Page 58 of Forced By the Bratva

Worse, some of the disappearances I’d heard blamed on rival groups didn’t show any outside fingerprints at all. No rival organization appeared in these records.

Whoever was responsible was already inside. This was an inside job, and the organization wasn’t even aware of what was going on underground.

I sat there a long time after that thought settled, folders across my lap, my pulse steady as my mind raced through everything I’d just put together.

This went deeper than the breach that had me taken in the first place. Deeper than anything I’d imagined sitting in my apartment weeks earlier, thinking I’d only stumbled onto simple corporate fraud.

I didn’t have names yet. Just patterns. Just numbers that refused to make sense any other way.

I was still on the floor, papers in careful stacks around me, when I heard him clear his throat conspicuously.

A few weeks ago, I would’ve been scared, but today, I wasn’t. I raised my head, and there he was, towering over me with both hands in his pockets. I must have been so carried away with my investigation that I didn’t hear him come in.

“How long have you been standing there?” I asked him.

“Long enough.”

I braced for questions about why I was going through his private documents. Instead, he looked at the folders, then at me, his expression soft.

“What are you doing?” It wasn’t an accusation. Just a question.

“I was reorganizing the shelf when I found these by accident,” I said.

He lifted his eyebrows. “By accident?”

“Look, I know it sounds bad, but believe me, I wasn’t snooping. I promise.”

“What do you mean you were reorganizing the shelf?” He looked at me, as though he were already piecing the puzzle together in his head. “Were you cleaning my office?”

I hesitated. “Yes.”

“Iris, that’s what the maids are for.”

“Yeah, I know.” I rolled my neck in a massaging motion. “But I was bored, and I needed to get my mind off…”

A pause.

“Off what?”

“Never mind.”

Yeah, I wasn’t about to tell him that I was doing this just to avoid thinking about him all day.

He crouched across from me, close enough to see what I’d been working through.

I expected him to gather everything up, tell me it wasn’t my concern, maybe even lock the whole cabinet somewhere I couldn’t reach again.

But he didn’t. Instead, he stared at me suspiciously. “What did you find?”

“Huh?” I feigned ignorance.

“You have that look on your face that says you found something important.”

I didn’t deny it. Didn’t accept it either.

“Show me,” he said, his gaze unwavering.

“It might be nothing serious…”