Page 13 of The Russian Pakhan's Forced Bride
She’s Victoria Evans. An elementary school teacher. Someone unaware of who I truly am, or the extent of what I do.
I can’t help but feel inclined to believe her.
She looked me in the eye with genuine fear and confusion, and not once did she relent.
If she is playing me, then nobody can do it like her. I’d have to give her that credit.
But if she’s telling the truth…if she is as innocent as she claims, then I’m just a fool who forced a random woman to marry him. I just attached a woman to me who has no business knowing anything about my lifestyle or the dangers that come with it.
I may be brutal and decisive when I need to be, but I don’t have any interest in dragging unsuspecting people into this. Not when they have the opportunity to live an unassuming life, blissfully unaware of the criminal underbelly beneath it all.
If Victoria is who she says she is, then I just condemned her to a life of looming threats. The possibility of being used against me for someone else’s gain.
Forcing out a deep breath, I reach for my cell and tap the screen before initiating a call.
All the while I wait for it to ring, that irritation boils beneath my skin.
I should’ve known better. I should’ve waited.
Then, the line connects, and I hear my brother’s tired voice on the other end. “Yeah?”
“Mikhail…we have a problem.”
He pauses, then sighs. I can picture him scrubbing his face on the other end. “…at three in the morning?”
“Yes. Especially at three in the morning,” I grind out, absently running a hand through my hair. “You gave me the wrong woman.”
Mikhail pauses again, but for a beat longer this time. “What?”
“You heard me…she isn’t Viktoria Nikolaev. She doesn’t have a brother and knows nothing about our world.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I mutter, annoyed by the skepticism in his voice. “She claims up and down that she has no idea what I’m talking about…but if she’s faking it, then someone better call the goddamn academy for the award she’s due.”
Mikhail’s tone becomes more terse with his insistence. “I don’t know what’s going on, but she’s the one, Roman…the information on her was scant, like I said, but you saw her picture. It’s her. She is a direct match for Viktoria Nikolaev.”
“Obviously not,” I snap, immediately pulling in a breath to try and cool myself down. “She has claimed again and again that she isn’t who I think she is. If you could’ve seen her face or heard her tone, you’d believe her just like I do. When I called her Nikolaev, her expression was blank. Not a single note a recognition registered.”
“It doesn’t add up,” Mikhail muttered, mostly to himself. “Maybe this is some kind of deeper play. Something we weren’t anticipating.”
I scoff. “What, like amnesia?”
“Of course not…” he trails off, hesitating, “well…perhaps it wouldn’t be far-fetched at this point.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She seems to believe she’s an Evans, but now she’s a Lukov, and I have to fix this,” I continue, feeling the constant ebb and flow of my fury. “Better yet,youneed to help me fix this.”
“Look, I wish I could tell you what went wrong, or what the truth is, but I’m just as stumped as you are.”
“I don’t like unknowns, Mikhail,” I utter, tapping my fingers idly against the arm of the chair.
“I know…and neither do I. But this can’t be some random woman off the street. Our intel isn’t faulty, regardless of what happened.”
My jaw aches from clenching it. “It sure as hell feels like it.”
Through Mikhail’s stretches of silence, I can tell he’s just as lost and wants to get to the bottom of it.
“What are you going to do now?”
