Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Polina snorts. “I adore you, you know.”
My heart melts a little bit. I don’t want to give her up. I don’t want to give Ekaterina up. But how can I stay knowing I mean nothing to Mikhail?
“Fyodor hurt my sons. He may have been the one who orchestrated my husband’s death.” Ekaterina’s voice hardens. I look up at her. “Destroy him, Aria.”
My hands fly over the keyboard of the computer on the desktop in front of me. Unlocking it is child’s play. I feel my eyes widen and my jaw unhinge as I systematically unlock everything. I go as quickly as I can, which is pretty quick since I have the tools to do it. I know how to bypass the security measures Volkov has in place, and within three minutes, it’s all here. All of it.
Communications and criminal records. Financial transactions. Detailed ledgers and personal information as well. Pictures and family information, and enough digital evidence of crimes to send him to jail for ten life sentences. But as I read, I feel nausea curling in my belly.
“He isn’t working alone,” I whisper, as I recognize names and places. Panic sweeps through me. “He isn’t the one we need to fear.”
I leap to my feet. I have to sound the alarm, I have to —
The sound of a deafening roar shatters my world.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Mikhail
“Pull over.”
Before I was made pakhan he might’ve given me shit for making him pull over, but now he only does what I say with a tight-lipped look.
He’s driving too fucking slow for me.
“Listen,” he growls as he reluctantly gets into the passenger seat. “Driving so fast you get pulled over won’t get you there any faster.”
“You sound like Mom. Shut up and let me drive.”
Aleks only sits up straighter and crosses his arms on his chest.
“I’ve got a lot to tell you, Mikhail,” he says with a note I can’t quite identify in his voice.
“How convenient. I have a lot I have to tell you, too.” Namely, how he’s directly impacted by the deal I made to get out of jail. There’s no “get out of jail free” card in real life, ever.
“I’ll let you go first. Oldest brother and all that.”
I know it’s his curiosity, though.
“Bianchi got me out. I owed him a favor, but a small one, so we made a deal.”
“I suspected Bianchi had something to do with it. Mario Rossi texted me and told me you’d probably cross his path.”
“I did.” The fact that we were in the same cell wasn’t lost on me either. “And we struck a deal.”
“Oh?” Now I have Aleks’s attention.
“He has a younger sister who’s causing him some trouble. She’s tried to leave on numerous occasions, and he’s done with it. Says it’s time to marry her off and he’d rather marry her into a group he trusts than take his uncle’s advice.”
I don’t blame Bianchi. His uncle’s a greedy son of a bitch who’d auction his niece off to the highest bidder, character and integrity be damned.
Aleks laughs out loud. “So enter the Romanovs, because we’re so reputable and trustworthy?” He flattens a palm against his chest. “I’m fucking honored.”
“His uncle was talking with Volkov.”
Aleks’s eyes darken. The last woman who entered an arranged marriage to Volkov ended up marrying a man thirty years her senior who locked her in a cage in his bedroom and shared her liberally with his peers.
There’s a reason Polina isn’t allowed contact with that side of the family.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” he says, his dark eyes glittering.
“That you and I both tying the knot within six months gives us a decided advantage? Fuck yes.”
He sits up straighter. “Wait, me? Jesus, Mikhail.”
“I have my reasons.”
I noted the tension between Aleks and Aria and while I was ready to step in if necessary, it would be far easier for all of them if I didn’t have to.
I also happen to know, thanks to Bianchi, that while his sister’s a handful, she’s much more Aleks’s type than Viktor’s.
“Well, then. Happy birthday to me,” he mutters, looking out the window. “Not only do I get a wife, but I also get the unique privilege of taming her. You got a pic?”
“I do.”
I pull out the picture of tall, elegant Harper Bianchi. Honey-brown eyes and sun-kissed skin complement her long, blonde beach waves. Her smile is a bit impish, if staged – the byproduct of hundreds of selfies she’s liberally posted.
“She’s been spoiled,” Aleks says, his eyes fairly gleaming. “Hasn’t she?”
“Without a doubt.”
“I can’t decide if I should thank you or deck you.”
“So soon you forget the punishment for striking your pakhan?”
“Dammit, that’s right,” he says with a laugh, then quickly sobers. “Alright, we can talk about this with everyone else later. I have a more urgent matter we need to address.”
I hit the gas and watch the needle hit eighty-five. I need to get to Aria. She hasn’t answered my calls or texts, and it would concern me if I hadn’t left her under the total wall of protection that’s the entire Romanov brotherhood. I know she needs to nap often and is sometimes so busy with her work that she doesn’t notice notifications.