15. Maksim
MAKSIM
“Maksim?”
I frowned, ignoring the sound of the man’s voice on my phone. He was looking into whether a leak happened from the seller’s side. But nothing he said could rip me away from the surprised expression on Carina’s face.
She’d done well.
Diving to safety. Not fighting me about driving. And not taking offense when Dean automatically assumed any security threat had to have come from her. The entire Bratva was taking their time to get used to Carina and see her less as a mole or spy and more as my wife and our newest strategist.
I’d been on task, calling this incident in and trying to figure out who could have thought it was a good idea to sneak up with a drive-by like that. My focus wasn’t on her while she drove, but on solving this problem.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t watching as she got out of the car. Or how fucking gorgeous she was as she walked across the drive toward the house, her hips swaying and her ass so tempting in those tight pants.
I’d noticed how she stopped and glanced at her phone. Then how still she went until she spun and sought me out. Phone in hand, lips slightly parted, and an awareness in her dark eyes, she looked like she’d landed on something. Something intriguing and worth investigating.
“I’ll call you back.” I hung up on the man, uncaring what sentence I was cutting him off from finishing. Instead, I got out of the car and approached her.
“Look.”
No hesitation. No doubt. She thrust her phone up into the air and showed it to me.
She never needed to. The day she’d arrived, I’d instructed my security team to track anything that came or went from her phone.
With the hidden layers of that firewall, I bet she didn’t know I was watching for any sign of her sharing or getting intel.
But she didn’t care—not if she was fully and willingly handing over her device like this.
I read it quickly, but she urged me to follow her into the house as I read. Maybe she was more rattled than she wanted to show after that shooting. I wouldn’t fault her for not wanting to stand around outside, even though my property was secure.
Unknown: I need to let you know that he’s rerouting business to a third party.
Unknown: A contractor who controls him with blackmail and blood.
Unknown: And he’s going to ruin all that your father worked to build. E-
I reread three more times.
“Someone from the Cartel,” I surmised.
She nodded, entering through the front with me. “Yes.”
I didn’t need her to explain that. It was obvious with the part about someone ruining what her father had built. Miguel Garcia had made the Garcia Cartel into the powerhouse it was. Or had been? “He’s saying that Arturo is?—”
“Ruining it,” she insisted. “He’s bound to ruin the Cartel.”
I faced her, caught off guard with how vehemently she said it.
In the month and a half that she’d been here, she never spoke about her brother.
Her father, yes. The memories of her father were prominent, especially when she explained where she’d learned something about a smuggling avenue or what kind of tricks worked best at the border.
Even her mother came up. She’d told me that her mother was the one who first taught her how to hold a gun and then shoot.
But never her brother.
She sat through an initial questioning about that ill-fated shipment.
Within the first week of being my wife, Adrik and Viktor and I sat her down and asked her to verify what happened that day.
She’d been upfront, even adding to our suspicion that Arturo had the intention to perhaps let our trade agreement fade and fall apart—much to her dismay.
Other than that, she did not bring up her brother.
It made my worries grow. Like she didn’t talk about him because she was hoping to talk to him.
I didn’t know when I’d stop stressing about the chance she could be a spy or a mole when I had no proof that she was.
She wasn’t contacting anyone from the Cartel.
She wasn’t meeting up with her brother or any liaison.
And she wasn’t probing for intel that Arturo Garcia might already know.
All she did was act as a quality check for our smuggling operations, and she’d provided vast insight so far.
Her letting me see these texts was another mark on the trustworthy column.
“Arturo is going to ruin the Cartel?” I checked.
She shook her head, more emotional and peeved than she’d let me see her like before. No more ice princess. She was distraught. “He’s impulsive and so prone to acting without thinking. Without me there right now?—”
I stopped her in the middle of the room. “Right now?” Where the fuck did she get off thinking she was going to leave me or get out of this marriage? I saw how she missed her home. I picked up on the way she likely wanted to be back where she’d come from. But that was bullshit.
Not happening.
“He’s going to ruin it.” She furrowed her brow and gestured at her phone. “Or he already is.”
Letting her pace, I reread the messages again. Lev and Viktor were already on their way here since I’d reported that drive-by attempt. They’d be fully invested in this development too.
