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But that fury wasn’t going to get our girl back.
Antonio noted my clenched fists, but didn’t acknowledge my rage in any other way. “The upstart is my son-in-law, Nikolai.”
Nikolai laughed. “Not for long, it seems.”
I nodded at Liam, who shoved back from the table, saluted the table with a wild grin on his face, and strode toward the door.
“Where the fuck is he going?” Nikolai asked.
I leaned forward, radiating menace. “Your second in command took my fucking wife. Liam’s going to take something of equal value from you.”
“Enough, Rian,” Antonio snapped. “Liam, sit back down.”
Liam waited for me to acquiesce before stationing himself at the door, ready to take off if I changed my mind. For a moment, I regretted every choice in my life that led to this moment where I had to beg this Bratva piece of shit for help getting our sweet Ginevra back. I’d spend the rest of our lives making this up to her.
Nikolai sat back in his seat, his smile satisfied and smug as he lay his hands on his belly. The man was huge. All the Russians made me look small, and I was no slouch at six feet and over two hundred pounds of muscle.
“Nikolai, I am going to unleash these boys on you and your family unless you help me get my daughter back,” Antonio threatened.
The Russian spread his hands. “I don’t have her.” One of the soldiers who accompanied him pulled a USB key out of his pocket and tossed it into the center of the table. I snatched it. “But this is a list of my properties. Destroy this information when you’re done with it.” He leaned forward and stared into Antonio’s eyes. “I do not want a war with you or these puppies. I cannot help you search for your daughter, and I cannot massacre my own men, but I will not get in your way as you do.”
That would have to be enough.
32
CORMAC
Istared at the list of properties Nikolai provided as it scrolled down my screen, shocked at his transparency. He’d given us dangerous insight into the breadth of his operations, all in the name of saving our girl. Or perhaps, in the name of preventing us from snatching his daughters and treating them with the same brutality as Yuri was Ginevra. Would Antonio have done the same, if one of his men had gone after the Bratva girls? I wasn’t sure.
“Cross-referencing this will take a couple of hours,” I told Rian. We had returned to our office building following the meeting with the Bratva.
He shrugged. “There’s no guarantee she’s stashed in any of these properties, just a high likelihood.”
I twisted my lips. “I ran a search on Yuri. His name’s not on any properties in the city databases. Bank accounts are relatively clean. He has one sports car sitting in the garage of his rented apartment. No big red flags. How did he manage to stay clean while he was orchestrating this?”
I turned my head to Dmitri Lebedev, the Bratva’s chief enforcer, where he sat in the corner of my office. “How is Yuri paying for the small army that it’s going to take to protect him from us when we find him?”
Lebedev stretched his lean legs out in front of him and propped his arms behind his head. “How do you know the money’s coming from the Bratva?”
I blinked. Liam, Rian, and I looked at each other as we put the information together.The missing money from the Russos’ protection payments. Fuck.
“Go toss Alexi’s apartment.”
Liam’s grin was feral. “Sure thing, boss.” He looked at Dmitri. “Want to have some fun?”
Dmitri’s answering smile was dark. “Let’s go.”
Rian watched the two leave my command center with amusement dancing in his eyes. Those two were dangerous enough to begin with, but off their leashes and together? Good thing they were focused on getting Ginevra back.
I returned my attention to the list of properties scrolling on my screen. With a few quick commands, I dumped the list into the database I’d built of sightings of white Corollas in the city, and started cross-checking them against each other. A few more moments, and I added facial recognition software to the mix, outputting all the locations where I’d been able to find those assholes who took her over the last few days. It’d take time for the program to run its course, but when it finished, we’d have a narrower list of properties to check out.
Waiting for the program to run was excruciating. The natural light faded as the day wore on, and all I could think about was the fierce expression on Ginevra’s face in that first picture. Despite the smear of mascara down her face from her tears, she’d looked like she was ready to tear Yuri apart. Watching her fall apart over the course of the day, until the last picture, blood dripping down her chest, her body bruised, and her face contorted in pain as she screamed, had broken something inside me.
Ginevra deserved better than this. She’d fucking left this. She’d left the power and privilege that came from being the daughter of one of the most powerful men in this piece-of-shit town, and built her own life. She’d come back to save her goddamned sister from predators, from the violence promised by marrying into our gang. And as payment, she was reliving the very fucking events that sent her running a decade before.
Goddammit.
I rubbed my chest as an unfamiliar ache bloomed.Fuck. How had this marvelous woman wormed her way so deeply into my heart in such a short period? She was such a perfect fucking match for us—a brilliant businesswoman, a charming socialite, and a deliciously submissive playmate in the bedroom. We were so fucking bad for her, though, full of violence and pain and broken shards of shared history.
