Page 28 of Surprise Bratva Daddy

I scoff. "Not funny."

"I'm not trying to be."

“Well, either you’re trying to be funny or you’re being an asshole. I’ll let you decide, but I’m not talking about the flash drive right now. It’s pretty much the only thing I have left since my house burned down,” I say, pulling the blanket up to my neck.

“What do you want, then? Money?” he asks, tossing his cigar into an ash tray and standing up. “You want a new house? Maybe a car? A couple of purses and some designer clothes?” He snaps his fingers as he walks up to me, his tall figure casting a dark shadow over my face that makes the room ten degrees colder. “Anything you want is yours.”

I shake my head, feeling the pressure building between us. This could be explosive. “The only thing I want is something I can’t have,” I say quietly.

“And what is that?” he asks, raising a thick eyebrow.

I take a sharp breath through my nose. “My old life back.”

He sighs, shaking his head as he turns away from me. “I don’t know what to do with you,” he mutters as he walks out of the room.

I want to throw my book at the back of his stupid head.

18

Zane

Monroe needs time to cool down, and I need to find out everything I can about Maksim and his new business. If I don’t get to him before the police do, he’s going to end up back in prison.

I won’t let him off the hook that easily. Jail would be too easy for a moron like him. He might even enjoy himself there, playing checkers and taking advantage of the medical care as he approaches old age.

I won’t let him live long enough to enjoy anything but his last cigar. I own the keys to this city, but I’ll burn it to the ground myself if it means getting rid of Maksim. This just got terribly personal.

Kiro meets me with four of our men outside the business supposedly leased by Maksim. It’s an unassuming brick building in the middle of downtown, far too corporate to arouse suspicion of being anything but another boring faceless office. It makes me wonder how the police sniffed this place out as a potential weapons trafficking spot.

Either Maksim is selling guns to angry businessmen who just got laid off, or someone in his ranks is a rat. If it’s the latter, I’d like to know who it is. They could lead me straight to him and end this on a Tuesday afternoon.

“Tema sent a messenger to the office this morning,” Kiro grunts as we walk along the side of the building.

“That’s news I should’ve been given when it happened,” I say, feeling a prickle of heat on the back of my neck. “What did he say?”

“Not much. He asked a few questions about the package, to which I answered that we had everything. Then, he left,” Kiro explains.

“Not the worst outcome,” I mutter. “I do wish that Tema would call me himself instead of sending people all the time. AT least they got the address correct this time.”

“Not much to do at the other one,” Kiro replies with a chuckle.

Another prickle of heat on the back of my neck, but I’m sensible enough to ignore it. It's time to examine Maksim's business before someone starts wondering why a bunch of men in suits are circling the ground floor.

I leave a watchman out front, circling around back with Kiro and the other men. There's a rolling garage door in the back, which is unusual for an office building. My guess is that they're loading vehicles with firearms directly from this place, which is a bold move to make in the middle of downtown.

Maksim believes that being bold makes him better. He likes to show off, but that's the very reason why I have the upper hand on him. If you bang on your chest and scream into the wind, eventually you're going to get hit by a bullet from someone who is tired of the noise.

"Let's break the lock," I say, crouching next to the garage door.

"With pleasure," Kiro replies. His hand grips the padlock and he yanks on it. It breaks, flying out of the loop that held it closed and landing a few feet away on the ground. I'm impressed by his strength, but then again, that's why he's my right-hand man.

I grab the garage door, rolling it up. Inside is a storage room with a few boxes and crates stacked against the wall. They're labeled in Russian, and the letters are the same ones on the flash drive.

"It's not much," Kiro observes, stepping inside and looking around. "I'd imagine the real merchandise is somewhere else after the police caught wind of this place."

"Yes, of course," I reply, kicking one of the boxes. "He's an idiot, but he's not a total moron. Maybe we'll find something else, though."

"Like what?" he asks as the other men come in.

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