Chapter 41 Dimitri
DIMITRI
The alcohol flowed at dinner, loosening the tongues of the Serbians, Vlad and Dragan—two idiots who were trying to make their mark in black market art sales.
Their syndicate was small and lacked the highly trained soldiers we’d need in a fight, but their whisper network and client list could prove useful in our efforts to track down the enemy.
At least, that’s what I told myself to keep from shooting them both as they ordered another round of shots for the table. Every minute I sat here was time I could be spending with my wife.
I pretended to throw back my shot of vodka, tossing it into the plant beside me. Vlad and Dragan were too drunk to notice.
I set the glass down on the table. “Do we have an agreement?”
“Yes, Pakhan,” Dragan slurred. “It is an honor to work with you.”
Dark patches of sweat stained his gray suit. I withheld my look of disdain as I shook their hands. They had agreed to give us unrestricted access to their client list if we allowed them to host an art auction at Mayhem.
“Good.” I signaled our server—a blonde woman in a tight red dress and heels, who had been collecting heated stares all night from seemingly every man in here besides me.
There was only one woman who had ever held my interest. “Gentlemen, I must leave, but you are welcome to continue eating and drinking. On me.”
Their eyes brightened like kids in a candy shop. Fuck, this was too easy. In the next few months, Aleksei would ensure we gained full control over their operation.
When the server returned, her fingers trembled and her words came out in a stutter. “Mr. Ivanov, sir, your credit card—” She looked around before leaning in closer, face pale. “It declined.”
Something cold and icy gripped my chest.
Vlad looked across the table. “Is there a problem?”
“Not at all.” I took back my card and handed her a second one. I jerked my head at Maxim. “Follow her,” I said in Russian.
I sat back in my chair, the picture of ease as my mind raced. There was no reason for my card to decline.
Maxim returned a few minutes later. “Taken care of.” The tightness around his eyes told me there was much more to the story.
Sergey and Maxim flanked me as we left the Serbians at the restaurant. Konstantin had pulled the car around. No one spoke until we got in.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The second card declined, too,” Maxim said. “I paid with mine.”
Molten anger shot through my veins. Was this his way of taunting me? Reminding me that I wasn’t in control?
“Tell Aleksei to meet us at the office now,” I said through gritted teeth. “And notify the guards at the house to be on full alert.”
Sergey took a right turn instead of the left that would take us to the house. I resisted the urge to open my banking accounts on my phone. I needed to wait until I was on a secure server.
Aleksei was already setting up in the office when we stormed inside.
“I’m pulling up your accounts now,” he said.
I leaned my hands on the table as my accounts loaded on the screen.
“All of your credit cards have been frozen, which is why they were denied at the restaurant,” Aleksei said, brow furrowed.
“I don’t understand why, since none of them have any fraudulent charges that would have caused the bank to freeze them.
” He paused his scrolling and clicked on a different account.
“This one credit card is still active—the one you gave Sienna. It has over a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of new charges just today. ”
My pounding heartbeat echoed in my ears as I skimmed over her purchases. They were spread across two furniture stores, a clothing store, a baby store, and a place called Windy City Neon.
“Glad someone enjoyed some shopping today,” I muttered.
“Unfreezing the credit cards is an easy fix, but I wouldn’t recommend that until we understand how this person got access. In the meantime, I’ll create a new account with new cards. The more concerning thing is your bank accounts.” Aleksei flipped to a new screen.
I scanned the totals. “Those seem accurate.”
“They are. It’s the exact amount of money that was in these accounts this morning. But if we dig deeper, we can see that this afternoon all of your money was moved out of these accounts before being moved back an hour later.”
Fury built in my chest, sticky and dark. “How did this happen? My accounts were supposed to be impenetrable.”
Aleksei didn’t meet my eye. “They were. They are. I don’t understand it. For someone to hack into your accounts, they either have to be one of the best hackers in the world or they have inside access.”
“But why would they remove the money just to put it back?” Sergey asked.
“Shit,” Aleksei said. “There’s a note attached to each transfer that says courtesy of Mary Margaret.”
