Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Kazimir
“Anything?” My head shot up the moment I heard my office door open.
“Nothing new.” Nikolai shut the door behind him and dropped into the chair across from me. “No flights under her name. No hotel check-ins. Anna’s phone is off too, so wherever they went, they planned it together.”
“Keep looking.”
“Kazimir,” he said my name carefully, the way he did when he was about to say something I wasn’t going to want to hear.
“I’ve had four men on this since morning.
She resigned by email, turned her phone off, packed a bag.
That’s not a woman who got taken somewhere or got lost by mistake. That is a woman who ran.”
“I’m aware of what it looks like.”
“Are you? Because from where I stand, it looks like you’re tearing the whole of New York apart for a—how did you say it?—warm pussy.”
My eyes slashed to him. “Watch it.”
“I think you should be the one watching yourself. Have you considered this being for the best? Her exit is the best, least messy way to end things.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table.
“Genevieve is a great girl, but you and I both know how this ends if she stays, and maybe her running now, before things go further, is the mercy neither of you would’ve chosen. ”
“Find her first. I’ll decide what qualifies as mercy when I see her.”
Nikolai’s expression froze. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I held his gaze, making sure to infuse how serious I was into the next words I said. “It means, find Genevieve.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You can’t… Kaz, it’s a blood agreement.”
The door opened before I could answer him.
“You really should teach your security to announce visitors properly.” Svetlana walked in with a slim leather folder under one arm, her expression arranged into something that almost looked like sympathy but sat wrong on her face. “Though today, a little extra caution might have served you.”
“What are you doing here, Svetlana?”
“Is that any way to greet me?”
“Why are you here?” I repeated, my voice conveying every bit of irritation I felt.
Her lips curled into a sardonic smile and she let out a soft sigh.
“Because I heard your assistant resigned and you’re currently on a hunt.”
“Spit it out and get out before I drag you out myself.”
Her smile deepened. “So much energy for a warm pussy.”
My feet moved faster than my brain, but Nikolai stopped whatever was coming.
“If you have something to say, I suggest you say it before it gets ugly.”
She let out a loud gasp. “Why is he so agitated? Those were his words, not mine.”
“Svetlana.” Nikolai’s voice was a low rumble.
“I just find his actions a bit… intriguing.”
I forced myself to stay calm. Her words gave her out and I realized what this was. She had come to bait me and possibly assess the extent of Genevieve’s importance. It’s not every day I send out a search team.
“I am a man with many enemies; a missing assistant is not something I should ignore knowing she is privy to sensitive information.”
“I understand,” she replied. “Which is why I’m here. I thought you should see something before you spend the next week tearing the city apart.”
She set the folder she carried in on my desk. “You’ll want to sit down for this one.”
“Quick question,” I said, lifting my eyes from the file to her. “How did you hear about Genevieve so quickly?”
“You’d be surprised how fast news travels when it involves you.” She opened the folder before I could push further. “But that’s not the important part. This is.”
I looked at the file, and on the front page was a bank statement. An account under Genevieve’s maiden name.
“Genevieve has a hidden bank account.” Nikolai faked a shiver. “Shocking.”
I tuned out of their squabble, focusing on the name at the bottom of the ledger that made the room tilt slightly.
Volkov.
“Three deposits,” Svetlana’s voice echoed over my head. “Each one made within days of a meeting she happened to be present for. Meetings where sensitive information was discussed.”
“This is fabricated.”
“Is it?” A photograph slid across the desk. Genevieve outside a café, head bent close to a man I didn’t recognize. “An associate of Volkov. Taken six weeks ago, about the time you traveled to Russia.”
“Coincidence.” My voice sounded distant even to me.
For someone who operated on facts and not sentiment, it was shocking how badly I wanted for this to be a lie.
“Her brother’s debts.” Another document. “You believe you cleared them. You didn’t. They were paid a week before you stepped in, same account.”
“The men only left her there because she was bringing in money, and when you arrived, they didn’t have the balls to tell you someone already paid and they held her.”
She continued talking while Nikolai joined me to examine the documents.
