Page 47 of The Russian's Forced Bride
As I watched her walk away, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed of myself. I always knew Rafael wasn’t an easy man.
Hell, I was lucky he was even indulging me.
But I still wanted more from him, and I was ashamed of myself for that fact.
Chapter 15 – Rafael
An untouched bottle of Oban 21 sat on the sideboard of my desk, bathed in the moon’s pale light streaming through the windows of my office, where Maxim, Cassandra, and I were all gathered around a blueprint spread out on the desk.
We spent the rest of the evening cooped up here, strategically cornering Joaquin from every angle until we lost track of time—leaving us to assess the damage we had inflicted on the bastard well into the night. And I was pretty sure I wasn’t going back to Arlette’s side.
I could still catch whiffs of her intoxicating scent on me, her words soothing and echoing in my mind every now and then.
I knew she wanted us to talk. I didn’t have to ask to understand what she was thinking in that scheming mind of hers, but as much as I wanted to tell her about myself, I kept distracting her instead.
She already knew the kind of man I was—the sort of things I could do and had done in my past—but I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye and say it. And sure, her upbringing wasn’t all rosy like I had once assumed, but it was still a better evil than mine.
I didn’t want to know how she’d react if I told her about how I was raised. I had never felt shame in it—in the bloodlust, the illegal money laundering, and everything the Bratva stood for. And even now, I still didn’t feel an ounce of guilt.
But she knew enough. There wasn’t any need for her to know more.
I forced my mind out of the depths of my thoughts, drawing myself back to the present situation.
Joaquin Saavedra.
The blueprint before us was for a shipping yard where Maxim believed Joaquin was transporting drugs hidden incontainers labeled as toys. Thanks to Maxim, we managed to get someone at the port to swap Joaquin’s containers with fake ones and reroute the destination of his third shipment without raising any suspicion among the dock workers.
Now, not only was Joaquin’s cargo suddenly missing, but he couldn’t track them either—because Maxim had managed to hack into the shipping logistics system and blocked off all tracking on the goods.
So to Joaquin, his shit, worth over millions of dollars, was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, it had been dumped into the ocean—his hard work of laundering money drowning deep into the sea.
It was a waste of money, though I’d rather it sank than find its way back to Joaquin.
I marked the third cargo on the map, which was now headed into the Atlantic Ocean, with a red Sharpie as my lips curled into a devilish smile. “Bullseye.”
But rerouting Joaquin’s containers was only the tip of the iceberg of what we had done to the bastard.
Within a week, I secretly took control of Joaquin’s shell front in Tangier, Morocco. His shell front was a jewelry dealing company that served as a cover for him to launder illegal money. I gained control of the company through three intermediaries who bought shares and transferred them to me—giving me full authority over Joaquin’s business without him knowing.
The intermediaries had been powerful men whom Joaquin usually made deals with, but his relationship with them wasn’t as strong as he must’ve thought it was. All it took was for Maxim to offer them a grand amount of money, promises of protection from the Bratva, and a few women to fuck—and we had them by the leash, like the dogs they all were.
His Moroccan laundering route had also been compromised by Maxim, so whenever Joaquin tried cleaning hisdirty cash through that channel, the money was being rerouted back into my accounts.
It was the least I could do for myself, seeing as I had already thrown millions of dollars into the sea. I couldn’t waste any more money.
And it wasn’t just a casual financial blow to Joaquin. This was sure to make him lose his mind and give his accountants a heart attack.
But I wasn’t done with the bastard.
I turned the blueprint, tapping the area of the Moroccan route. “Flag one of the payments, Maxim. I want Joaquin on every federal radar from Barcelona to Boston.”
Maxim nodded and immediately got to work on his tablet, while a malignant grin formed on my face, as the red Sharpie I had used to circle Joaquin’s weak points bled into the paper. And immediately after I had instructed him to get the Feds on Joaquin’s ass, Maxim returned with a grin of his own as he said, “It’s been done.”
A dark chuckle rumbled from my chest as I threw my head back, laughing at how fucked Joaquin was.
But this was only the beginning.
There was more incoming for him. If he wanted to play this stupid game with me, I assumed he was ready for all the losses he was about to incur.
