Page 4 of Bratva and Betrayal: Kirill

“I—” Jagger’s voice breaks. “I handle a lot of transactions.”

I push away from the file cabinet and cross the room like a polar bear closing in on his prey in the ice and snow.

When I reach him, I take hold of his collar to pull him forward. Up close, I see the fear etched into every line of his smashed-up face, and I can smell the panic sweating out of his pores.

“Let me make this perfectly clear to you,” I say calmly and remove my mask. “That was my money.”

“Oh shit.” Jagger coughs up blood that spills down the front of his cheap shirt.

Yeah, he recognizes me.

“Please… I just do what clients ask of me.”

“And where did you get that painting?” I grind my thumb into the bruise forming along his cheekbone.

“From an estate,” the lawyer blurts out on a sharp cry. “I was selling it to provide for the client, that’s all. That’s what I was told to do.”

Provide? For my Sandrine?

The room tilts, the present slipping just enough for my memory to bleed through. Her hands stained with color, the way she would step back from a canvas with a dull satisfaction that never quite reached her eyes. She always chased perfection.

Missing Sandrine twists my stomach with a sharp, unwelcome ache. I ignore it, the way I’ve ignored every other inconvenient emotion that has tried to surface since she disappeared.

My jaw tightens, dark rage threading through me. Possession and violence and betrayal compete with the cold anger I’ve carried in my heart for five years.

“There’s only one way for you to survive this,” I warn, ready to lose it. “Who is your client?”

Jagger isn’t leaving here alive. I don’t mind lying to a snake.

“Thomas De la Vega,” he rasps, desperate now that he knows he’s crossed a Volkov.

The name drops a lighted match into a puddle of gasoline. I knew Sandrine’s bastard father had a hand in this. Dragging me back into the rot of what he did is enough to make my vision go black.

Her sister is untouchable, conveniently married to Ares fucking Zervas. And Sandrine doesn’t need providing for. Zervas has her under his protection. I didn’t see the ten million dollars I paid for that painting going to him.

I should kill the head of the Greek Mafia for keeping Sandrine from me, but I don’t need a war with another syndicate.

I have more Bratva to slaughter. And as soon as my father dies, I need Sandrine home in order to take my place as pakhan.

Only, my wife is missing.

“Did you talk to Thomas?” the lawyer plays dumb.

“He’s dead.” Glancing around the skeevy office, I ask, “Where is the ten million dollars?”

Jagger turns white, caught in his web of lies. “That’s my business.”

Those paintings weren’t just a payday for this prick. They were hers. Fragments of her life, of her mind. Jagger might as well have been selling her. Other paintings I bought from private sales were leads that went cold. But Bedell Auction House has unhappy employees willing to talk. Willing to please the Bratva and cash in.

I got fucking lucky to have discovered the auction in the first place. But luck is just another word for good timing.

Find the paintings. Find Sandrine.

I stare again at the lawyer in front of me, and whatever restraint I’d been holding on to slips away.

My hand leaves his collar only long enough to draw the knife from inside my jacket. The blade glints off the faint glow of light in the office. The clean, cold line of steel reflects a fury in my eyes I don’t bother to hide.

I can’t survive if this is another dead end after all this time. Zervas can’t be the only person who knows where my wife is.