13. Ilya
Ilya
I pull the door shut behind me, nodding to the guard who is still waiting outside.
No doubt he heard what we were doing in there, but frankly, I don't give a damn.
Like I told Rose, I call the shots around here, and I'm not going to let a stare from someone who works for me distract me from taking what’s mine.
My head feels a little clearer now that I've fucked her again, though I'm sure I shouldn't have let myself get drawn in by her charms once more. There is something I can't deny about her touch, something about the way she looks at me when she thinks she’s taking a stand. There are any number of women who would do anything I asked them if it meant they got to live in this house with these luxuries, but Rose is acting like she’s been locked in prison with the key thrown away.
She keeps talking about going back home, but she has no idea what I’ve done when it comes to her apartment building.
I can already see the look on her face when she finds out, the way her jaw will drop as she comes to understand that it wasn't just her work that I took out from underneath her.
But if she does as she is told, she will never have to find out about it, and I can only hope she has the good sense to realize that's exactly what she should be doing.
"Ilya."
Sergei's voice catches my attention as I round the end of the corridor. I lift my chin, indicating that he should speak. He jerks his head toward my office, a grim expression on his face.
"It's Petar. Looks like he's not done causing you trouble yet."
I let out a sigh, though I am secretly glad for the distraction from Rose.
Even now, walking away from her, it feels like there’s a part of me trying to tug me back to her room, to pick up right where we left off.
Her body matches mine with such ease, it’s hard to believe that we’re not meant for each other on some level.
I have never much believed in soulmates, but there must be something in her pheromones that lights me up in a way nobody else’s has before.
Or maybe it's just the knowledge that she is carrying my child and I own her in a way I have never owned a woman before in my life.
I brush that thought aside as I follow Sergei to the office.
I notice him looking at me a couple of times, perhaps wondering just where I’ve been.
I pay no attention. He can question it all he wants, what’s going on between Rose and me, but that’s for me to know, and that’s where it ends.
Until now, he’s never known me to be with a woman for anything longer than a night, but just because she’s here, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to get distracted from whatever Petar is trying to pull now.
"So, what is it?" I ask as I take my seat at my desk.
Sergei taps on his laptop, pulling up footage that he wants me to see.
"This," he replies, turning the screen so I can get a better look at what he is talking about.
Sure enough, some grainy footage shows a man sneaking into one of the bars that serves as a front for my business.
I don't recognize him, but this man looks like the type who would take fifty bucks to do just about anything if it meant he could get his next fix.
"What’s he doing in there?" I demand bluntly. Not the first time someone has come poking around our business after hours, but normally we have to deflect rival businesses or other bosses who think they can lay some kind of claim to everything that I’ve worked so hard to make.
This guy doesn’t even look like he could pull off being the boss of his own damn backyard.
"We don't know exactly," Sergei replies. "Looks like someone cut the CCTV inside the bar before he went in, but we were able to pull this from across the street when we realized it was down."
"Someone cut it?" I mutter. That doesn't sit right with me. Someone working for my business went behind my back to do this? They must be fucking crazy if they think there won’t be some serious blowback for this. Probably in the form of a bullet between the fucking eyes.
"Yeah," Sergei replies. "That's what tipped us off that there might be something going on that night. He came out with a bag full of papers, and, judging by the looks of what was taken, it seems like he was after financial records."
"Why the fuck would some junkie want something like that?" I bark. "Why not money, or weapons, or something he can actually sell?"
"That’s what I thought," Sergei agrees. "So I went and did a little digging.
Seems like this guy was in Petar's orbit before he got caught.
Started out doing accounting like him, got caught up in the coke game, ended up living on the streets to feed his addiction.
So if Petar needed to get his hands on someone who was really desperate, someone who was willing to do anything to get what they wanted... "
"Then he has one on call," I finish. "Petar must have something to do with this."
I lean back in my seat, mind racing as I try to string it all together.
Petar is going after financial records? Could it be that he's trying to set me up to take the fall for the shit he’s been involved with?
He'd have to be stupid or desperate to try to put me in the firing line for it—not just because I know the cops would take my side over this, but because he must anticipate the revenge I would rain down on his head.
But then, he was facing prison time. Serious prison time.
The kind of time that might never allow him to set foot in the outside world again.
Maybe it shouldn't come as so much of a shock that he’s willing to do anything in his power to escape at least a few of his charges.
All it would take was one overzealous DA, and I could be in the middle of this if I didn't play my cards right.
"Gather the guards," I order Sergei. "I want every place I own in the city on double duty for the next few weeks. Make sure nobody’s getting in or out without me knowing about it.
And see if any of them are starting to show any signs of breaking—someone inside the operation must have given Petar an in to cut the CCTV like that, and we need to find out who it is. "
"On it," Sergei replies, snapping his laptop shut and heading for the door.
I sit there for a moment, fingertips pressed together, staring at the whorls in the wood before me as the video plays out over and over again behind my eyes.
Petar's my nephew. And while I'd like to think that those familial ties might earn me a little loyalty, it looks like he's not going to play by those rules.
But if he thinks he stands a damn chance against me, he's got another thing coming.
And by the time I’m done with him, he's going to wish that he’d just sat his ass down and accepted his sentence instead of dragging me into it.