Chapter Ten
Konstantin’s POV
“Loans aren’t my thing. Not to people like you, especially,” I answered, relaxing into the leather chair.
“Uh, I don’t understand, Mr. Konstantin,” Mr. Javen said, his frown emphasizing his confusion.
“You’re not a hard guy, you’re the soft kind. The type that goes on about how wicked the interest rates are, that starts pleading for mercy in the name of this and that when repayment time comes,” I explained. “I don’t speak that language.”
“I understand. And you’re right. But,” he shifted closer to my desk, shaking his head as his voice went lower, “I’m desperate.”
“Exactly why I shouldn’t lend to you, don’t you think? You're desperate now and will do anything to get the money you need. But repayment time is another story; one you’ve not thought about yet.”
“I’ve thought about it. I swear, I have!” he rushed. “I know your interest rates aren’t the lowest, but you’re my last hope. So I came here ready. I've thought about it and decided to give it a go.”
“You know what my interest rates are like?”
“I do, Mr. Konstantin,” he answered. “I know they range from 60% to 100%.”
“And you’re ready for that? What do you need the money for?”
“I ran into a blackmail web. Actually, my wife and I. We poured every penny into the payment they requested. The business account was on red, and we used our houses as collateral for bank loans. Not until one of the blackmailer’s other victims set him up and eventually sent him to prison did we become free from him.
Now, we have nothing to start again with.
My company will be declared bankrupt, and I’ll lose everything if I don’t inject money back into it. ”
I was right. Mr. Javen might be a hard drugs seller on the side, but he wouldn’t ask for a loan if it were something he could get out of.
“How much are we looking at?”
“$400,000,” he said, his face grave.
“Hmm.” I nodded, sitting more upright and placing my elbows on the desk. “So, you inject it into your business and get back on your feet. How long would that take?”
“A year and a half. That’s the longest time possible.”
“18 months. What would your collateral be, then?”
“My company buildings, both of them,” he answered, unfolding some papers and moving them towards me. “Their documents and current valuations. We didn’t use them as collateral for any loan. We couldn’t afford word getting out that it was at risk of being claimed by any creditor.”
“I always go for something more liquid. Not buildings.” I looked through the documents. “$180,000… and $500,000. Both are located in Vladivostok.”
I sighed, looking up from the papers. He had an expectant and uncertain expression on his face.
“Well, you’ll get the loan.”
“Oh! Thank you so much, Mr. Konstantin! I can’t believe I got it!” he rushed.
“In 18 months, you’ll be paying $600,000,” I notified.
“Six…that’s 50%!” he exclaimed, his eyes enlarging. “Thank you!”
“It’s 50%, not because you’re my client or because you lost everything. It’s for myself, so you’ll have no excuse if you default. There will be no limits, then.”
“I won’t disappoint you, I promise.”
“No need to promise,” I dismissed, shrugging. “I hope you realize it’s a one-time repayment?”
“Yes,” he answered, nodding fervently.
“You should also know that, aside from your listed collateral, my men will record all you have—living and non-living. Should you default on the loan, we’ll remind you by using any of them.”
“It won’t get to that,” he remarked.
“I hope so. Because if it does, you’d wish we never went beyond you buying stuff from me.”
“I’ll pay up even before then,” he promised.
“My men will give you the necessary steps to follow,” I said, gesturing towards the door of the office.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Konstantin,” he gushed, rising to his feet. “God bless you. God bless your family!”
“Hm-mm,” I muttered, nodding as he opened the door and left.
My family?
Well, that now included my wife. The wife I’d buried myself in work to avoid thinking about.
Since last night when we talked in the library, I hadn't laid my eyes on her. I knew she would either be in her room or the library, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be around her or avoid her.
The brief conversation in the library had felt so different and made me feel almost normal—and that was the main cause of my internal conflict.
Maybe it was also why I'd found my way into my office since dawn. To avoid running into her.
Someone knocked on my door, and I called out, “Come in.”
Sergie, Devlin, and Matvey entered the office. That only meant one thing: important intel.
After the greetings, and Devlin stood beside the two chairs Sergei and Matvey took, they went straight to business. They knew better than playing around with pleasantries and waiting for me to ask. After all, they were my main men who had soldiers under them.
“Boss, Vitya Morozov’s network is crumbling,” Killian proclaimed.
“Yes, boss. His guys are beginning to pull out, although one or two are joining in. His detention has made things uncertain for them,” Sergei went on.
“That’s quite predictable,” I commented.
“It is, boss. But there’s another unwanted development. Someone is feeding intel to the Feds,” Matvey divulged.
“And this someone…you don’t know who they are?”
“Not yet, boss. The information wasn’t communicated digitally or even recorded. We only got to know there was someone else by following their movements. Whoever it is, they are using people to keep themselves out of the picture,” Matvey explained.
“Nothing ties back to them, yet,” Sergei remarked.
I nodded.
“Since the bastard has opened things up, one or two guys might just want to run their mouths,” he added.
My phone vibrated on the table.
It was Viktor.
“You can leave,” I told them.
“Okay, boss.”
“Yes, boss.”
As they swiftly moved out of the room, I picked up the call.
“Konstantin, I hope you have results to share with me. Has she spoken yet?”
“Not yet, brother. She still claims not to know anything. That she had ended things with him since before his arrest,” I explained.
“That’s not the information we need, you know that.”
Of course, I knew. I also knew that I could only keep the truth from my brother for so long. I couldn’t tell him about my plan if he didn’t know what step I’d taken.
