Page 64 of The Bratva's Innocent Sold Bride
“Poor thing. Your husband hasn’t told you? He’s been pouring money into his new acquisition, and I don’t mean you. Taurus is on the verge of being revitalized, and under my ownership, it will soar to heights neither Mat nor your father could dream of.”
“You’re awfully confident for someone who clicked on a spoof app.”
That earned me a slap. Not too hard, but enough to strike fear into me and keep me silent, even though I longed to tell him what else I’d managed to hack into besides his phone. He stared hard at me, finally deciding not to dignify my quip with a response.
“I’ll rename it, of course, but I expect Taurus to be raking in the profits again within a month or two.”
Wait, he wasn’t lying? Had Mat really been trying to revitalize my father’s floundering company all while he was pretending it was on the verge of collapse? Instead of making me angry, my heart soared. Maybe he’d decided he was done destroying my father and was instead building a life for us. Or was that wishful thinking, and he only wanted more riches and power?
Anatoli turned his back, doing something on a tablet that he found pretty amusing. There was no room in the tiny space to do anything but cram myself into one of the cobwebbed corners and pray he left again. Pray that Mat found the new information on my computer in the office and figured it out. I was clinging so hard to hope that it almost made me dizzy.
And reckless. With his back turned to me, I lunged at him, knocking him over the head with the can I’d been using to try to break the windows. It dinged off his head, nowhere near as powerful as I had hoped. Jumping on his back, I wrapped my arms around his neck and tried to squeeze the life out of him like I’d seen in movies.
But this was no movie, and he was bigger and stronger than me. I was flung off of him and onto my back after he barely let out a gurgle. He leaned over me, eyes blazing with anger, his hand on my neck, pinning me down.
“Not smart. I was about to leave.”
“So soon?” I choked out.
He straightened up, checking his tablet again, then, because he was clearly still angry, he shoved the tablet in my face. It showed a map with a pin in a destination way down by the waterfront.
“Looking for real estate?” I asked. Oh boy, I was on a roll, not even caring about another slap.
“Looking to take your husband out of the equation once and for all. I’ve fed him information that this is where you’re at, but of course it’s not.”
I wanted to accuse him of being unsportsmanlike, but another wisecrack died in my throat when I imagined Mat thinking he was going to find me and instead walked into an ambush. If he fell for this bad information, it meant he either hadn’t seen my computer or hadn’t thought it was significant. If only I had emailed it to Delta, maybe we both would have lived through this.
“Don’t kill him,” I whispered. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
He tutted, turning away to reach for the door. “That’s touching. But see, I can kill him and still make you do whatever I want.”
As he reached for the door handle, I clawed my way up to grab him again, anything to keep him from going to that other destination where Mat was supposed to be. The door crashed open, and the foot that kicked it followed, sending Anatoli bouncing off the opposite wall. As soon as he started to recover, a fist smashed into his face.
“Mat,” I screamed when I saw his entire body squeeze into the small space.
He didn’t glance at me, but his shoulders seemed to relax when he heard my voice. Another punch went wild when Anatoli found the wherewithal to twist away from it, and in that moment, he reached around behind him.
“Gun,” I yelled, hurtling forward. Maybe to knock Anatoli’s aim off, maybe to get between my husband and a bullet. I wasn’t sure. I just saw red.
Mat twisted so his back was turned to me, and in the narrow area, the only thing I could do was skid to a halt to keep from careening into him. I couldn’t see around him, but I heard a sickening crunch of bone on bone and blood splattered on the faux wood paneling.
Anatoli staggered on his feet, and I could finally see that it was his blood and not Mat’s. With a huge shove, Mat sent him hurtling out the door, following like he was in flight. I hurried forward, peeking around the open doorframe to see Mat beating the ever-loving crap out of Anatoli.
Another car pulled up, and Masha hurtled out before it was completely stopped, with Lev jumping from the driver’s side with his gun raised.
“I told you to wait for us,” Masha said, grabbing the back of Mat’s collar and trying to haul him off of Anatoli’s unconscious form. “You want to kill him this quick?” she asked, disgusted.
Mat stopped hitting and whirled around to see me coming down the steps on wobbly legs. He held out his arms, and I collapsed into them, burying my face in his neck as he lifted me down.
“You found the data and figured it out,” I said. “You didn’t fall for his ambush.”
“There was an ambush?” Lev asked, but I didn’t look up to answer, only held onto Mat.
“Delta seems to think you’re a genius,” Mat told me, his arms so tight I could hardly breathe, but I would have given him hell if he loosened his grasp. “I already knew, of course.”
“Seriously,” Masha said, rolling Anatoli over so his face was in the dirt as she zip-tied his hands together. “Hacking into the car’s GPS system was pretty cool.”
“You should hire her,” Lev said.
