Page 129 of Thorns of Lust
“Okay, I’m going to need you to lower your firewalls.” I got to work straight away, lowering the firewall only to my phone, while keeping the firewall securities in place on all my other files.
“You should be clear to enter.”
I could see Nico get right to work. Several minutes of silence, his typing on his keyboard fast and furious.
“Damn it,” he cursed, the same time that the video recording disappeared. “Fucking shit.”
I slammed my fist against the table, causing a reverberation through my arm.
“I’m assuming that means you weren’t successful,” I gritted out.
“How many times did the recording play out?” he asked.
“Way too many.”
“The moment I started tracing it, its digital footprint was erased.” The footage must have had embedded code in it that had it erasing the moment the footage stopped playing.
I stood up and strode to the window, releasing a heavy breath as I stared at the courtyard. My fingers tapped against the windowsill, over and over again when a shimmer of gold caught the corner of my eyes.
“Son of a bitch.”
I watched Tatiana swing her long, slim legs over the green decorative rail that characterized French Quarter homes.
“What’s the matter?”
“Thanks for trying.” I ended the call with a click, just as Tatiana jumped off the balcony and landed on her bare feet.
She turned around, lifted her face to the window and our eyes connected.
Then she flipped me off and ran.
Jesus Christ, that woman would age me and have me keel over before I could put a ring on her finger.
“You can run, but you cannot hide,” I murmured, coming up with all the creative punishments for my future bride.
FORTY-TWO
TATIANA
It’d been six weeks since I jumped off Konstantin's balcony. Six weeks since I saw a recording of the Pakhan executing a woman. Six weeks to do the right thing.
I still hadn’t.
I’d like to say it was to protect my family. But it’d be a lie. There was no point in burying my head in the sand.
It was the first time I’d been out of my house since I escaped Illias by jumping off the balcony. Judging by the number of guards that Vasili assigned to me, shit with Pakhan wasn’t going as well as my brothers hoped.
My brother’s mansion, or better yet compound, was massive. It was a large piece of land that surrounded the house, along with high walls. Cameras and guards roamed every corner of the property.
The moment Yan pulled over in front of my brother’s home, he turned around to face me.
“Your brother has been asking about your daily activity.”
I met his gaze, light brown against his blonde crewcut. “Well, there isn’t much to tell, is there? I haven’t been out of the house.”
He shook his head in disapproval, but he said nothing else.
Ever since Yan caught me leaving Illias’ house the unconventional way, he kept watching me with worry in his expression. I should have known he wouldn’t follow my orders and leave me unguarded. Yan fully expected to be fired any day now, so he acted more like my brother than my bodyguard. I allowed it.
