Page 54 of Forced By an Obsessive Bratva Stalker

Wait a minute. Did someone actually hack my laptop? Because that was the only logical explanation. Everything else I’d been working on for months was still intact. However, those documents closest to identifying R.T. and linking him to financial fraud were magically missing.

How?

Why those files specifically?

That would mean whoever erased those notes knew I was on the right track. That meant that I was much closer to finding that man than I thought.

At this point, I wasn’t sure what was more unsettling—the fact that my computer was hacked, or the fact that R.T. already knew I was on to him. He knew who I was, and he had access to my computer.

What else did he have access to?

My heart skipped a beat, my eyes discreetly scanning the room. Could my place have been bugged? Were there hidden cameras and microphones planted in my apartment?

The possibility alone made my pulse race and my palms sweaty. That would explain why I always felt like I was being watched. On campus, on the streets, at the café—wherever I went, I felt eyes on me.

These people were watching me. They were watching my every move, so it wasn’t crazy to think that they bugged my place.

Who was R.T.?

I thought the people watching me were the Bratva. I thought the eyes I always felt on me had something to do with what I witnessed at Meridian Solutions. Now, with the documents about R.T. being intentionally deleted from my computer, I wasn’t even sure who exactly was after me.

However, I was almost certain R.T. was involved because why else would only the files on him be deleted?

Was R.T. working with the Russian Bratva?

The more questions I had, the more my head hurt. It was so frustrating that these people knew who I was and I hadn’t the slightest clue who they were.

A lot was happening at the same time: the Bratva, R.T.’s real identity, my mystery man—who, by the way, I hadn’t seen in a while—and the situation with Anton. I felt like I was losing my mind because I had a thousand unanswered questions that wouldn’t let me be.

I drew a deep breath and decided to pull up the few blurry images of R.T. available online. With my chin under my palm, I stared at the photos one after the other, trying to find something I might’ve missed before.

And to my surprise, I did.

I spotted something I didn’t pay attention to earlier. A small tattoo of a cross positioned at the back of his neck. From the angle at which this particular photo was taken, the cross tattoo was the only thing that was visible.

My eyes squinted, and I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs. I swallowed hard as I zoomed in on the tattoo, my hands trembling.

The reason for this sudden fear was because I recognized that ink. It was identical to the one I spotted behind Anton’s neck when we were fucking in his office. The same design in the exact same position.

Coincidence?

I highly doubted it.

My pulse quickened as cold sweat trickled down my left temple.

The more I studied the blurry photos of R.T., the more I saw the similarities between him and Anton. They both stood six-plus feet tall with the same build. And when I zoomed in on R.T’s watch in one of the photos, I realized it was the same one Anton wore at the Hargrove Annual Investment Summit.

A strange heat spread through my body, making me feel hot all of a sudden. The dryness in my throat made it hard to swallow as my heart sank into my stomach.

I recalled how he smoothly avoided the cameras during the gala. He’d said it was because he didn’t want the press spreading a false narrative or something of that nature. It was a lame excuse, but it made sense now.

R.T. was Anton Vasylenko.

The realization hit me harder than anything would’ve prepared me for. I mean, I’d always suspected that Anton was hiding something up his sleeve. But I didn’t expect this to be this.

Immediately, my brain began putting the pieces together. If Anton and R.T. were the same person, that would mean Anton was the one who tampered with my computer.

I thought about Meridian Solutions and the tall Russian man whose presence alone scared the shit out of me. I recalled how this whole thing started right after I witnessed what I did in that building. And now I was beginning to see the possibility that Anton-slash-R.T. was the same man from Meridian Solutions.