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The woman smiled, her face transformed with the gesture. Her silver hair was piled on the top of her head in a messy bun with tendrils framing her face. She had ice-blue eyes framed by laugh lines. I could see the small similarities between her and Andrei. The set of their mouths. The shape of their eyes.
Despite being the wife of a Bratva Pakhan, she had something decent and pure beneath the fire because she was sure as hell snarky and not afraid to tell her husband when he was being an ass.
“I’m Mariya, Charlotte. It’s very nice to meet you.” She held out a hand, and I shook it gratefully.
“Nice to meet you as well, Mariya. Please call me Lottie. I’ve heard nothing but great things about you.” Not that I'd heard much of anything, but I didn’t want to be rude. But there had been affection in Andrei's voice the few times he spoke of hisbabushka.
“On behalf of my husband, I need to apologize for how you’ve been treated. Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, but I absently rubbed over the raw skin of my wrists. Mariya zeroed in on the movement and cursed. She whirled on Viktor again and broke off in a streak of rapid-fire Russian as she wagged her finger in his face. The man took it in stride, trying not to smile as his wife went off on him.
"Are you quite done, dear?" Viktor sighed as Mariya finished. His grin was wide but was more amused than angry or vengeful. He wrapped an arm around his wife's waist and guided her to sit on one of his powerful thighs. "The girl is quite okay, as you can see. Our stubborn grandson will be here soon, thanks to me."
"Thanks to you kidnapping me." I rolled my eyes, bitterness injected into the words. "But let's just see what Andrei has to say."
CHAPTER 2
Andrei
Fury, white hot and boiling, swept through my blood like liquid magma as I fought to control myself.
Now that I'd done a bit more digging, I found who was behind the shell corporations that rented the cars that had been tracking Lottie.
VV Enterprises.
What a fucking joke.
More like, what a fucking idiot.
Who used their initials on a shell corporation if they were trying to stay hidden?
Viktor Volkov, that's who.
He didn't want to stay hidden because he wasn’t in any danger.
He was too powerful in Russia, but here in the U.S., he was almost as invincible. That's what happened when you were rich, fueled by blood money.
"I'm going to fucking kill him," I snarled in Russian as I grabbed my phone and ran from my office. "Kaleb, let's go."
If he didn't get his ass out here by the time the elevator came, I wouldn't hesitate to leave him behind.
"You found her?" He was out of breath, his voice frantic as he swept a hand over his forehead. "How? Where is she?"
I slammed my palm on the elevator call button repeatedly, but it didn't make the damn car come any faster. "We need a new building or move floors because I'm tired of being so far up that I'm forced to take the elevator."
"I get that you're upset, but I'd like for you to tell me what's going on before I knock your teeth loose." It took Kaleb a while to reach his temper, but once he got there, nothing could stop his wrath. I'd been on the receiving end of a few of those punches, and trust me, I didn't recommend it.
"Fucking Viktor."
The elevator arrived with a ding that echoed on the empty floor, and we went in.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Kaleb spoke evenly and calmly, but I knew him well enough that this was just the calm before the storm. "I asked you if it was him yesterday, and you assure me it wasn't."
"Well, I was wrong." I clenched my hands into fists and barely concealed my fury. "The FBI and CIA don't even know he's here, or my informants would have told me. So, he's gone fully under the radar to come here."
"Your arrogance has put Lottie in danger!" Kaleb shouted at me, his face turning a bright shade of red as his eyes darkened with fury. "You should have investigated all angles, even Viktor. Now we don't even know where the fuck she is!"
I held up a hand and pointed a finger in his face. "I didn't say that. I know exactly where she is, and that's where we're headed right now."
