Page 24 of The Russian’s Forced Bride (Kamarov Bratva #2)
Hospitals were an entryway to death. I could never see it as anything other than that, but somehow, I always survived my visits to one.
The stench of death couldn’t be mistaken, as it hovered over the hospital like a cloud, and from behind the closed doors of my room, sobs could be heard echoing in the halls—a sign that a loved one had passed.
If I had died, I imagined Arlette would’ve been the one crying uncontrollably, and as sick as it sounded in my head, the thought of her crying for me made me feel like my life was earned.
To know that I had someone waiting for me to return home to them. That was why I made sure I wouldn’t die or fall victim to Joaquin’s foolish schemes.
The whitewashed walls of the hospital seemed to enclose me, making me feel claustrophobic, despite the room being large enough to fit my entire office.
My head buzzed loudly as the beeping monitor beside me continued to ring out, and I could only curse in annoyance as I leaned against the hospital bed’s headboard.
There was a dull ache of pain resonating around my body, as I had been injured on my head, which had now been bandaged with a clean wrap—a small patch of blood clearly visible to Arlette and Maxim, who sat by my bedside.
They had just stepped in when the nurse finished wrapping my head up and handed me an Advil to help relieve the ache.
Arlette’s eyes were wide with panic as her gaze skimmed over my body, and her face grew paler by the second, while Maxim stood by her side, arms crossed, and his mood darkened.
He had been with me when we were knocked off the road by a car from behind.
Whomever Joaquin had sent had strategically pushed toward where I was seated, so that when the car tumbled over, I sustained the most injuries.
“How did this happen?” Arlette choked out, holding back tears and grabbing a fistful of the dress that clung to her pale skin.
I sighed, vexed that Maxim had called Arlette without my permission, informing her that I had been involved in an accident.
It was the first time he had used his knowledge of my phone’s passcode without my permission, and I was certain that if I weren’t temporarily bedridden, I would’ve punched him in the face.
“My car got knocked over. Nothing serious. Why don’t you go home? You look tired.” I reached out my hand to hold hers, but she swatted it away, her face reddening in anger.
This was Joaquin’s retaliation that I had been expecting. A bold move which, honestly, made me feel like laughing out loud at how pathetic the bastard actually was.
But Arlette looked like she was already scared out of her mind, so I couldn’t exactly laugh while I was all bandaged up.
“Go home?” she spat. “How could you ask me to do that? How could you ask me to go home when you’re in this state?”
I wanted to remind her that I was a part of the Bratva, not some broken man who needed to be looked after.
I had survived way worse. In my thirty-eight years of living, I’d been stabbed, mentally tortured, and once, when engaging with an Italian mafioso, I almost got my brains blown out and sustained multiple vital injuries.
This, in all honesty, was nothing.
I looked over to Maxim. “Please escort my wife out of the hospital and make sure she gets home safe before you report back to me.”
“No,” Arlette sneered, rage gleaming brightly in her once dull eyes.
And then the picture of that stubborn woman whom I had first met months ago flashed into my mind.
The woman who didn’t back down.
“I’m not going anywhere, Rafael,” she stated with an air of finality.
Maxim then began to try helping her out of her seat, but Arlette shot him a heated glare that made him back down before she returned her attention to me, her hair whipping across her face at the sudden movement.
“You’re a piece of shit, Rafael. You hide things and then make it look like I’m overreacting over the simplest of things.”
“That’s because you are,” I pointed out, holding her gaze levelly. “I’m not dead, kroshka . I just had a fucking accident. It happens all the time.”
“All the time?” she gasped in disbelief.
I nodded. “You’re being emotional. Go home.”
Her eyes twitched as if she was struggling to hold in a scream, and then she drew in a sharp breath and stood abruptly.
“I don’t even know why I even bother with you,” she spat, her words filled with a venom that stung even worse than the injury on my head.
Afterward, without sparing a second glance, she walked out of the room, while Maxim watched—his eyes widened in surprise that someone had spoken to me like that.
But Arlette Whitmore wasn’t just anyone.
She was my wife. And though it irritated me that she chose to raise her voice at me right in front of Maxim, I drew in a sharp breath of my own, my voice low as I directed my next words to him.
“Go after her and get back here immediately once she gets home safe.”
Maxim, even while shocked at what had just transpired, gave a curt nod before leaving me in the room alone with my thoughts.
I was doing this for her. Going through all these lengths to destroy Joaquin and mentally destabilize him before I finally got the permission to kill him—yet she wasn’t even fucking grateful for one second.
And what point was there in telling her anything? She had fire, but she was innocent and na?ve. She had had enough trauma from her mother’s death. The last thing she needed was for me to go into details about how fucked the life I was living was.
She didn’t understand, and it was completely fine. It wasn’t like she could run from me anyway. She was my wife, and even if she did flee, I would raise hell to get her back.
I grabbed the tablet that Maxim had laid on my bedside. In it was a video he claimed was sent by Joaquin to him while I was being bandaged up. He hadn’t watched the video as he wanted me to have the first look at it.
With my expression dark, I tapped on the video, my eyes glued to the screen intently.
The video was grainy, old, and timestamped to be from about a year ago.
