Page 52 of The Bratva's Innocent Pregnant Bride
“I promise you I’m going to take care of your friend,” I said. One way or another.
“But tell me what’s going on,” she pleaded, right before I ended the call.
The tenacious young woman called back several times in a row, so I temporarily blocked her, feeling a twinge of guilt.
“Damn it, Paisley,” I muttered. When did I ever feel guilt?
It was only a couple minutes later that Anatoli called back. “There’s a charge to her bank card from the airport,” he said. “She took a plane back to LA, should be there by now. I’m starting on LAX security cameras, shouldn’t be too much longer until I spot her.”
As I put him on speaker to search for the next flight to LA, he rattled off some technical aspects about his miraculous software that I didn’t give a crap about as long as it worked. Butapparently he was able to utilize a picture of Paisley he’d gotten from Katie’s phone, and it would weed out anyone on the camera feeds who looked like her.
“If she gets in another taxi, we’re golden,” he said. “I’ll be able to track it.”
“If not?”
“Then it all depends on if I can get a clear view of the car’s plate.”
Now he didn’t sound so excited and confident anymore, but I had a starting point. “Damn it,” I said, realizing there were no more flights until the next morning.
“What?” he asked, then laughed. “You want another favor?”
I groaned. I had been meaning to buy my own jet for a while now. Ever since we decided we were going to make Los Angeles our homebase and Mat had moved further up north, Rurik and I were tossing around the idea of going in on one together to make the trips easier. I wished I had made that a priority now.
“I’ll call my pilot,” he said without me having to ask. Was I going to have to go beyond acceptance and start actually like this guy? “You can be wheels up in less than an hour and I’ll keep you updated when I find anything else.”
I choked out my thanks and headed for the airport, not about to waste anymore time.
Chapter 34 - Paisley
Agent Pierce took another step closer as the sound of the door closing seemed to echo all throughout the small room. As frightening as Gavril Bocharov had been, I had to press my lips hard together to keep from screaming for him to come back.
I couldn’t look at Pierce anymore, not when his eyes were shining with malice, and worse than that. He was excited about what he was about to do. There was nothing I could use in this dim little room that would help me defend myself. Nothing but dirty plaster walls, riddled with holes, and dusty concrete under my feet. Rusty brown stains on the floor under my chair jumped out at me and the tears I had been holding back began to flow down my cheeks.
How many people had this monster tortured in this room before me? How many of them left it alive? And the question that I could barely stand to think, but rattled around in my terrorized mind like a trapped bird: how badly was this going to hurt?
“I swear I don’t know anything about what’s going on at Axon,” I said, pathetically wiping my nose on my sleeve. “I didn’t even really like any of those people on the list.”
I was desperate enough to claim I would forget what I saw, go into hiding, leave the country, whatever it took to stay alive. Pierce watched me with the fascination of a young child following the journey of an ant as I babbled. It was only the fleeting thought of Dan that made me shut up, halfway through one of my pleas.
His proud, almost cocky attitude about everything made me gather up my dignity and hold onto it for dear life. All Pierce had done so far was stare at me in amusement. Maybe I wasn’tabout to be tortured. I looked him in the eyes, gripping the sides of the folding chair to try to hide my trembling, and said the one thing that mattered, in a clear, calm voice.
“I don’t know anything.”
He sighed, as if deeply disappointed. “We both know that’s not true.”
“I was a junior accountant and I only worked there a year. Nobody was telling me anything except to get my work done faster.”
“Why were you in David Caraggio’s office?” he asked.
Oh my God. This was all because that coward had run off at the first sign of trouble, and my freaking tyrant of a boss, Erica, didn’t believe he had told me to finish his work. I explained it all, as simply as I would have to little Pavel.
“Maybe he didn’t know he was next on the list,” I said. “I guess he thought he’d come back the next day and didn’t want his stupid report to be unfinished. I was only in there to do the work he told me to do.”
“And you just happened to find the list and put it all together?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why is that so hard to believe? Everyone there jokes about disappearing employees. You people aren’t that good at keeping your dirty secrets hidden.”
My head jolted back under the force of the slap. My jaw seemed like it would never return to the proper position and my ear rang from the crack of his palm against my cheek. Fresh tears burned in my eyes but I blinked them angrily away.
