Page 38 of His Contract Queen

The last two messages are practically trembling with panic. Every single one of the messages has gone completely unanswered. I tap the contact, revealing the full number behind the unanswered thread. The moment it appears on the screen, I’m not at all surprised to find I recognize it instantly.

Ramil Borchin.

I stare at his name for a long moment, my expression flattening. Ramil Borchin is not sloppy. He doesn’t vanish without reason. If he wanted to maintain contact with his daughter, he would have found a way, regardless of the avenue.

But he didn’t.

Not once.

Which means one of two things—either something happened to him or Borchin never intended to answer her at all.

My fingers drum on the armrest.

I’ll admit, I haven’t been keeping tabs on him at all since he brought me Katya.

Why would I?

The man delivered his last bargaining chip, the only currency he had left worth anything in this world, to me already. After that, his usefulness completely evaporated. I had no interest in maintaining a relationship with him because there had been no more leverage worth exploiting.

The only thing of value Ramil Borchin has left to offer currently would be his own life—something I’m not at all remotely interested in. A life like his is worthless to me, an emptied vessel gutted of usefulness the moment he traded his daughter for his own selfish gains. What remains of him after such a transaction is just a hollow husk.

A man who betrays his own blood will betray anyone. I have no patience for men who hold no loyalty to anything, not even their own child.

My jaw tightens, a slow grind of teeth behind unwavering composure.

So, then, what had been the point? Why give her a mission to spy on me? Why send her into the lion’s den with detailed instructions that required the risk of her life and then ignore her completely after she delivers incredibly valuable information?

It makes no sense.

If he’d intended to use the intel against me, I would have noticed movement in the channels my people monitor around the clock by now.

But there has been nothing.

In the almost two months of her reporting to him, nothing has changed. Nothing has disrupted my operations or suggested hernotes are being collected, analyzed, and weaponized to use to dismantle my Bratva when I least expect it.

Suddenly, this looks less like an intelligence operation and far more like a man throwing his daughter into the deep end without bothering to check whether she could swim or not. Spy or not, she walked into this entire operation blindly.

I exhale slowly and push my chair back from the desk as the decision crystallizes.

How concerning…

Not because he tried to spy on me. That’s almost boring in retrospect. Everyone tries to eventually.

What sets me on edge is the sheer audacity to sell me his daughter under the guise of saving himself and then having the gall to turn around and violate the terms of our agreement by sending her to me with explicit instructions to spy on me with little regard for how it would play out if she were to get caught.

Placing her in danger like that is something I can’t forgive, even if the information is going nowhere. A man like that doesn’t deserve to play clever games. He deserves consequences.

I stand, the decision made with the same certainty that governs everything else I do.

Time to pay Ramil Borchin a visit.

11

ALEKSANDR

Idon’t send word ahead that I’m coming.

Ramil Borchin doesn’t deserve the small mercy of a few minutes to rehearse his excuses or plaster on whatever pathetic mask he thinks might soften my judgment. He doesn’t deserve the illusion of dignity that comes with preparation.