Page 62 of Innocent Bratva Hostage

“You were never going to tell me, were you?”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered through the tears. “I wanted to, but I just didn’t know how you would react to it. I was afraid you would kill me or even do something worse to make me pay for my father’s betrayal. I swear I didn’t hide the details because I wanted to betray you.”

My jaw twitched, my hands balling into fists. “You don’t get it, do you? Your father betrayed me, but you choosing to keep that information from me was the biggest betrayal,solnishko. You knew how that would affect my family, and you still chose to not say anything.”

I wondered if she understood how serious things were. If I got taken down, it wouldn’t be long before the other rivals found her, and the thought of what they would’ve done to get information from her drove me crazy.

It would be a hundred times worse if any of those bastards knew her father worked for the FBI. They would torture her more as a traitor to get back at the dead man and the entire law enforcement for the times they fucked them up. She didn’tget it. She didn’t understand why I was so fucking mad right now.

She wiped her face with the back of her hands and sniffled. “Fine. Ask me anything. I’ll tell you everything I know. I promise.”

“Tell me everything you know about your father being FBI and why he joined the Bratva. Do not leave out a single detail,” I warned, my tone harsher than I intended. “It’s the only way we can keep the Bratva safe and find out who’s behind your father’s murder.”

Her tears made my chest clench painfully. I hated to see her cry, but I needed to put up a serious front to get the truth from her.

If Peter really had worked for the FBI, then they already knew enough to take us down. I needed to know who sent him, why, and how much he told them.

“I don’t know how it started. The night he came to see me, he was in a hurry and said he didn’t have much time,” she started, placing her hands between her thighs. “He told me he’d been sent to work for the Russian mafia as an undercover agent. He pretended to be a loyal dog to you guys while giving out information to the FBI.”

I swallowed hard. It was hard for me to come up with a mental image of Peter actually betraying us like that. He’d been loyal, more loyal than any of the men who’d ever worked for us, yet all of it was fake.

“But he told me the closer he got to you and the other members of the Bratva, the more conflicted he felt about it. Although you were into illegal businesses, you never hurt innocent people.”

I scoffed. Right, that was supposed to make me feel better about his betrayal. It was the same thing all the traitors said after they were caught.

It all made sense now, the raid the night the shipment arrived and how the FBI found out the Tyfun-1 was being smuggled into the country.

The pieces of the puzzle were coming together now, and it wasn’t so shocking because I’d always known if they had that much information, then someone was feeding them with it.

It had been Peter all along.

What didn’t make any sense to me was why the FBI would murder him so coldly and how other rival families got to know about the shipment.

There was a mole in the FBI; that was the only logical explanation for it.

Giselle’s shoulder sagged as if she was releasing a weight she’d held for so long. “That night, although he didn’t tell me exactly what it was, he said there was something the Bratva had and the FBI needed. I suppose it was the shipment you’re looking for.” She paused and lifted her chin. “He couldn’t bear to betray the Bratva, so he hid the shipment rather than turn it over to the FBI.”

I sat back, rubbing my jaw as I thought.

The night the warehouse was raided, Peter managed to hide everything before the police arrived. This wasn’t because he was smarter; it was because he was the whistleblower, and he knew they were coming.

He probably considered giving it to them but decided at the last minute not to.

“If he had the shipment they badly wanted, and he worked for them, then why would they kill him?” I asked. It was more of a rhetorical question, but I also hoped Giselle would have an answer to it.

She was the only person Peter had confided in before he died. He must have sensed that his death was near and told her everything that mattered.

“Dad told me he’d formed a bond with the Bratva that went beyond just work; he felt terrible about betraying you, so he decided he was going to quit his job and stop living a double life.” She held her breath. “That’s probably why they killed him.”

I dragged my hand through my hair, exhaling sharply. This was a whole lot to take in, and I had no freaking idea where to start.

On one hand, I was mad at Peter’s betrayal. On the other hand, I felt there wasn’t much to be mad about. He was just doing his job, and in the end, he risked his life and chose not to give away our most important shipment.

It was conflicting being in the situation I was in, and I wondered what my cousins would think about this if I told them.

“I’m so sorry about everything,” Giselle whispered. Her eyes were red and swollen, her breath shaky from crying.

All of this was breaking her apart. It affected her more than anyone else.

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