“I guess they wanted to get her out of the situation and back to work. Maybe she wasn’t bringing in much information as a receptionist, and her brother’s involvement was all part of the plan and her brief work as a waitress was another scheme, but they realized it was dangerous and attempted to bring her back to work, but a miracle happened and you stepped in. ”
Something went very quiet and very cold in my chest. I thought of every late night in this office, every file I’d left open on my desk while she sat across from me, every unguarded word I’d let slip because I’d stopped being careful the moment I started wanting her there.
“Kazimir.” Nikolai’s voice was low beside me.
I ignored him, checking the dates and bank stamps. Every deposit lined up with a meeting. Every leak I’d spent three months explaining away lined up with a room she’d been standing in.
My fingers curled into fists, flame erupting in my chest and pouring into my veins, but it wasn’t the heat that caused the bloodlust that took over me.
It was the silent emotion I’d never felt before. A cold, clammy sensation on my skin that almost fucked with my head and made my skin crawl.
Humiliation was a raw, foreign feeling, one I’d never met before but was suddenly introduced to.
I’d been played. It wasn’t just that; it was that Svetlana was sitting across from me right now, watching me realize it in real time, watching the man who ran half this city get outmaneuvered by an assistant with a sad story and a good smile.
She would remember this. Her family would hear about it by tonight, dressed up however she chose to dress it. Weak. Careless. A Pakhan who couldn’t tell a plant from a woman he actually wanted.
“This changes things,” Svetlana said quietly, and there was something almost satisfied underneath the concern in her voice, like she’d been waiting for this exact expression on my face.
“My publicity team thinks we should move the wedding forward, and put out our own account before Volkov’s people spin their own version.
That she was removed for cause. It protects you. ”
“It protects you,” I said, and my voice came out flat and low in a way that made her sit back slightly.
I might’ve let my guard down and let Genevieve slide, but I was no fool and I would not let anyone goad me into making emotional decisions.
“You’ve wanted her gone since the day you found out she existed. ”
“I wanted you protected. This just happens to serve both.”
I didn’t answer that. I was still staring at the photograph, at Genevieve’s face turned toward a stranger’s, and something in me that had spent months making excuses for her finally snapped clean in half.
“Get me everything on Volkov’s movement over the last six months,” I said. “Every meeting, every leak, every deal that fell through that shouldn’t have. I want to know exactly what she gave them and exactly who else touched it.”
“Kazimir.” Nikolai’s brow furrowed. “You’re moving fast.”
“I’ve moved slow enough. Slow got me a folder full of proof sitting on my desk and half my city about to hear I let an outsider walk information straight to Volkov while I let her sleep in my bed.”
“We don’t know for certain—”
“I know enough.” I stood, and the chair scraped back hard enough that Svetlana flinched.
“Kazimir, at least hear what she says before you—”
“I don’t need to hear anything from her. You said it yourself, she was just a warm pussy and this was probably for the best.” My voice was ice now, controlled in the way that had always frightened people more than shouting ever did. “I think it’s time she knew that too.”
Svetlana rose slowly, gathering her folder, something careful in her expression now, like even she hadn’t expected the temperature in the room to drop quite this far. “I only wanted you to see clearly.”
“You’ve seen what you wanted. Now leave.”
She left without another word. Nikolai stood there a moment longer, carefully watching me.
“Kazimir,” he said, his tone measured. “Whatever you’re planning, think it through. Emotions make men do stupid things.”
“I am not going to do anything stupid.” I was already pulling my coat on, already reaching for my phone. “I’m going to find her. And when I do, she is going to learn exactly what happens to people who use me and think they can disappear before I notice.”
“And if she’s not what Svetlana says she is?” Nikolai argued. “I know I said her exit was for the best, but this is Svetlana. You can’t possibly trust her.”
“Then when I find her, she can prove it to my face.” I was at the door before he finished the sentence. “Get every man we have looking. I want her found tonight, Nikolai. I don’t care what it costs.”
“And Volkov?”
“Volkov can wait his turn.” My hand was already on the door. “Right now I only care about the person who let him in.”