Nonna asks quietly.

“That’s the million-dollar question,Zia.” Carolina shakes her head. “Likely we both do.”

“The alliance is shakier than I thought.”

“Blood is the only thing that makes people loyal,” Nonna comments.

I push my plate away, realizing the jackals are closer to the gate than I imagined.

Carolina leans back, tapping her fingers against the edge of the table. “Whoever it is, they’re good. And close. But not close enough to know that Grigory and I are working together.”

Nonna’s eyes narrow, the faintest frown pulling at her mouth. “In our world,cara, betrayal doesn’t announce itself. It waits in the shadows, like a wolf in the forest. You must always be vigilant.”

“Trust me, we are.” Carolina leans back, a faint smirk tugging at her lips as she spins her fork idly through the remnants of her pasta. “Grigory may be a pain, but he is brilliant,” she says, her tone light but laced with something sharper, “He’s kind of like a Rubik’s Cube. Complicated,occasionally infuriating, but… oddly satisfying when you figure him out.”

Nonna lifts an eyebrow, her expression faintly amused. “A compliment, Carolina? From you?”

She shrugs, tapping the edge of her fork against her plate casually. “It’s not a compliment. It’s an observation. The man is brilliant, I’ll give him that, but he doesn’t know how to turn it off. Every conversation feels like he’s running five algorithms in his head at once.”

“Sounds exhausting,” I remark, watching her carefully. “And yet, you don’t seem to mind.”

She meets my gaze, her smirk deepening. “What can I say? I like a challenge.”

Nonna chuckles softly, shaking her head as she pours more wine into her glass. “Challenges,cara, have a way of becoming entanglements if you’re not careful.”

“Entanglements?” Carolina snorts, waving the idea off with a flick of her hand. “Please. Grigory and I are strictly professional. He’s always correcting me. It’s like he’s allergic to being wrong.”

“And yet,” Nonna cuts in smoothly, her tone pointed, “you seem to enjoy his company. Or is that just the thrill of the argument?”

Carolina hesitates, her fingers stilling on the fork for a moment—a crack in her otherwise impenetrable armor. “Let’s just say... he respects my skills. And that’s more than I can say for most men in our world.”

I tilt my head, studying her. “And do you respect his?”

Her gaze flicks to me, sharp and quick, before returning to her plate. “He’s earned it,” she says, almost grudgingly. “But don’t get any ideas. The only thing we have in common is a shared love of telling everyone else they’re wrong.”

“Sounds like a match made in heaven,” I tease, earning an exaggerated eye roll.

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