11. Maksim
MAKSIM
Iwasn’t sure what to do with Carina after she dissected and analyzed the proposals for an alternative smuggling route. When I sat down for breakfast, I hadn’t counted on that.
After how I’d left her sluggish and sated, asleep in her bed, I faced the problem of how things would be between us going forward.
From icy antagonism and neither of us trusting each other to… fucking like wild with an uncontrollable thirst for more?
Talk about a one-eighty.
That wasn’t sustainable, hence my tension on what it would be like to face her the morning after.
However, with her blurting out her critique of the papers I had on the table, I hadn’t faced the rush to devise how we would live together or even what she should do here.
Thinking up an agenda for her was one more responsibility on my shoulders, one that I had no room or time for with all the changes that were happening with my father dying and the shipments of drugs and arms needing to be maintained.
I didn’t intend to babysit her, and I hadn’t considered dating her or really getting to know her.
The bond that Adrik and Elena had was the real thing.
Being arranged in marriage to this spitfire of a Cartel princess couldn’t result in that.
Yet, I realized my assumptions about my wife might have been wrong.
“Anything else?” she asked, raising her brows and tilting her head to the papers.
She’d been thorough, emotionless, and sharp with her comments. Like she really knew what she was speaking about. And it had thrown me off. Her offering to “help” even more, almost like she was talking down to me, threw me off even more.
“From you?” I asked, unafraid to let my tone imply that I was mocking her.
She smirked. “Fine. Then if there’s nothing else to waste my time on here”—she put her hands on the armrests of her chair to rise—“I’ll be going.”
The fuck you will.
I twisted in my chair to face her. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not far from here, at least. “You are?”
She nodded and set her hands on her hips.
The move emphasized the curves I’d appreciated last night as I pounded into her.
I bet bruises would show on her waist and ass where I’d grabbed her and held on so hard.
The stretchy fabric of her workout leggings and top concealed all that luscious skin from my sight, though.
Obviously, she planned to hit the gym. Again.
Jeremiah had reported that she’d spent a long time in my gym, on the treadmill and then with some weights.
I was on board with that—her being independent to think of something to do without waiting for an instruction, order, or suggestion from me and also her interest in keeping herself healthy and fit.
“I doubt you want me to tag along with you while you see to whatever is expected of you.”
No, I didn’t. I didn’t want her at my side every minute of the day.
I had to have a break from the temptation of bickering with her and getting that high of excitement.
And I really had to have a respite from wanting to take her against any surface and hear those sexy-as-hell moans of pleasure that she couldn’t prevent from slipping free.
Besides, she was nowhere close to earning my trust to be near the discussions about the family I’d have with my brother.
Her wording intrigued me, though. “Tag along?” I stood, shaking my head. “No one tags along in my life. Either you have a purpose.” I stepped up close to her and gave her a long, intense once-over. “Or you don’t.”
She licked her lips, as if she were arguing with herself about a comeback she wanted to give me. “Good to know.” Then she flounced out of the room.
Smiling to myself, I gathered the few papers and printouts and left to take this discovery to my brothers. Adrik had already asked us to meet today, so it wasn’t as though they wouldn’t be around to hear me out about this wife of mine and what she seemed to know.
All three of my brothers claimed seats in the big office that had once been my father’s. Adrik had taken the room as he began to officially take over, and little touches made it more of his office than my father’s.
Lev came in late, just minutes after me, and took another seat. Alexei paced in the background, never still or idle enough to sit for long.
Adrik began talking about the latest with the death of John Morovov. Elena’s father was dead and his financial firm was gone. In his wake, though, Elena was taking over copies of the program to ensure she could contribute to tracking the money trails of what was likely my uncle Gregori’s network.
As soon as that discussion was over, I took the opportunity to speak up about Carina. Dropping the papers and maps on his desk, I indicated for them to look if they wanted to. “This morning, Carina lectured me about why this alternative route wouldn’t work.”
Viktor rolled his eyes. “Sure. You should believe her.”
I shrugged. “I think I will.”
Alexei scoffed and Nikolai laughed out loud. “Fuck. She’s that good? One night and you’re that pussy whipped?”