“Who sent these?” I asked, needing to focus on one fire at a time. Finding out who’d ordered that drive-by or whether it was a fluke would have to wait. I could direct my attention to these texts now.
“Enrique,” she answered without missing a beat. “He’s a runner who’s been there forever. My father personally recruited him.”
And he might be more loyal to the memory of Miguel than Arturo’s leadership.
“If he’s shopping around and trying to work on having a new partner in business…” She stopped and hung her head as she exhaled roughly. “He’s going to trust the wrong person. I just know it.”
Here, we had a common interest. She still cared about her Cartel and didn’t want to see it ruined by her brother linking with a bad player. And I cared about my Bratva and refused to witness any threats against it.
“What third-party contractor is he talking about?”
She shrugged, scowling as she eyed her phone in my hand. “I can ask.”
She wasn’t asking me if she could reply to Enrique.
She was suggesting it. Tossing it out there.
But bringing this matter to me showed how she wasn’t hiding anything.
I couldn’t assume she was only looking out for her Cartel, not the Bratva, but she wasn’t doing anything to indicate that she didn’t care about how this impacted us.
I held the device out to her and raised my brows.
My brothers and cousin arrived. Adrik had come along with Lev and Viktor, and I didn’t wait to explain what was going on. They’d come with the mindset of investigating that drive-by, but I was hooked on what Carina was doing instead.
She sat, letting her long, brown hair tumble down and cascade her face. The glossy waves framed her face twisted in concentration as she stared at her phone.
“He’s not replying yet, but my text was sent.” Carina showed us her phone screen with her response of asking who Arturo was being influenced by. Biting her lip, she stayed tense while we all stood. Adrik paced. Viktor moved off to the side to take a call.
“A third-party influence can only mean one fucking thing,” Adrik growled.
“What?” Carina watched him. “What can it mean?”
I shared a look with my brother, debating whether we could trust her with our current woes. The very one who had convinced me to accept the marriage arrangement Arturo had offered.
Before Adrik could reply, Carina glanced down at her phone. She cursed and set it on the coffee table.
“The text wasn’t delivered. He probably disabled the phone.
” Slumping back, she covered her face with her hands and rubbed it as she groaned.
Looking at me again, she shook her head.
“He won’t be able to risk talking to me more than that.
If Arturo suspected someone was turning traitor and spilling intel to me when I’m not there anymore…
” She narrowed her eyes, scowling with more fury.
“Fuck that. He’s turning traitor to the legacy our father created if he’s going to be so stupid, so rash, and so gullible to work with someone else who could dismantle our operations… ” A low growl followed her rant.
I sat on the coffee table, facing her. “You don’t know who this third-party could be?”
She shook her head once more and watched Adrik pacing.
“No. I suspected he was listening to someone trying to get in his favor, but he never told me anything. He never let me in on any conversations. My brother could be very secretive.” She flung a hand at Adrik.
“Leaders must have confidentiality. I saw that with how my father ruled. But Arturo…” Once more, her face contorted with anger.
As quickly as it showed, she masked it with a focused frown.
“I don’t know who this third-party contractor could be. But you have ideas.”
She was turning this on us, and I supposed there wasn’t any need to hide our biggest dilemma from us.
I turned and caught Adrik’s attention. He nodded once but didn’t speak. It was as much as I’d get in the way of approval.
Before I could explain, though, Viktor stepped back in. “It was the seller. I just got confirmation from Dean.”
I glanced at my phone that I’d set aside to give Carina and those texts all my attention. It had been buzzing, but it could wait. He must have been trying to contact me.
“The seller had a leak. Some recruits got it in their heads that they could try to reclaim those chips we bought.” He smirked. “Dean had someone look into it and they fessed up.”
I was reassured that the drive-by at the handoff wasn’t anything more complicated than that and I didn’t need to spend any more energy on solving that problem. Dean would know to go after the perps and kill them without my order.
One problem of the day done with…
Now, I faced Carina and began to explain why and how we were already worried about an outside influence that would compromise our trade agreement with the Garcia Cartel.
