Page 61 of Innocent Bratva Hostage

This was the bullet that killed my father.

My fingers tightened around the phone, and my teeth clenched. A blend of anger and sadness surged through me. “What did you find out?”

“I’d suspected your father was murdered by a rival family who wanted to get their hands on the shipment, but I could’ve been wrong.”

“If not a rival gang, then who?”

He set the coffee on the table and pinned me with a stare. “The bullet in that picture was taken out from your father’s body the day he was killed. The problem, however, is that the bullet is a very specific kind. Only someone from law enforcement could have had access to it.”

I froze in my seat, the air draining from my lungs. I knew where this was going, and I hadn’t prepared myself for it.

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“Why would someone from the law enforcement kill your father, Giselle?” Andrei asked, the iciness in his voice sending a tremor through me. He eyed me with quiet suspicion. “I want honest answers.”

My palm dug into my flesh, and my heart rate doubled.

Lying to Andrei now wouldn’t be a good move. On the contrary, it could be a recipe for disaster.

This was a moment of truth, the right time for me to come clean about everything I knew—everything I’d been hiding.

I held my breath and stared back at him. “My father was an FBI agent.”

Chapter 21 – Andrei

My entire body tensed, my muscles coiling like a spring.

I didn’t like to show emotions like shock, surprise, or sadness, but I couldn’t hold back the way my body went rigid, as if I had just been struck.

“What did you just say?” I asked, the words hoarse as if they’d been dragged from my throat.

“My father was an FBI agent,” she repeated, shifting her gaze to the cup on the coffee table to avoid meeting my eyes.

The air between us turned heavy, the tension palpable and suffocating.

I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe Peter worked for the FBI, that he worked against us, the Bratva.

“That’s impossible,” I said, refusing to believe Peter would lie and betray us like that after how much we trusted him.

Giselle shook her head and rubbed her hands together. “Sadly, it wasn’t impossible because he really did work for the FBI. I only found out the night before he was killed.”

“If you knew so much, why didn’t you say anything earlier?” I scrutinized her for any signs she was lying or making things up, but there weren’t any. “Why did you keep it to yourself even after he was murdered?”

“I was afraid.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes, her voice cracking. “Do you think it would have been easy for me to walk up to you and tell you my father was a mole planted by the FBI? I didn’t know you or trust you. For all I knew, you could have killed me. You could have been the ones behind his death.”

A band of tension wrapped around my ribcage.

It made sense that she wouldn’t have trusted me that easily, but it didn’t make the news any easier to take. It wrenched my heart completely to know Peter had worked with me for over a decade, and all along, he was nothing but a spy.

We’d trusted him. We’d mourned him after his death, but he was never on our side, never on our team. He was freaking FBI all along.

I thought of my cousins and other members of the Bratva, knowing the betrayal they would feel when they found it. It would put everything at risk, including Giselle.

I inhaled, refusing to let the anger in my chest take control over logic. I needed to remain calm and hear her out first.

“So, when were you going to tell me about your father and that he was an FBI agent?” I asked with a tilt of my head, observing her.

Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she shook her head.

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