Page 20 of The Russian’s Forced Bride (Kamarov Bratva #2)

I couldn’t stop thinking about what Joaquin said. His words kept echoing in my mind, distracting me as much as possible.

It wasn’t that I had never chanced upon a conversation with him.

By now, I should’ve been used to the way he always spoke in riddles.

Then, I had taken the bastard to be cocky just because he had a lot of money.

But it seemed like he had wizened up over the years—so much so that his riddles held a weight to them.

And for him to show his face in the open simply meant he had some sort of assurance that he couldn’t be killed.

And he was right.

It was now past midnight, and I was back at the office, sipping a glass of vodka as my office overlooked the streets. My eyes watched the city lights and cars speeding down the lanes, with deep frown lines etched into my forehead.

I should’ve been by Arlette’s side, watching her sleep—especially since she usually had nightmares—but my thoughts kept bugging me. Every part of me resisted the yearning I had to be at her side.

As long as Joaquin Saavedra was roaming the streets, things weren’t safe.

And though Matvey had given me the go-ahead to let her resume work at the office, I made sure to keep an eye on her, as two of my men followed her everywhere without her notice.

It was a horrible thing for me to do. I wasn’t unaware of that fact. But at this point, I didn’t care if she saw me as the devil himself. I was ready to use any means necessary to keep her safe. It was a calculated risk—one that could make her hate me forever.

But it was better she did than die. She had managed to hold my interest from the beginning, but now she held more than just that.

As the flash of my screen lit up, revealing Maxim’s name, I rose from my seat, the leather crinkling.

I answered the phone, striding from one length of my office to the other as I awaited the bad news he was about to share, and I could still hear Joaquin’s words echoing in the back of my head, tauntingly:

Don’t go all crazy when your boy breaks the news to you.

“We’ve got bad news,” Maxim’s voice cut through the silence. His tone carried fatigue, but it stayed steady and controlled as he kept talking, not waiting for my response.

“Our Barcelona shipment never reached its destination. It vanished into thin air halfway through the route, and no one can trace it or tell what happened.”

My jaw felt like it would break from how tightly I clenched it.

“And that’s not all,” Maxim continued. “In Singapore, our fake import deal fell through. Customs got tipped off, and they seized three containers containing a million dollars’ worth of shit…. Joaquin got us good.”

He most certainly did. He wanted to keep playing this game with me, where he provoked me until I exploded. Joaquin knew the kind of man I was and what I was capable of, but he had leverage over me.

He was deliberately provoking me, and I couldn’t lose my temper—not now, with so much at stake. These days, I was on the brink of insanity, and the only reason I hadn’t completely fallen apart was because I still had Arlette by my side.

So while Joaquin kept playing his silly games in an attempt to force my hand, I had to keep putting measures in place. I couldn’t afford more slip-ups.

Besides, it was only a matter of time before I was called in by Matvey. We had already lost over two million dollars in two weeks. If this went on, I was sure Joaquin would suck us dry.

So I dished out orders to Maxim, all the while running a hand over my face.

“Keep your eyes on all ports, Maxim. I want contingency routes in place, and make sure to double-check laundering through the Balkan stream. Got it?”

“Noted. You can trust me.”

The line went dead as Maxim’s words echoed in my mind. He was wrong. I couldn’t trust anyone. Joaquin made that pretty clear when he betrayed his own friend and went after everything he ever cared about.

But the Bratva was not just family. We were bound by more than blood and trauma.

And it was wrong of me to suspect either the Pakhan or Uncle.

This was what Joaquin wanted—for me to doubt everyone around me until he destroyed us from within. He wasn’t playing this game with violence. He chose to disable me first psychologically. And I had to admit—it was working, albeit slowly.

I returned to my seat, finally deciding that I would get the answers I needed from Matvey. He was the Pakhan, and he didn’t owe me explanations, but I honestly didn’t give a fuck anymore.

I sure as hell wasn’t going to lose this game to Joaquin.

***

The sound of whips ripping against flesh echoed savagely through the concrete walls of the interrogation room underneath the oldest Kamarov mansion.

Bound in chains was Matvey’s latest victim, drenched in blood, his flesh flayed from his skin with the spiked whip Matvey held in his blood-marred hands.

The victim’s shrill scream pierced through the air, but couldn’t penetrate the walls that confined him.

His appearance resembled that of an animal—stripped naked, with jagged lines of bruises on his back that bled raw like a butcher’s canvas.

But the more the victim screamed in pain, the more Matvey laughed in his face, striking him harder.

I stood by the doorway, patiently waiting for Matvey to be done so we could talk. His right-hand man, Sergei, who had led me to the room, stood by my side, posture straight and rigid, my form towering over his as he watched his Pakhan in action.

Matvey hated to be interrupted, but as much as we all were enjoying the grisly display of gore before us, I had more important things at hand.

I turned to Sergei, about to leave the room, and I said, “Let the Pakhan know I’ll be waiting in his study.”

Then, shutting the door behind me, I headed to Matvey’s study and sat on one of the leather sofas in his office while he finished up whatever was happening in his interrogation room.

My hands itched with every second that ticked by as I impatiently waited for him, the ticking of the wall clock echoing in my head.