“Several months ago, when one of our accounts was mismanaged, we discovered that our banker was associated with shell companies. They were unclaimed and hard to identify ownership for, but once we did, we discovered a shadow network that had been formed, recently or perhaps years ago. Through further financial tracking, the money trails seem to indicate that this network had been formed with the intention of striking out at our assets and endangering our empire.”
She didn’t gasp. No reaction of alarm. This wouldn’t shock her since she was fully immersed in how things worked in our world.
Thank fuck I don’t have to water this down and explain it all like she’s clueless.
“Who’s behind this new network?”
I appreciated that even more, how sharp she was to connect the dots and zero in on the questions that mattered the most.
“Gregori Volkov,” Lev replied with a bitterness none of us could match. He loathed his father the most, hating him with unmasked rage for what he’d done to all of us.
Now Carina reacted. She blinked once, a single show of surprise. “Gregori Volkov? Your father’s brother?”
“Also the murderer of our grandparents when he bombed?—”
Carina cut off Viktor’s remark. “When he bombed a gathering of leaders. One of my father’s good friends had been killed in that bombing.” She sat up, alert. “Gregori is alive?”
“It appears that he has faked his death,” I said, hating that this could be true. “He’s been spotted, and Elena has been following where he’s spread his money and has hidden it to compile a new conglomeration of alliances. All that excludes us.”
“Elena?” She raised her brows. “She’s looking into this?”
Adrik stopped pacing and glared at her. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“I’m surprised. She’s so quiet and… mild-mannered. I wouldn’t think that she had it in her to be the mastermind behind unearthing all this.”
Adrik didn’t push. He huffed once. “Consider it a reminder that people aren’t always what they seem.”
I didn’t need that reminder myself. I saw each and every day how Carina was less of the spy or unfeeling ice princess I first thought she was. With her willingness in this meeting, I realized how she could be shifting her loyalty from the Cartel to the Bratva.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this third party Enrique is tipping me off to is your uncle.” She clasped her hands and studied them. “If Gregori is trying to find ways to interfere with the Bratva’s empire, then the trade agreement struck between Dmitri and my father is one way to do it.”
“Arturo never mentioned him specifically?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “No.”
“You never had a chance to find any correspondence between them?” Lev asked.
“No.” She rolled her shoulders. “I was in the field or the control room. I was checking routes and following up on shipments, the brains behind the operations. Insisting on checking who he was talking to, though?” She let out a huff. “He was too protective of looking like the leader.”
“We suspected that Arturo was fucking with us,” I admitted. “When that shipment ended up with the Hernandez.”
She cringed. “And they’d be another way to come at you too.
Everyone knows and respects the trade agreement my father had with yours.
Or they used to. Now he’s screwing it up and trying to rely on trade with the Hernandez Cartel?
” She shot to her feet and paced, exhibiting the same energy Adrik had.
“We need to get your informant,” Viktor said. “Find him and bring him in to get him to confirm that Arturo’s been trying to work with Gregori.”
“No.” Carina shook her head and stopped. She hugged herself while jutting out one hip. “We conduct a controlled sting. Arrange a handoff of a supposed surplus that you suspect my brother is holding on to.”
I frowned. “What suspected surplus? Of arms?”
“It’s not a suspected surplus when I’m telling you he has an extra cargo unit of guns from Colombia. Imply that you had word about this surplus and you’d like to purchase it. Test my brother. See if he’ll let you buy them instead of letting the Hernandezes or anyone else get their hands on it.”
“Test his loyalty?” Adrik asked.
She nodded. “Yes. Why not? It would end this speculation and show whether he’s interested in maintaining an agreement with the Bratva or anyone else.”
It wasn’t a bad idea. In fact, it held a lot of merit. “We weren’t supposed to have another shipment from Arturo for a while,” I said. “But I’m not opposed to it.”
Adrik nodded, as if cementing it as a plan. He regarded Carina not as a threat, but as a tool to hone and sharpen. “I’m all for it.”
Carina exhaled a long breath. As if she were exhausted from worrying about where she’d come from and how her future would pan out here.
So long as she stayed loyal to me, to the Bratva, I would be hard-pressed not to admit that my marriage—an arrangement that Arturo had tossed out as a fickle show of mercy and good faith—just might be the pivot that could help us in this battle against Gregori.