31. Leks
LEKS
Iroll my wedding ring between my thumb and forefinger, cursing the burden of this gold band and the reminder of the woman who wears a matching one. From the start of this thing, it’s impaired my judgement. She’s impaired my judgement.
Maksim Bryusov’s daughter might be so fucking irresistible that being with her feels like a drug, but his toxic blood runs through her veins. Doesn’t being poisoned feel just like being drugged? I hope so. That would explain it.
I’ve been a fucking idiot where Natalia is concerned and the evidence proves it.
The secure vaults have been seeing an unusual amount of activity.
Private yachts coming in and out of the marina.
The area where the yachts show up is one of the only remaining Bryusov strongholds in the port district.
When we track them, we find they’re connected to a network of old-money oligarchs. Maksim Bryusov’s kind of people.
And the pace is picking up. Like someone knows exactly how close we are to figuring out what’s going on with Maksim and the paintings and they’re getting rid of the evidence.
All in the past week. Since Natalia learned about our plan. Since I told her.
Since I trusted her.
She’d seemed so much happier with her paintings, slipping away to the vault every morning with Dasha following her like a shadow.
I was relieved at the improvement in her mood as she got into the routine.
She’d scared me, that day and night she spent in her studio with nothing but paint and an entire lake of tears.
Maksim’s a bastard who knows how to twist the knife, but I hated the way he’d known how to bring out darkness even in his own golden daughter.
Now I wonder how much of it was an act. Her cunt gets undeniably wet for me, sure, but it’s starting to seem like the innocent, sheltered heiress is more of a professional spy.
I sink onto the couch in Yuri’s office, spinning my wedding ring between my fingers. I never sit down for our meetings but for this one, even I can’t predict my reaction. Throttle Yuri? Reach for a gun? Drive straight to Maksim and put an end to this?
The unfortunate certainty lodges in my stomach that any option involving Natalia’s death is off the table.
Her love was probably false, too, but fuck if I didn’t believe that lie with my whole being.
If she thinks betrayal is enough to get rid of me, she’s wrong.
I might lose all respect for her, might never trust another word that comes out of her mouth, but there’s no getting away from the fact that her poison has leached into my blood until I need it to breathe.
I recline on the couch in what I hope is a relaxed posture, hoping to keep this conversation at an arms-length. The look on Yuri’s face tells me he’s not convinced. He looks wary, and rightly-fucking-so.
It’s a delicate situation for him. Our solution for spies and traitors has always been simple: torture for information, remove whatever limbs and body parts aren’t strictly necessary for speech, then dispose of the limbless, bloody evidence with the help of a fishing boat headed to the high seas.
No concerns about identification, because those bodies will never see the light of day again.
Suggesting to your business partner that their wife might need to be neutralized is not an easy feat. I get why Yuri’s taking his time, but it’s irritating to me right now. The nervous tension in the room is making my stomach turn.
“You think it was her?”
I toss the wedding ring in the air and catch it again. Once, twice, three times, and still Yuri’s thinking over his answer. I let out an exasperated groan.
“My wife? Do you think she’s a traitor?” My tone must be harsh because the question makes him flinch.
His throat bobs and his jaw tenses. I can see the inner battle going on. He doesn’t want to believe it. I can relate. She’s got him wrapped around her little finger too. We’ve been blinded by her innocent princess act.
“When we were making plans around the wedding, Maksim had no clue what we were up to,” he begins slowly.
I nod my head thoughtfully, as if he’s telling me new information.
“Nothing’s changed in our processes, except her.”
Way to state the obvious.
His voice is gruff, matter of fact, but he’s not making the conclusion I need to hear. I want confirmation that I’m not being paranoid. That this is the only reasonable explanation. Because nothing about my mind is capable of rational thought when it comes to Natalia.
“You’ve checked all other avenues.”
He nods. “New employees interrogated. Cyber experts say everything’s airtight. Even bribed some of Maksim’s men.”
“And?”
He blows out a breath. “Said it would cost them more than their lives to tell us where the information was coming from.”
I let that sink in, taking one shallow breath.
A comment like that is an answer just as much as a confession would be.
It’s someone high-stakes. Someone like the boss’s daughter.
Someone whose death isn’t just gonna be a matter for you, but a death warrant for your whole family.
If it was a mole at the lower-levels, our cash would have flushed out the name right away.
I raise my eyebrows expectantly. I need him to say it.
