Page 26 of The Russian’s Forced Bride (Kamarov Bratva #2)

“It’s been confirmed…Mateo Saavedra is alive.”

That was the first thing Maxim said as he stepped into my office, his hands tucked into the leather coat donned over his suit, and his hair, which was usually tied into a ponytail, falling loosely over his shoulders.

A shadow loomed over his expression as he approached my desk, which was lit up by a desk lamp.

It was already past midnight, and I had no intention of drawing attention to this building by turning the lights on.

I had tasked Cassandra and Maxim to find everything and every lead they could about Mateo Saavedra.

I had even pushed aside their investigation of Brandon Orozco, as it seemed less important. But with the scowl on Maxim’s face, I could already tell that I wouldn’t be pleased with any information he was about to share with me.

Once in front of me, Maxim slid some pictures onto my desk, but I didn’t pick them up yet as I leaned my elbows on the table, waiting for what else he had to say.

I was afraid to pick up those pictures, fearing I would be hit in the gut by what they revealed, so I waited for Maxim to tell me before looking at them.

With a wave of my hand, I signaled for him to continue talking.

“Apparently, Joaquin had a sister, Rosa Saavedra, who committed suicide,” he began, hands planted on my desk. “The media aired the news of her death eight years ago, if you clearly remember, Boss.”

I nodded. Rosa Saavedra was a popular public figure, and when she died, it wasn’t a hidden secret. It wasn’t something Joaquin could easily brush under the rug.

Maxim then handed me the picture of a woman—pale and lifeless—a thick rope around her neck as she hung from a ceiling fan.

Her husband had been violent, the media claimed, and it led her to kill herself. But then….

“But then, the next thing we heard was that Joaquin’s nephew, Rosa’s son, died in an accident on his way to his uncle’s house, but that wasn’t the case.” Maxim blew out a sigh. “He’s alive, like we suspected, and Joaquin has been using his identity to launder money.”

It was all as we had suspected, but Maxim hadn’t dropped the big reveal yet. It seemed like he was debating whether to tell me or not, and my hands itched to turn the pictures in front of me over, but I waited.

After a deep breath, Maxim then pointed at the pictures as he said, “You might want to take a look at those.”

My brows furrowed questionably as I gazed into Maxim’s steel-gray eyes before I tentatively reached out to the pictures, turning each of them over one by one after taking a deep breath.

The pictures began with previously released images of Mateo Saavedra, seeming to show a progression of his appearance over the years.

With each photo, I could feel the blood draining from my face, right until I stopped at the most recent, which was taken some days ago, featuring the man who claimed to have been Arlette’s half-brother—with his hands wrapped around my wife’s shoulder while she threw her head back laughing.

My eyes remained glued to the picture as my mind still couldn’t come to terms with the fact that my suspicions about that boy were real.

I had hoped I simply resented him for being so close to Arlette.

But to think the bastard had actually been the one dishing out information to Joaquin this whole time… .

The picture in my hands was threatening to tear apart as I clenched it tightly. The air around me had suddenly turned dense—too hard to breathe in—and my chest constricted hard as it ached.

How?

How wasn’t I able to put two and two together quickly? I had been too preoccupied to find everything I needed to know about Brandon.

“We checked all the data about Brandon Orozco, and there were no traces of his identity being forged,” I found myself saying to Maxim.

I still didn’t want to believe it. I wanted this to be a sick joke I could just laugh off.

But Maxim was dead serious.

“We’re talking about Joaquin here,” Maxim reminded me. “I’m not surprised he was able to pull a perfect stunt like this.”

A perfect stunt like erasing Mateo’s entire existence and creating a new one for him.

Fuck.

My heart suddenly started racing as a strange feeling crept into my heart, flooding my head with images of Arlette lying with a slit-open throat in a pool of her own blood. I didn’t waste any time as I dialed her number. There was still time. I could warn her and get home right now.

But each time I called, it went straight to voicemail.

I then reached out to the two men I had ordered to always watch her, and on the first ring, one of the men picked up—his voice fucking groggy, like he had just awoken from sleep instead of doing his job.

“Where is she?” I wasted no time asking.