My eyes skimmed over the papers on his table that were spread all over, and a part of me was tempted to go over to his desk to rummage through them for anything relevant I could find about what Joaquin had claimed Matvey and Oskar were hiding.

But as much as I was tempted, I could never allow myself to become desperate for anything.

Desperation was like a cloak of stupidity—and I wasn’t too keen on wearing it.

I leaned back against the sofa, briefly closing my eyes as the shuffling of footsteps on the marble floors echoed through the room. Without opening my eyes, I could tell it was Matvey because the metallic smell of blood washed over him in waves.

“I’m busy, Rafael, so make it quick.”

My eyes opened to find him in his crimson-stained tuxedo—what had once been white.

His fists were also bloodied, but he kept using a hand towel to wipe the blood off.

When he finished, he threw the towel on the glass table between us and crossed one leg over the other, draping an arm over the sofa as his bored eyes stared into mine.

“I want the whole story about Jaxon Whitmore. Not the watered-down version you gave to me.”

Matvey’s brow rose. “What makes you think I didn’t already give you the whole story?”

I leaned forward on the sofa, looking him right in the eye. His gaze was strong, but I remained unflinching.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

I then dropped a file of documents I had carried onto the table. The files contained all the losses we had incurred since Joaquin’s incident. And even though it wasn’t directly affecting the Bratva yet, it was only a matter of time before our empire sank.

That was the bastard’s plan. He was strategic and knew just how to play us.

I tapped the documents. “I didn’t want to admit it, but Joaquin’s way more formidable than I’d given him credit for. He’s been able to drain us of over two million dollars in weeks.”

Matvey nodded slowly in response. “I heard. But this is something you can fix, Rafael. And what does this have to do with Jaxon Whitmore’s bullshit story?”

“It has everything to do with the Whitmores. You and Uncle made me marry Arlette with this story of her life being in danger and our business being threatened. But you didn’t tell me everything—or just how messed up that bastard was.”

Sliding the documents closer, Matvey began to take a look at all the reports, one by one.

“He’s got intel, Matvey, and—” I pinched the bridge of my nose, exhausted. “I know you think I can be reckless, and I know you and Uncle don’t even think I’m good enough to be one of us, but this isn’t just about the Bratva anymore, Matvey.”

Joaquin had his eyes set on Arlette, too.

And I needed to know. I needed to know everything.

“When did you become so serious, Rafael?” Matvey mused with a smirk, dumping the documents back onto the table. “You were always the happy-go-lucky one.”

I never was. My mind had always been like this—but whatever everyone knew me as was just a facade. And these days, maintaining that facade wasn’t as easy as it used to be. It was the first time in a long while I’d been pushed to a point where I couldn’t control things.

And I hated that feeling.

Matvey then sighed. “We didn’t hide anything from you, Rafael. Whatever Joaquin must’ve put into your head was just a load of bullshit. On the day I asked you to marry Whitmore’s daughter, I pointed out the fact that Joaquin had been the one to kill Jaxon, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, Jaxon Whitmore wasn’t exactly innocent either.

He knew right from the bat the kind of man Joaquin was, yet he agreed and helped him launder money.

You see, Rafael, those two go way back.” Matvey chuckled.

“Way before his daughter was born. Joaquin once had a share in Whitmore’s company and believed he had as much right to it as Jaxon did. But Whitmore blindsided him.”

“So he killed Whitmore for revenge?”

Or?

“No.” Matvey shook his finger. “He killed Joaquin’s wife as revenge—but Jaxon had no idea he was behind his wife’s death.

Joaquin only killed Jaxon to prove a point.

Jaxon wasn’t playing by his rules anymore, and with his alliance with the Bratva, Joaquin realized that Whitmore was no longer his puppet. ”

Joaquin never saw Whitmore as a friend in the first place. No, neither of them did. But Joaquin was way more cunning, and he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty.

“When I asked you to marry Whitmore’s daughter, it wasn’t just out of loyalty to him. For full-on protection of his daughter’s life, Whitmore was ready to give the Bratva all he had worked for. He was a piece of shit—but he truly did love his daughter.”

The revelation wasn’t anything new, and deep down, I’d already pieced together the fact that Joaquin probably had something to do with the death of Arlette’s mother, too.

He truly was a greedy bastard.

“Oskar and I don’t think you’re too soft for this, Rafael,” Matvey now said, rising to his feet. “You’ve got the brains as much as the ability for violence. But unlike the rest of us, you’ve held the finances of this empire for years. We trust you.”

They trusted me.

That was all I needed to hear.

I rose to my feet as well and crossed the space between Matvey and me, extending my hand for a shake.

When he wasn’t pushing my buttons, I figured Matvey wasn’t so bad as a Pakhan.

Matvey took my hand in a tightened grip, a cocky smile playing on his lips.

“I expect Joaquin to be dealt with soon, Rafael. As you said, he’s causing a lot of problems—and trust me, if I were to get directly involved with this, there would be a lot of unnecessary bodies stacked up.”

Matvey’s eyes leveled with mine, conveying a cryptic message through his words.

He wanted me to take care of it without drawing too much attention.

Unlike Matvey, there was a coordination to the way I handled things.

We were like two sides of the same coin.

I nodded, gripping Matvey’s bloodstained hands as I said, “Joaquin Saavedra is going to regret ever messing with the Bratva.”

And toying with what I considered mine.