What the fuck? That didn’t sound like something he would say, but who else would do something like this? Although…the name did sound familiar.
“Holy shit,” I bit out. “Mary Margaret is the name of Sienna’s character in that fucking game she plays.” My mind whirled as I tried to piece together what was happening.
“Does that mean Sienna had something to do with this?” Aleksei’s tone was drenched with incredulity.
Maxim rubbed the back of his neck. “Uhh, so, I have no idea if this is related, but last night, Sienna found out about the staff speaking English.”
I whirled to face my second-in-command. “What?”
“She joined the staff’s poker game. I wasn’t there, but apparently she tricked them into revealing they all speak English. She was upset when she realized you must have told them to do it, and I might have suggested she should play a prank on you for revenge.”
The fury burning through me turned icy cold and acidic. “You told her to get revenge on your Pakhan?”
“I thought she would do something silly like when she pranked Sergey with the plastic knife blades or replaced all of my shoes with slippers. I’m probably wrong, anyway, and this isn’t at all related.”
There were no such things as coincidences. “She found this out last night?”
Maxim lifted his chin.
Right. So earlier today in the kitchen, she had known Polina, Sveta, and Vasya would understand what she was saying.
If I had any sense of humor remaining, I might have thought that was funny.
But was that the extent of her prank? Or did she enact more revenge by hiring someone to hack into my bank accounts?
“There’s no evidence she had anything to do with the bank issue,” Sergey said.
“Except that her credit card was the only one that’s not frozen,” Aleksei said. “And the game character reference.”
“She could have hired someone to do it,” I said.
If she had done this, it went beyond a prank—it was treason against the Pakhan.
Hiring someone to make their way through multiple levels of security just to fuck with me?
Now an unknown individual had access to my accounts, leaving me vulnerable. Leaving the entire Bratva vulnerable.
“Do a complete overhaul of our security system and online encryption. Whoever she hired to do this could regain access at any time,” I barked.
Aleksei scrubbed his hand down his face. “This doesn’t make sense. There are very few hackers in the world that would attempt something like this, let alone succeed. How did she pay them?”
“There are those charges on her credit card,” Sergey said.
“Yeah, but only a hundred thousand, and it was mostly clothes and shit for the house. Even if she gave them the full hundred thousand, no hacker this skilled would even consider taking a job for that little money,” Aleksei said.
“So, she didn’t do it,” Maxim said.
“Or she could be paying them another way,” Sergey said.
I was out of my seat, my hand around his throat before I realized what I was doing. “Are you calling my wife a whore?” My voice was bitter cold and fear flickered in his eyes.
“No, Pakhan. Never.”
“Then what were you suggesting?”
He swallowed hard. “That she might be paying someone with information.”
I released my hold on him and took a step back. Nausea churned in my stomach. Was she passing information to her brother? Or someone else?
“You’ve been monitoring her internet and phone activity, right?” I asked Aleksei.
He nodded. “Yes, Pakhan. But I can’t find any suspicious messages or internet activity. She mostly just plays that CozyScape game. I will keep looking.”
“Tell me what you find. I’m going home.” We could theorize all night, but the only person who could confirm what happened was my wife.
The car was silent on the drive home, and we pulled up to the dark house just after midnight. A hand landed on my shoulder and my body tensed for a fight.
“I know this seems bad,” Maxim said, “but we don’t know she had anything to do with it. You haven’t slept in forty-eight hours. Don’t do anything drastic.”
I shrugged off his touch and stormed inside. With every step I took, I re-built the walls around my heart and mind. After years of reinforcing the layers of protection, my siren had knocked them down in only a few weeks.
This was the wake-up call I needed.
My muscles were so tight they were on the verge of snapping and a sharp pain radiated from my clenched jaw.
I went to my bedroom first in case she was waiting there for me, but what I actually found was more bizarre than anything I could have imagined.
A massive neon sign was mounted above my bed, emanating a light so bright I had to squint through the darkness.
Small Dick Energy.
That’s what it fucking said–Small Dick Energy–with a curly arrow pointing down at the bed.