It showed a scene bathed in blood in a Prague alley, the walls layered with graffiti paintings.
Gunshots filled the air, sharp and piercing.
And on a now zoomed-in frame, the dead bodies of Bratva men littered the ground like dirt as men dressed in suits and yelling in Czech walked over them.
A glimpse of a crate filled with drugs and illegal weapons flashed briefly before a shot of Maxim and me talking ended the video.
My brows furrowed. About a year ago, the Bratva had some disputes with the Czech black-market lords. We had tried selling some drugs and mercenaries to them, but then they stabbed us in the back, going as far as to kill some of our men.
But the Bratva paid their revenge, murdering their whole group until their little crime gang was nothing more than history.
And though the incident was a long-forgotten one, this fucked-up video made it look like Maxim and me were in on them killing our own people.
The door to the hospital room gently came open, revealing Maxim and Cassandra, who didn’t look the least shocked to see me with my head wrapped in bandages.
Her composure remained intact as she adjusted the hem of her suit, heels clicking on the floor as she and Maxim made their way to me, stopping right in front of my bed.
“Watch this.” I handed the tablet to Maxim, and both huddled together. They replayed the video over and over again until Maxim finally closed the tablet.
“That son of a bitch,” Cassandra commented, blue eyes hardening by the minute.
“If he had his hands on this footage, it only means he was the one who asked the Czechs to betray us in the first place—and then he edited the footage and made it look like we were the betrayers,” Maxim calmly pointed out, rubbing his chin that had now grown stubble.
Maxim then scoffed. “He really is the king of intel, I’ll give him that. He even found a way to send the message directly to me, even though we never exchanged numbers.”
“Is this his way of blackmailing you? Does he really think the Bratva would believe you and Maxim betrayed them?” Cassandra asked, a brow raised.
It was a good point, though. The Bratva wasn’t going to believe a silly video that made it seem like I was an enemy. But I had to admit, if I hadn’t clearly remembered that incident, I would’ve been misled into thinking I had betrayed my own people. That was just how good the video had been edited.
With a sigh, Cassandra sat on the plastic chair Arlette had occupied before. The action made me frown, but I didn’t comment on it.
I hadn’t just asked Arlette to go home because I wanted to be a dick.
If she knew the lengths Joaquin was taking to destroy us, she’d be heartbroken—and I couldn’t bear seeing her more traumatized.
“But this video is the least of our problems, Boss,” Maxim remarked, and then eyed Cassandra from the corner of his eye.
Cassandra seemed to feel his eyes burning into the side of her face, and she ran a hand through her hair.
“I didn’t think it was important to tell you, but Maxim insisted it was,” she began by saying, pushing herself forward so she was now sitting upright and back to being professional.
“I found a secret bank account that gets a lot of money from Joaquin. It’s hidden offshore and hard to trace. To be honest, I didn’t even want to follow the trail I found, but then something kept bugging me.” Her brows furrowed as she seemed to be recounting the memory in her head.
“The account happens to be under the name Matero Saavedra.”
I cocked my aching head to the side with a raised brow. “But Mateo Saavedra’s dead. Joaquin’s nephew died years back.”
Cassandra nodded, tapping her fingers on her lap. “He’s supposed to be, but who knows? This is Joaquin we’re talking about. I assume he’s probably using the account to launder money—and then the pattern I traced showed a flow of money that was consistent.”
“Deliberate,” Maxim chimed in. “This account is heavily shielded through crypto exchanges and shell companies. Whoever this Mateo Saavedra is, Joaquin is either protecting him or using him, but I’m certain there’s someone at the other end of that account—and it’s not Joaquin.”
A strange feeling tugged at my insides at the revelation because it almost felt as though I knew exactly what they were talking about.
I couldn’t just place my finger on what it was.
I delved into my memories, trying to piece some things together, but the more I thought, the more my head ached, making me curse in response.
Mateo Saavedra wasn’t actually dead, was he?
And I reckoned he was the rat who had inserted himself close to me, carefully monitoring my every move.
I hadn’t had the chance to catch a glimpse of who had run my car over, but something in my gut told me whoever was in that car was the answer to the mystery rat.
“He’s alive,” I stated, positively sure that I wasn’t wrong. “That fucker’s nephew is alive.” I looked from Cassandra to Maxim, who shared concerned looks.
Joaquin’s nephew had died as a child almost eight years ago, so it was hard to pinpoint what he would look like now as an adult.
But I had accounted for the identities of everyone I knew, so it wasn’t hard to narrow it down to one person.
I swore under my breath just as Maxim’s phone buzzed in his suit jacket. He took out the phone as my attention moved to him—he seemed to be reading something, a message perhaps—and with each passing second, his expression hardened.
“Joaquin’s got a message for you. It’s an audio,” he then said, raising his head so he was looking straight into my eyes.
“Play it,” I ordered, and Maxim nodded.
Joaquin’s voice rang out from the speaker of Maxim’s phone, his Spanish accent thick as he said, “Tell your boss the next accident will be fatal if he comes in my way again.”
It was a genuine threat, and Cassandra’s face paled in response—but to me, it was a fucking dare. I found myself chuckling in response to his stupid threat.
He had no idea what was coming his way.
And I sure as hell loved to play games.