I scowled at him, daring him to try another word on that path. I wasn’t pussy whipped. But I would be a moron if I couldn’t notice and respect when someone proved what they knew.
“She’s very informed about the smuggling routes at the border,” I replied.
Going into more detail, I relayed the conversation I’d had with her.
Almost verbatim, and using the same papers and maps to point out what she’d shown me and drawn, I shared this discovery about the hotheaded and ice-blooded woman I’d married yesterday.
It almost felt surreal. Mere days ago, I hadn’t known she existed. Now, she could be the tool I needed?
And want?
“She’s knowledgeable about it. All the ins and outs of it. Routes, obstacles, blocks, territorial lines, federal hideouts, all of it.” I looked at Adrik, finding him skeptical.
“She offered this to you?” he asked. “Out of the blue, she just laid this all in your lap this morning?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I had it all out because I was reviewing it. I, uh, I wasn’t really sure what the hell to say to her and she was just sitting there. She seemed bored and from what she saw, she spotted issues.”
“But why would she want to offer you any tricks or tips?” Lev asked. “She was just handed over as a sign of good faith. She can’t be undyingly loyal to you or the Bratva yet.”
Adrik nodded. “And there’s no good reason we shouldn’t be viewing Arturo’s offer of this marriage as anything but a trick yet.”
“She could be a mole,” Alexei said, voicing the same concerns that I’d shared with Viktor when he was with me at the Cartel compound.
“And she could be lying,” Nikolai said. “She clearly did something to you last night for you to get that.” He indicated the mark on my neck where she’d sucked on me too hard. “Maybe she’s thinking she’s lowered your guard and she’s setting you up with shitty intel to trick you into a bad decision.”
Viktor shook his head. “No. Because if you look at the map, she has a good point. Several of them.”
I held my hands up to quiet them all. “It’s going to take me more than a fucking day to know if she’s here against us or reluctantly for us.
” Looking at Adrik directly, I aimed to be honest. “As far as I can tell, it’s still up for debate whether the ‘mistake’ with that weapons shipment was truly an error or if Arturo is trying to abandon us and our trade agreement to move on to a new power.
So yes, she could be here to deceive me or to spy on me.
Or she could be here because Arturo Garcia realized he’d screwed up.
” I stabbed my finger to the paper on his desk.
“But there’s no way she could have known I’d be looking at this information.
She couldn’t have rehearsed all that she explained.
I think she knows more than anyone has ever given her credit for. ”
Adrik sat back and sighed. “I recall Miguel Garcia mentioning her more than once. Mostly about how stubborn she was. But she would’ve only been a girl then.”
“Maybe he included her on some operations,” Lev guessed.
“Based on how confidently she corrected me about the flaws in this plan, she had to have been exposed to a lot of experiences.” I imagined a younger, tougher version of Carina.
“If she’s some expert strategist, why would Arturo ever want to arrange her in marriage and lose her?” Nikolai asked.
Good question. It seemed too early to know if his loss was my gain, though.
“He didn’t even care enough to come to the wedding,” Adrik said. “Or have any members of the Cartel there.”
“Yet, she’s aware of who is who. Not specifically,” I added. “She had to guess and assume. But she’s not a stranger to the families. She’s been informed—to some degree—but she’s still out of touch. She hadn’t been aware of Father’s decline.”
It was recent news, but Arturo had to have heard, which would imply that Carina could have too.
“What are you suggesting?” Adrik asked.
I bit back a smirk at that word. Redirecting Carina to see orders or instructions as suggestions would be my new favorite and secret joke.
“Are you saying we should trust her? To take her word about this sort of thing?” Alexei asked.
I nodded. “Not yet.” I’d given it thought on the ride here. “I intend to test this theory about her being more knowledgeable than even some of the men I supervise with the shipments and runs.”
“How?” Adrik asked, clearly nervous about taking a leap of faith to trust an outsider who’d entered our family in what seemed like sabotage.
I summarized the experimental scenario that had come to my mind. No one objected, and since I wasn’t revealing anything critical, it wasn’t as though I was giving away any confidential information or any dire secrets about our operations.
