Page 126 of Dirty Grovel

The big idiot opens and closes his mouth like a steroid-infused goldfish. “You deny it?”

“I absolutely deny it.” I set down my whiskey glass. “It’s true that I want the top spot at this company. It’s true I’m ready to take over the mantel ofpakhan. And it’s also true that I’ve been preparing my surveillance system for launch for a long time now. But none of that means I tried to murder my uncle.”

“Your uncle was a friend to the Martinek Bratva?—”

“I’m painfully aware.”

“He told us he was worried you might do exactly this.”

“I’m sure he did.”

Matvey’s eyes bulge. This meeting is quite obviously not going the way he had planned.

“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?” he trumpets, his thick neck going red. “We can involve the police, start an investigation. Not only will your reputation be ruined, your business will crumble. You’ll be put behind bars!”

I feign concern. “I’m guessing there’s a way to avoid all that?”

“Yes!” Matvey jumps. The moron truly can’t read a room. “All you have to do is sign over fifty-one percent of your shares to Martinek Industries and allow a nominee of my father’s choosing to join the board of Pavlov Industries.”

“And you’ll make all this go away?”

“Yes.”

“What if I refuse?”

He licks his lips as though he can taste my imagined surrender in the air. “Then I’ll make good on my promise and serve the cops all the evidence they need to bury you. I’ll fucking ruin your empire, your reputation, your Bratva. They’ll bury you beneath the jail.”

I make a show of checking my phone. “My God. Sounds terrible.”

“You think I’m bluffing?”

I scoff in his pink, flushed face. “You really think idle threats will scare me?”

“Maybe I should threaten that whore you knocked up then,” he hisses. “Will that scare you?”

And that’s the line.

I erupt out of my seat, sending my fist careening into Matvey’s jaw.

Caught by surprise, he flies backwards, collapsing into the chair he refused to accept.

It splinters underneath his bulk, with Matvey left lying among the rubble.

“I’m afraid you’ve worn out your welcome, asshole,” I spit down at him. “Time to go.”

Matvey blinks up at me, trying to recover his scowl and bravado. “You’ll pay for that.”

“You’re the one who’s going to pay. For every scheme, lie, and threat you’ve made against my family, you’ll pay in pounds of flesh.”

“You don’t have a family. What you have is a lying, white trash bitch and a bastard who was fathered by Drew Anton.”

And that’s the second line.

I explode on him like a powder keg, railing against him at full force. At first, the only thing he can do is block me with his forearms poised over his face.

But I manage to get in through the cracks.

One well-aimed hit and his nose breaks under my fingers, blood spurting from both nostrils.

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