Page 52 of The Russian's Forced Bride
“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 naïve. 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.