“Spit it out, Yuri. In your professional opinion as a security expert, was it her?”
He nods, giving me an apologetic grimace. “Nothing else makes sense.”
I ignore the fact that it feels like a bolt has thudded into my chest and frozen my heartbeats. That’s not pertinent. What I need to focus on is where the information leak is and how to make it stop.
I hadn’t flagged the first breach with Yuri. I’d thought I could handle it.
Handle her.
Because I hadn’t thought Natalia was such a good actress.
I’m in way too fucking deep, with her.
I guess she has me wrapped around her little finger enough that I didn’t even double-check if she really had handed over all her devices.
I should have fucking seen it coming. Once a liar, always a liar. Forgiveness is for the fucking weak. That’s been drilled into me for a long time.
Ever since I saw my mother take my father back, time and time again, until he finally tried to kill her.
He held our sharpest kitchen knife to her throat while he slammed her face against the counter.
To this day, I don’t remember wresting the kitchen knife from his hands, taking the blow across the left side of my face, before I turned the knife on him.
All I know is that it happened, because when the police arrived I was covered in blood.
“I’ll handle it,” I tell Yuri.
He glances at the wedding ring which I’m still spinning between my fingers and I shove it deep in my pocket.
“Will you?”
I set my jaw and give him a nod. “I said I’ll handle it.”
I’ve got a plan. The thought of letting anyone else near this situation makes my skin crawl. Natalia may be a traitor, she may be selling us down the river to help her family despite all her promises to the contrary, but she’s mine.
I don’t need to think too hard about a plan because I’ve already thought it through. Which means, I have to admit to myself, that I thought this was a possibility. I knew there was a chance Natalia was lying to me.
If I was a weaker man, the lingerie set that Natalia’s wearing when I get home would break my resolve. She looks so innocent and pretty, covered in lacy wildflowers, that it’s almost unthinkable.
I walk straight to her, where she’s perched on the edge of the couch, staring at me expectantly.
I take her chin and tilt it up so that I can watch the reaction in those green eyes.
Her lips part on a sigh. I want to taste her, to kiss those soft lips and steal her breath away, pretend everything is normal.
She’s the one who’s taken that option away from us and I hate her for it.
There’s no room for doubt in my mind. It crushes every ounce of tenderness — tenderness that only she has brought out in me — and flattens it to nothing.
“You’ve been lying to me, Natalia.”
Her head gives the slightest shake, but her gaze flicks away from my eyes immediately. I wonder what she sees there. Can she read me the way I thought I could read her? Is she surprised that I’m not holding a gun to her head?
“Somehow your father still knows exactly which of his shipments we’ve been inspecting. The paintings which you have been analyzing for me.”
I feel a tremble run down her spine. It doesn’t stop.
“My question is, what are you getting out of this? Still a Daddy’s girl at heart, huh?”
Natalia blinks away tears, her eyes coming back to meet mine, widening in something like confusion. The waterworks won’t work on me this time.
“Did you lie to them? Tell them you were still an untouched princess who they could marry off to whoever they saw fit? Still a blank slate?”
She shakes her head, tossing that sunshine-golden hair over her shoulders. But she doesn’t open her pretty mouth to deny it.
I shove her chin away, sick of looking at her.
Sick of how much I want her.
That was my weakness. That was my mistake. Trusting her when I had the proof in my hands that she had betrayed me. I knew that she was a liability, knew that I should have told Yuri, but I didn’t want to have any sense talked into me.
That’s called denial and it could have cost me everything.
“Are you going to admit it? Destroy the bugs that you still have here? Or do we have to do this the hard way, Natalia?”
Her eyes flicker as I trace my hand over her throat. She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t stop me, but her eyes don’t meet mine. She’s far away, probably thinking about one of her precious paintings. I don’t like it.
I know what this expression is.
Fear.
I’ve gotten used to her being herself around me. She’s not afraid to argue with me anymore. I forgot how frozen she could be, how withholding. I guess this is how Natalia has really felt around me the whole time, as she’s used me to get information which she could feed to her father.
I know then that she’s not going to admit a single thing. She’ll just retreat, shut down, and take whatever I do to her.
I need to get her out of here. Problem is, I don’t trust anyone else with Natalia. She may be a traitor, but she’s my traitor.
Fuck.
I’d believed that she was angry with her father. That she could see what an asshole Maksim had been.
I got it all wrong.
Never trust a Bryusov.