Page 42 of The Russian's Forced Bride
And though Matvey had given me the go-ahead to let her resume work at the office, I made sure to keep an eye on her, as two of my men followed her everywhere without her notice.
It was a horrible thing for me to do. I wasn’t unaware of that fact. But at this point, I didn’t care if she saw me as the devil himself. I was ready to use any means necessary to keep her safe. It was a calculated risk—one that could make her hate me forever.
But it was better she did than die. She had managed to hold my interest from the beginning, but now she held more than just that.
As the flash of my screen lit up, revealing Maxim’s name, I rose from my seat, the leather crinkling. I answered the phone, striding from one length of my office to the other as I awaited the bad news he was about to share, and I could still hear Joaquin’s words echoing in the back of my head, tauntingly:
Don’t go all crazy when your boy breaks the news to you.
“We’ve got bad news,” Maxim’s voice cut through the silence. His tone carried fatigue, but it stayed steady and controlled as he kept talking, not waiting for my response.
“Our Barcelona shipment never reached its destination. It vanished into thin air halfway through the route, and no one can trace it or tell what happened.”
My jaw felt like it would break from how tightly I clenched it.
“And that’s not all,” Maxim continued. “In Singapore, our fake import deal fell through. Customs got tipped off, and they seized three containers containing a million dollars’ worth of shit…. Joaquin got us good.”
He most certainly did. He wanted to keep playing this game with me, where he provoked me until I exploded. Joaquin knew the kind of man I was and what I was capable of, but he had leverage over me.
He was deliberately provoking me, and I couldn’t lose my temper—not now, with so much at stake. These days, I was on the brink of insanity, and the only reason I hadn’t completely fallen apart was because I still had Arlette by my side.
So while Joaquin kept playing his silly games in an attempt to force my hand, I had to keep putting measures in place. I couldn’t afford more slip-ups.
Besides, it was only a matter of time before I was called in by Matvey. We had already lost over two million dollars in two weeks. If this went on, I was sure Joaquin would suck us dry.
So I dished out orders to Maxim, all the while running a hand over my face.
“Keep your eyes on all ports, Maxim. I want contingency routes in place, and make sure to double-check laundering through the Balkan stream. Got it?”
“Noted. You can trust me.”
The line went dead as Maxim’s words echoed in my mind. He was wrong. I couldn’t trust anyone. Joaquin made that pretty clear when he betrayed his own friend and went after everything he ever cared about.
But the Bratva was not just family. We were bound by more than blood and trauma.
And it was wrong of me to suspect either the Pakhan or Uncle.
This was what Joaquin wanted—for me to doubt everyone around me until he destroyed us from within. He wasn’t playing this game with violence. He chose to disable me first psychologically. And I had to admit—it was working, albeit slowly.
I returned to my seat, finally deciding that I would get the answers I needed from Matvey. He was the Pakhan, and he didn’t owe me explanations, but I honestly didn’t give a fuck anymore.
I sure as hell wasn’t going to lose this game to Joaquin.
***
The sound of whips ripping against flesh echoed savagely through the concrete walls of the interrogation room underneath the oldest Kamarov mansion. Bound in chains was Matvey’s latest victim, drenched in blood, his flesh flayed fromhis skin with the spiked whip Matvey held in his blood-marred hands.
The victim’s shrill scream pierced through the air, but couldn’t penetrate the walls that confined him. His appearance resembled that of an animal—stripped naked, with jagged lines of bruises on his back that bled raw like a butcher’s canvas. But the more the victim screamed in pain, the more Matvey laughed in his face, striking him harder.
I stood by the doorway, patiently waiting for Matvey to be done so we could talk. His right-hand man, Sergei, who had led me to the room, stood by my side, posture straight and rigid, my form towering over his as he watched his Pakhan in action.
Matvey hated to be interrupted, but as much as we all were enjoying the grisly display of gore before us, I had more important things at hand.
I turned to Sergei, about to leave the room, and I said, “Let the Pakhan know I’ll be waiting in his study.”
Then, shutting the door behind me, I headed to Matvey’s study and sat on one of the leather sofas in his office while he finished up whatever was happening in his interrogation room.
My hands itched with every second that ticked by as I impatiently waited for him, the ticking of the wall clock echoing in my head.
