Page 4 of Savage Little Lies

“Why exactly are you sorry, Karly?” he snaps when she hesitates.

“Miss Suyunov says she’s been trying to reach you and needs you to call her back right away.”

That must be who was just blowing up his phone.

Suyunov, as in Annika Suyunov, daughter of Russian mob boss Artur Suyunov, and Dmitri’s soon-to-be-wife according to the whispers around town.

My pulse quickens as I turn back to Dmitri, wondering if he’ll return her call here in front of me. God, I hope so.

“Hold on,” Dmitri grits out before turning back to me. “Whatever you need should already be on the laptop.” He pushes a stack of papers toward me. “Scan these documents and store them in the Documents folder. Organize them by client. I need everything neat and in its right place.”

“I’ll get right on that,” I tell him. “I’ll be quiet if you want to make your phone call in here.”

Dmitri shakes his head as he stands from his seat and swipes his cell phone from the desk. “I’ll take it outside. Ask Karly if you have any questions about how to use the copier. You’ll need to visit HR as well for a badge and to sign some paperwork.”

“Yes, sir,” I agree.

Disappointment slumps my shoulders as I watch him follow Karly out of his office, the double doors thumping shut behind them. I turn back toward the desk, inspecting the blueprint still spread out.

Who knows what he’s planning to do with it?

Recently, the Bratva has started expanding into Vegas, interfering with the business operations of other families.

None of which are happy about the Ivanov-Suyunov alliance that would be made official by Dmitri’s marriage to Annika.

If that marriage doesn’t happen, the alliance will fall apart. The Ivanovs and the Suyunovs will not only suffer financially, but they’ll also both lose their positions in the Bratva hierarchy.

And if I do my job, they’ll be at each other’s throats and rip each other to pieces.

Dmitri Ivanov believes the war is out there on the streets, between families, between empires.

He doesn’t know that it just walked into his office.

2

Dmitri

Tension tightens at the base of my skull as I stare at the front page of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Las Vegas police seize a hundred pounds of narcotics.

My fucking narcotics.

“Son of a bitch,” I mutter through gritted teeth, my fingers aching to wrap around Alec’s throat and squeeze the damn life out of him for letting this happen.

He was supposed to transport and deliver our product from place to place without error. That means not dumping duffel bags full of our supply in a field because he got spooked by nearby cops.

He panicked. And panic is expensive.

Fucking durak.

Thanks to that idiot, I’m down thousands of dollars because the delivery couldn’t be made, and my head of transport might get arrested over a stupid mistake. If he was dumb enough to ditch the bags, he was dumb enough not to use gloves when packing the narcotics into them.

As soon as the cops find his fingerprints all over those plastic bags, they’ll be kicking down his door.

I’ll send someone to remind him what happens to men who forget who they work for.

Maybe I should eliminate the risk altogether. Dead men don’t testify.