“She left with her brother about some hours back. But she’s fine, Boss, they do this all the time,” the bastard assured me.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I ended the call, my hands quivering as my head spun. And then I was back at that mansion. Trapped in that fucking room with the sound of water dripping in the distance. It was dark, cold, and my lungs couldn’t take in as much air as I needed.

I couldn’t breathe. I loosened my tie, running both hands through my hair in frustration before slamming my phone against the desk, pacing around restlessly as Maxim’s eyes watched me.

“Calm down.” Maxim’s voice was leveled, controlled. “Knowing Joaquin, he won’t hurt her right off the bat. He’s probably keeping her as bait.”

I was trying to be calm, but it wasn’t working. The thought that I let that bastard live for this long when I had every chance to kill him made me mad. I grabbed my phone from the desk, dialing Arlette’s number one last time, and surprisingly, it went through.

“ Kroshka .” I sighed in relief—only for a snicker on the other end of the phone to cause my insides to twist.

“Who could’ve known, Rafael, that all I had to do to get on your nerves was take your little plaything from—”

“I will kill you,” I snarled into the phone.

“Oof,” Joaquin laughed. “So you do have that Kamarov fire in you. But you see, I’d be careful, amigo . We don’t want that video going all over the internet, now do we?”

I scoffed, feeling blood start to drip from my palms at how hard my nails dug into my skin in anger. “I don’t give two fucks what you decide to do with that video, Saavedra. Touch a strand of hair on my wife’s head, and I will have your head delivered to your family.”

Joaquin laughed—a manic one that made you wonder if he really wasn’t just sick in the head. He felt powerful, having me lose it.

He felt he had won. He had made me snap.

But he wasn’t ready for the hell he had let loose.

His irritating voice then seeped through the speakers, “Well, it’s not my fault, Rafael. At least, unlike you, my nephew cared way more about your pregnant wife than you did. It was nice talking to you, amigo , but this is where this game ends. I won.”

The line went dead.

But one word kept ringing in my head like the chiming of bells.

It echoed tauntingly.

Pregnant .

Pregnant. Arlette was…pregnant.

And then it all dawned on me. All the times she looked sickly and pale. The oversized hoodies she had been wearing for weeks. And how it felt like she always had something to say.

But I never gave her the time of day. In my eyes, I had been protecting her by isolating her. I was too busy playing these psychological and financial games with Joaquin. Too blindsided by my own ego.

Why hadn’t I just killed him at the club?

For the Bratva’s sake, I kept my composure.

I wasn’t just a murderer anymore—I was a strategist—and a sick, twisted part of me enjoyed destroying all Joaquin had worked hard for slowly.

But that didn’t matter now, because I hadn’t put a bullet through his skull when the opportunity presented itself.

My phone slipped from my grasp, but Maxim was swift at catching it before it fell and broke into shards. I buried my head in my hands, feeling my body heat up and my heart burn.

Joaquin Saavedra. He really did it this time.

I was going to beat that fucker to death. But like Maxim had said earlier, I needed to be calm. Nothing good came out of my emotions going haywire. I wasn’t that angry child anymore who resorted to violence to feel something other than rage.

I wasn’t the boy who spent days locked in a room as a means of building control—scared and afraid.

I’d survived and lived through the darkest times of my life. This was just another test to prove that I’d grown.

“He sent a photo,” Maxim’s voice cut through. His gray eyes assessed me for a moment as though checking if I was in the right state of mind, and with a nod, he handed me the phone.

The photo featured Arlette strapped to a hospital-like bed. Her eyes were covered with a black cloth, and her skin was ridiculously pale—almost like she was dead. And then a gun was pointed at her head by someone covered in a mask.

Maxim was right. They weren’t going to kill her. They needed me there. I was their target. Since the Bratva already controlled Jaxon Whitmore’s empire, they didn’t have much need for Arlette anymore.

I inhaled sharply, switching off the phone and tucking it into the breast pocket of my suit jacket as I turned to dish out orders to Maxim, who looked ever prepared to go into battle.

“Get a car ready and gather some of our men. I don’t care what time of the day it is—round them up. Joaquin is going to regret fucking with me.”

Maxim smiled—a slow, sadistic one that now mirrored the one on my face.

I had gone easy on the bastard, preserving his life. But now the plans had changed. He didn’t know just how psychotic I could be. And I was going to do just what I’d threatened to do.

I always kept my word.