Page 69 of Used By the Merciless Bratva
Her words lit like a blade sliding between my ribs.
The marriage. The inheritance. Not about money. About cover.
And Katria—my Katria—had been a pawn in his game from the very start.
Irene’s hand reached into her jacket again. She pulled out a folded typed note. She set it beside the others.
“This,” she whispered, “proves it. The meeting was planned so that Katria received ownership. The company was already dead. But her signature made the transfer legal. Withoutit, he couldn’t vanish clean. With it? He walks free with everything he already stole.”
The world tilted for a heartbeat. My pulse thundered in my ears.
She finally looked at me, her eyes hollow with fatigue. “I tried to warn her. To warn you. Notes. Hints. The handkerchief. Little things he wouldn’t notice. But he had one under surveillance. One wrong step, and he’d know. I couldn’t risk it. Not until now.”
I stood there, ledgers and flash drives in my hands, feeling the weight of my own blindness.
Feliks hadn’t been chasing money. He had already gulled the accounts. The marriage, the inheritance—it was all for signatures. Katria’s name had been the final key.
My teeth ground together, fury burning cold in my chest.
I remembered Katria telling me recently that Irene was the one dropping the clues for her. For us. But I had been so sure Irene just claimed that to soften Katria toward her or something. I didn’t let myself pause to think she could really know about her dad’s dark dealings, let alone want to expose him.
“You’ve been helping her,” I said, voice low.
“I was trying to,” Irene answered. Her voice was a whisper, but steady. “Piece by piece. Quietly. If I dumped everything at once, Feliks would know.”
My eyes narrowed. “And yet here you are now. Why? Why come when I ordered Katria moved? You needed to know where she was first? Needed her location before you showed up here with your story?”
Her chin lifted. She didn’t back down. “I’m not a fool. I’ve been in this life long enough to know how you work, Danil. I needed proof that you’d protect her before putting my life in your hands. If you’d had her here as bait, I wouldn’t have come. But you didn’t. You sent her away. That told me what I needed.”
My grip on her shoulder tightened. “And where’s Feliks? Where is he hiding?”
Her frustration was real, raw. “I don’t know. But he’s not here. He won’t come. He sent me to keep you waiting…to distract you.”
My stomach turned to ice.
“Distract me?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Keep you looking at the wrong place.”
“When did he send the order for this meeting?”
“A week ago,” she answered, eyes wide at my intensity. “He set this in motion last week.”
The realization slammed into me like fire.
A week. Not tonight. Not now. This wasn’t about the estate at all.
The thud outside the walls confirmed it.
Distant. Heavy. Familiar.
I froze. Luka’s head jerked up. Konstantin swore.
“It’s not a diversion for this place,” I whispered, my voice breaking. Then I roared, “It’s a diversion for the safe house!”
Luka’s face was drained of color. Konstantin bolted for the door.
“He knew!” I bellowed, fury ripping from my chest. “He knew I’d move her! He knew I’d empty the estate to guard this place! Katria—” My voice cracked. “He’s gone after her.”