My vision was a haze of red as I stormed down the hall and slammed open the door to Sienna’s room. She let out a screech and jumped out of bed, pillow in hand, ready to fend off an attack.
“Oh my god.” She collapsed back onto the mattress. Her breasts heaved in the lacy blue nightgown she was wearing. It brushed the top of her thighs, leaving her legs bare. “Give me a warning next time so you don’t give me a heart attack.”
I shut the door behind me and crossed my arms, fixing her with a blank stare.
A smile pulled at her lips and she settled in her pile of pillows and blankets. “How’s your evening been?”
“Who did you hire?” My words felt like shards of glass in my throat.
Sienna’s smile widened. “Hmm? Oh, for the neon sign?” She batted her eyelashes. “Amazing, isn’t it? I got it from a small local shop. The rush fee was high, but they were amazing to work with.”
Anger flared, and I lost all control. “No. Who did you hire to hack into my accounts!?” I screamed.
In the back of my mind, I registered Sienna’s startled expression as she clutched her blanket, but I could no longer coddle her emotions.
Her presence had lulled me into a false sense of security, a fantasy where we could really be together.
That was over now.
She held her hands up carefully in front of her. “Listen, I was mad about you telling the staff not to speak to me in English, so I thought the credit card thing would be a funny prank, but I—”
“It’s funny to hire someone to hack into my bank accounts? To threaten the security of the entire Bratva and make me look like a fool? You have some twisted sense of humor.”
A flash of anger behind her eyes. “I didn’t jeopardize your security. If you—”
I slashed my hand through the air, and she flinched back.
Rage soaked into every cell in my body. “You’ve spent your entire life being surrounded by panting sycophants who treat you like a princess when all you are is a spoiled rich girl who wastes her days playing a stupid video game so she can escape her pathetic life where no one wants her around. ”
The color drained from her face. I needed to stop, to walk away, but childhood memories flooded over me like corrosive tar. Everyone you know will betray you. The only person you can trust is yourself. Love is weakness.
“You walk around acting like fucking sunshine when the truth is that everyone around you is paid to be nice to you. I’ve never known such a spoiled, air-headed, naive girl.”
“Well, it’s lucky, then, that you don’t have to have me around much longer.” Her eyes flashed with anger.
All it did was add fuel to my flames.
“It is lucky. The second this baby is out of you, you will be moved into a new residence.” Her lips parted, but before she could get out whatever sharp barb was on the tip of her tongue, I forged ahead.
“Your behavior in these next few months determines what happens next. If you step out of line again, my heir will come home with me while you leave the hospital with empty arms.”
She inhaled sharply, her hands cradling her belly. “You can’t do that.” Her jaw was set, but her voice wavered.
I leaned over the bed, one hand resting on the mattress and the other grabbing her jaw. “I can do anything. I am the Pakhan.” My voice was harsh and low, like whispered venom. “This is my territory. Everything here belongs to me, including your fucking womb. Do you understand?”
Instead of snapping back with an angry retort, Sienna’s lip trembled. The fight went out of her, leaving only my ugly words to linger in the air between us.
“I understand.” She averted her gaze. “I won’t cause any more trouble, I promise. Just please don’t…don’t take my baby away.”
My heart squeezed so hard in my chest I had to stop myself from rubbing my sternum.
Maxim’s words floated back to me as nausea churned in my stomach.
I was too exhausted to think straight. I would never separate her from her child, but it was better that she believed I would.
This way, I could keep her under control.
“Good.” I released her and took a step back. “Did your brother have anything to do with this?”
Her eyes widened. “No. Not at all.”
“Because if he did, if he helped you hack into my accounts, this alliance is over.”
“He didn’t. I promise.”
I needed to stay, to force her to give me the details of who she’d hired and how they got into our accounts, but my legs were already carrying me out of her room, down the hall, and into my bathroom.
I crashed to my knees and threw up the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I didn’t know how long I stayed there, but when I finally pulled myself to my feet, I was confronted with my reflection.
A haunted man stared back at me, his pale skin contrasting with the dark shadows under his bloodshot eyes.
Eyes that looked like my father’s.