Page 64 of The Bratva's Arranged Bride

Watching closely, I approached the exchange.

“Who the hell are you? Who do you work for?”

The hostage didn’t say anything at first despite the evident terror streaked across his face. But the moment Daniil applied more pressure with his boot, he cried out again and held his hands up.

“Stop—please…I’ll tell you.”

Expression unchanging from its hard mask, Daniil was kind enough not to crush his leg in. “Talk. Now.”

Letting out a shuddering breath, a heavy sheen of sweat broke out across his skin and soaked through his clothes. “I was just hired for this job…I only know so much. But it was Francesco…he hired me.”

Daniil’s brows furrowed. “Francesco who?”

The man let out another shaky breath, as if even considering telling physically hurt him. But of course, it would be nothing compared to the agony Daniil would bring him instead.

“Gallo…Francesco Gallo.”

Recognition moved through my features at once, and a feeling of unease pressed against my shoulders. “Gallo…as in Tommaso Gallo?”

He panted and nodded. “Yes. Tommaso is his son.”

“Damn Italians,” Daniil muttered in thought before redirecting his anger at the hostage. “Are his men responsible for hitting our docks too?”

“Yes…he hired more fodder to gauge your weak points and to see what they could get away with.”

I scoffed and shook my head. “Which amounted to nothing…they’re lucky that sloppy work didn’t get them all killed.”

“But why? What pissed the Gallo family off this time?”

The hostage didn’t say anything at first, but with my brother’s mounting anger, he added pressure with the sole of his boot until the man cried out again, trying to pull away.

“What was the motive?” he asked firmly, unwavering in his brutality.

The man’s chest was frantic while he tried to get through the pain before weakly murmuring, “It’s because of the arrangement…Francesco’s angry. His son was supposed to get the Fedorov girl. But it was you.” He pointed in my direction. “You swayed, Andrey, at the last minute.”

My brows furrowed through my confusion, but the pieces started to fit into place at last.

Immediately, I knew what that meant.

I looked at Daniil, giving him a cold expression of my own. “Andrey was double-dealing…that’s likely why he hasn’t been returning my calls, or Alex’s.”

The hostage let out a pained whimper while he tried to pull his leg away. “The deal was made…but when you changed your mind, Francesco was burned. Now he wants revenge.”

Of course he did—why wouldn’t he?

“Damn it,” Daniil mumbled, mostly to himself. “We don’t need this shit…”

He was right.

Even if the Gallos were offended by my deal with Andrey going through, it wasn’t something we could allow to continue. Not when it involved them interfering and disrupting our business.

“Please…let me get out of here…I need to get to the hospital,” the hostage begged, shaking through the shock of his injury while it continued to bleed.

Reaching his wits' end, Daniil sighed and released the safety, aiming at his head before squeezing the trigger.

That final shot rang through the empty space in a deadly echo, and at once, the hostage stilled.

While I stood there, waiting for my hearing to go back to normal again, I could feel the kernel of anger within me seemed to double in size, growing and growing the more I thought about the hostage’s words.

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