She’s got to be done working out by now.
As I drove back to my place, I imagined her sweaty and tired, stripping off her clothes. Peeling those tight garments off and stepping into the shower, the same one where I’d fucked her against the wall and sworn I’d black out from the intensity of how hard I’d come.
Shit.
You need to shut this down.
It was bad enough that I was deviating from all the other things that needed my attention. Running my wife on a test hadn’t been planned.
And imagining her naked—or otherwise—wasn’t a productive use of my time, either.
I headed upstairs and sought her out without asking Jeremiah for her whereabouts. After a couple of knocks on her bedroom door, I entered, finding her brushing her hair.
She raised her brows, surprised and annoyed.
“Come on.”
I didn’t give her a chance to play riddles with me, asking if I was ordering her around. To my delight, she didn’t protest. She didn’t ask what was going on, though, and I felt like she was deliberately keeping quiet just to piss me off. I saw the curiosity in her eyes.
Back in the car, I tried not to glance at her every two seconds. With her long hair down and flowing in the breeze with the window partly down and those sunglasses on her face shielding her eyes, she looked casual. Confident. Almost laidback.
But the regal arch of one eyebrow ruined that image.
“What’s going on?” she asked by the time I’d pulled onto the main highway from this area.
“Hypothetically, let’s say two vans were heading north up this route from Mexicali.”
She lowered her sunglasses and peered over them. I had her attention. “Carrying what?”
“Arms.”
“With serials or not?”
“Without.”
She nodded once.
Taking a sharp turn onto another route, I watched her not lose her cool.
“We need to get them to San Diego.”
She was listening.
“But there’s a block.” I described the fictional scenario of a road closure.
“And there are two agents who are tailing us.” I added on more feasible but made-up details of obstacles.
“The deadline for the handoff is in two hours but the site that the buyer has chosen is watched by rogue defectors of one of Colombia’s new gangs. ”
“Then you stop here, reroute down to Route 2D, and give up making it any further on Route 8.”
Just like that. She gave her reply without hesitation.
“What about a block at the border again?” I asked, driving just to cruise and have her out of the house where the temptation to fuck her would be too strong.
“Request a decoy caravan to go ahead and cause a diversion.” She shrugged. “Or have them go together with weights and swap the plates. Feds in Tecate are easily bought off.”
“And what about the block they’d hit on 94?” I asked.
She scoffed. “A block?” She shook her head. “If it’s something that happened before the run began, avoid it. Stick with 2D to the west. Pay off the pass at Tijuana.”
“What about the patrollers on 805?”
She shook her head. “Stay off 805.” Adding more to it, she laid out not one, not two, but three different routes that runners could use in a pinch. She even added the pros and cons to each option.
I listened to her, giving her the freedom and clearance to speak her mind, and as I headed back to the house, I had to wonder if that was Arturo’s actual mistake.
Never listening to his sister.
Not giving her a chance to express strategy like this.
All while she gave me another lecturing, yet concise, answer about what to do in these scenarios, I grew more curious about how she’d come to be this smart. This aware. It was like she memorized maps. She referred to routes and directions, not just using landmarks to convey a path.
I’d taken her out on this “test”, this bogus scenario as an example to see whether she could solve a problem on her feet, to determine if she could be a problem-solver like me.
I’d specifically asked her these questions with a deadline to determine how well she’d figure out something without any prep, any papers or maps.
And she had.
By the time we’d gotten back to the house after that cruise on the highway, she’d proven how adept she was at solving a problem.
Flawlessly.
Without hesitation.
I parked and faced her, studying the careful composure on her face.
“Did I ‘pass’?” she asked coolly.
Damn her.
Damn that attitude.
And damn me for wanting her more despite it.
She wasn’t afraid to call it what it was—a test.
Now it seemed like I would face one myself. A test to see if I could keep my wits around her with the realization that my gorgeous wife was far more than a mere Cartel princess. A woman with her kind of knowledge and background could be downright dangerous.
Or an ace we hadn’t known we needed.