“I married her, brother,” I said. “Yesterday.”
There was silence on the other side.
Then he spoke. “Familiarize me with your thought process.”
I swallowed before explaining. “Marrying her is the only way to keep her close and watch her until I find out the truth. Other factions will be on the lookout for her once they find out who she was to Vitya Morozov. Putting her under Bratva protection keeps her off limits to them—if we can’t get any information from her, neither can they. ”
“Get yourself to New York at once,” he commanded. “And bring her with you. She’s wanted in Russia.”
“Okay,” I agreed before he ended the call.
I pulled out Alina’s file again, going through each record to see if any tiny detail could point to something. I read about her family tragedy, orphanage admission, clinic recommendations, and charity work. Her records were spotless. She didn’t fit the profile of a traitor.
But we can’t afford another leak.
I have to confront her one more time.
So I stood up and left my office with another reason to see her.
I found her sitting at the vanity, brushing her hair. She was in a simple white nightgown. It was an ordinary scene, but not one I saw often.
Seeing her hair pour down her back wasn’t just beautiful; it evoked a feeling of tenderness in me.
She seemed to hesitate before looking up at me, and I blurted out, “I’ve never seen your hair down before.”
A curious look took over her face as she turned to the side, her body facing me.
“You didn’t come to talk about my hair, did you?”
Folding my arms, I leaned against the wall. “Alina, you have to tell me whatever it is you’re hiding. Whatever information Vitya shared with you. Our marriage should be enough proof to you—there’s no escape if you don’t tell me what you know.”
“I already told you. I don’t know anything. Aside from his annoyingly obsessive texts, Vitya and I haven’t been in contact for months. He didn’t tell me anything,” she answered, a hint of anger in her voice.
“The thing is—” I started before the door opened.
“Sir!” Ruslan rushed. “Good evening, sir!”
He looked from me to Alina and then lifted the tray in his hand. “I brought her dinner.”
I gestured towards the stool by the vanity.
“Thank you,” she told him, her tone low.
There was a trace of humor in her expression as he answered, “Yeah. Later.”
When he stood to his full height again, and she wiggled her eyebrow at him, it confirmed my thought.
They were friends. Or were fast becoming that.
How do people become friends in a few days, by the way?
Moving briskly, he left the room.
She looked up at me again, wordlessly prompting me to go on.
“I don’t believe you’re innocent,” I stated, my voice flat. “But I don’t believe you're guilty, either.”
“That’s rather interesting,” she said.
“You're in the middle of a storm you don’t understand,” I declared, walking over to the stool she sat on.
She met my gaze in the mirror as she replied, “Then let me help you end it.”
I was surprised, but looking at the way her pupils dilated a fraction, she was, too. The words definitely came out before she could think better of it.
Recovering from her shock, she explained, “There are not many ways to end a storm. Just hand me over to the Russian authorities, then. Or you could kill me.”
“What—”
“Keeping me hostage won’t make me suddenly tell you what I don’t know. I can’t fabricate things in the name of having something to tell you. The authorities will probably not believe me, either. But it’s that or I’m dead. So, make up your mind.”
“I will do no such thing,” I fired back, my voice coming out a bit louder than intended. “And you’re not a hostage. We’re fucking married.”
“Yeah, the way normal people all over the world get married,” she lashed out, her brown eyes flashing angrily at mine through the mirror.
But anger wasn’t all there was in her eyes.
I could see fear, too. It felt like she was pulling me in with some invisible string, forcing me to feel, at least, a bit of what she felt.
It happened at the library and, before then, at the chapel adjoining room after the wedding.
And that effect was clearly the only explanation for my trying to find a way to calm her down.
I’m thinking of ways to stop upsetting someone I should be getting information from. What could be more insane?
“I'm not sending you to the Feds,” I told her, my voice calmer. “Not killing you, either.”
“As long as I cooperate, right?” she inquired, chuckling.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out.
“Alexei,” I said as I picked up the call. “Back home? Okay, then…you will.”
“You don’t have to be here. You definitely have men to order around, work to attend to,” she uttered, sarcasm clear in her voice.
“That wasn’t work. It was my cousin letting me know he’d arrived back at his place.”
“The man dissing me in Russian before the wedding.”
“He wasn’t —”
“Yeah, he was just saying he liked the music,” she interrupted. “Which there wasn’t.”
“He told me you’re beautiful,” I revealed. “He called you a looker. That was what he was telling me.”
She didn’t say anything at first, obviously taken aback.
“People don’t compliment people while looking at them so suspiciously,” she remarked.
“It’s the circumstances. Everyone is suspicious.”
“Tell me something new,” she uttered, looking away from the mirror.
I let out a huff of air, pulling myself out of the aggravated state she was pushing me into.
“Goodnight, Konstantin,” she remarked, sighing.
There was no venom in her tone as she called my name this time. And in a way I couldn’t explain, I liked it. Both her voice and expression were calm, like she was just tired. It made me decide to leave like she wanted.
“Goodnight, Alina.”
I left her room and went to my office.
“Boss,” Sergei called, stepping in just as I was about to shut the office door behind me.
“What?”
“We just caught someone trying to bribe one of the guards to slip her a phone.”
“Someone is trying to get to her,” I mused.
“Yes, boss,” he affirmed, nodding. “Trying to communicate something to her, maybe.”
The war I thought I was containing had followed me to the safe house.
“Get the plane ready. We leave for New York tomorrow,” I instructed.
“Yes, boss.”