Page 19 of Innocent Bratva Hostage

Dobryn stared at me intently, his brows furrowing. “How did you go from wanting to get information from her to thinking about her?”

I swirled my whiskey, wishing I had an answer to the question he just asked.

“Is there news on the whereabouts of the Tyfun-1?” Miron asked.

“Nothing yet. The cops haven’t found any clues that could help us track the shipment,” Dobryn answered. He’d been keeping up with one of the detectives working on the case.

“Egor won’t like the news,” Miron said with a shake of his head. “He’s desperate to find that shipment, especially with theother families on a hunt for it. We’ll lose a lot of money if we can’t find it, and that will be a big problem.”

I tilted my head and glared at my cousin. “Do you want a chance to find it yourself? I bet you’ll have better luck with it.”

“I bet I will.” He sat back and plopped his legs on the coffee table. “Have you had your men search her home? If he went to her that night, it’s possible the shipment is there.”

“That wouldn’t make any sense.” Dobryn’s gaze bounced between me and Miron. “That would mean putting his only daughter in grave danger. Peter wouldn’t be stupid enough to do a thing like that.”

I agreed with Dobryn.

Peter was loyal. If he had to make a choice between betraying the Bratva and giving up his life, he would choose the latter, and I suspected that was exactly what happened. It wasn’t rocket science that whoever killed him must’ve tried to get him to talk about the Tyfun-1 and where he hid it. No one else had found it, which made his choice very obvious.

But one thing he would never do was give his daughter’s life for the Bratva. He loved her very much; that bit was clear. She was all that mattered to him, and he often spoke about how he couldn’t wait to finish his job so he could buy a house on an island somewhere and live with his family.

My jaw clenched with rage.

That dream had been taken from him.

“If he didn’t want her to get mixed up in all this, he wouldn’t have sent her that text and dragged her into this mess,” Miron argued. “He put her in the most danger because everyone trying to get their hands on the shipment will only be looking in her direction.”

I rolled the glass between my fingers, the weight of it grounding me as Miron's words sank in. He wasn’t wrong; the moment Peter sent that message, Giselle became a target. Andwhether she knew it or not, every move she made was now being watched by men who had no problems with spilling innocent blood.

“He must’ve had a reason,” Dobryn said.

“Whatever his reason was, he put his daughter in danger,” Miron countered, looking more serious than I’d seen him in a while. “She’s under your protection now, which means there’s a target on your back as well. She’ll become a liability in the long run.”

“So, what do you suggest?” Dobryn asked. “We leave her out there to get killed like her father was?”

“No, you extract the information you need out of her and find the shipment before anyone else does. It’s the only way to keep her and yourself safe,” Miron replied, his attention pinned on me. “People fear you, but you know what happens when desperation sets in.”

Desperation made people irrational and even more inhuman. I couldn’t relate to that, though; I preferred to make calm, rational decisions, especially when everyone else was in a state of panic.

Miron was right, though. I needed to watch my back now that I had Giselle with me. No one would be stupid enough to put a target on my back usually, but this wasn’t a normal day. She had something valuable, and people would give their lives just to get their hands on it—on her.

I already had Dobryn tighten security around the mansion two days ago, and I was willing to triple it if that meant no one even sniffed the air around Giselle.

“Don’t worry about my safety. I can handle it quite alright.”

“Have you not been able to get some information out of her yet?” Miron asked. “She’s been at your place for a couple of days now.”

I shook my head and put my glass on the table for a refill. “She insists she doesn’t know anything about it.”

“She doesn’t know or won’t tell?” Miron asked.

I shrugged. “I’ll have to find out which it is.”

“The offer for the torture session is still open,” Miron chimed in, staring at one of the girls from earlier like a predator stalking its prey. “Let me know if you need my help.”

My chest tightened with the need to protect Giselle. No one was allowed to hurt or torture her. No one was allowed to go even an inch closer to her without my permission.

“Speak about torturing my prisoner one more time, and we’ll have a real problem,” I drawled, staring right into Miron’s eyes before taking a sip of my drink.

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