Page 45 of The Bratva's Innocent Pregnant Bride
Chapter 29 - Daniil
I lay in Paisley’s bed, listening to her steady breathing, cradling her warm body close to mine. I had sought her out to confront her, but the look of despair in her eyes when we met in the hallway had nearly broken me. It was too close on the heels of the explosion. She’d been way too close, heading straight toward it. But why?
That was a question that still needed to be answered, but how could I interrogate her when she was so obviously on the verge of collapse? Either she was a consummate actress or the attack had shaken her deeply.
And there was the fact I was still so damn attracted to her. Could anything shake that? As I looked at her now, her dark lashes resting against cheeks that were still rosy from my scratchy stubble, she seemed far too innocent to be a sleeper agent sent to bring us down from within.
Gently easing myself out of bed, I stood and waited for her to stir. I had questions, she might have answers. Answers I didn’t necessarily want to hear. She only curled deeper under the covers, breathing out a long sigh before lapsing back into sleep. Resisting the urge to run my hand over the blonde hair that fell across her pillow, I slipped out of the room.
It was late by now, and on my way to the kitchen, I peeked into the hall at the tree, which was haphazardly strewn with baubles on its lower half. There was no sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred except that the area that had been a mountain of presents was charred and desolate, and the bannister I leaped over was cracked and hanging askew. My cousins would do whatever it took to make sure the children hada merry Christmas, but I knew they were seething underneath their forced calm and cheer.
In the kitchen, Aleks, Mat, and Anatoli sat over ignored cups of coffee, deep in quiet conversation. “Just the man I wanted to see,” I said to Anatoli, shocking him as well as my brother and Aleks.
“Me?” Anatoli asked, comically looking behind him to make sure I wasn’t speaking to someone I didn’t actively dislike.
I brushed it off and sat down. “I need you to run a background check on Paisley,” I said, getting right to the point.
“There’s no need for that,” Aleks said. “We’ve thoroughly vetted the nanny agency she came from, we’ve used them a dozen times before. They do intensive checks on all their employees.” My imperious cousin glared at me, beginning to bristle.
I shook my head. I wasn’t accusing Katie of any wrongdoing by not properly protecting her child or the children of Aleks’s siblings. “I’m sure they must. I was only curious about her background before she came to the agency. She’s quite young.”
Aleks raised his eyebrow. “Old enough to grab your interest.”
There was no time for any of this. I didn’t want to offend my eldest cousin. I owed him too much for welcoming my brothers and me, along with Masha and Lilia, to America. I’d gained property and wealth, and was surrounded by family I rarely got to see when I lived in Moscow. I adored his wife and wouldn’t take the argument any further.
As soon as the little group broke up, I followed Anatoli toward his room on the first floor. “I’d still like that backgroundcheck,” I said, trying not to show my distaste at having to owe him for this favor. “Run it as deep as you can.”
“I’ll have it for you by tomorrow afternoon.”
I suppressed a sigh. “Sooner would be better.”
He gave me an inquisitive look but he was the last person I would trust with my concerns. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll start on it right now.”
“Thanks,” I choked out, heading upstairs.
I was still awake, poring over everything I could find about Axon, and trying to tie it back to anyone we’d ever identified as having ties to the Collective. It was a maze full of dead ends and my frustration grew as the hours passed. My eyes were gritty and I longed for sleep. Even more than that, I longed to crawl back into Paisley’s bed and gather her comforting warmth to me.
There was nothing comforting about what I was finding out about Axon and the people connected to it. If she knew anything about her former company, there was no way she was an innocent bystander in any of this. But she had told me she only worked there for a short time, hated it, and quit to start work for the nanny agency. The accounting company employed hundreds of people in their Los Angeles branch alone. I continued to cling to what I wanted to believe about her. What I needed to believe.
It shouldn’t have mattered and having a blind spot wasn’t something I was used to. Mindblowing sex shouldn’t have anything to do with the path I was taking in my research. What was I so afraid of finding? Wasn’t I only trying to find the truth? The fact the truth might crush me kept me from continuing and I closed my laptop in disgust.
A tap at the door made me jump, hoping it was Paisley. There was no way she was our enemy. Not with the way I felt about her.
It was only Anatoli and despite my disappointment, I told him to sit down. “What did you find out?”
“Not too much,” he said, still looking worried. “The nanny agency is pristine, just like Aleks said. But…”
“But what?” I urged.
He gave me a somewhat pitying look that I wanted to smack right off his face. “There’s no record of Paisley Moore on their website or their payroll records. She’s employed as an accountant with a company called Axon Financial, which has an office in downtown LA.”
I shook my head, dismissing the fact there was no record of her at the agency. That could be an error, a simple mistake. “She used to work for that firm,” I clarified. “Over a year ago.”
“No,” he said gravely. “Their records indicate she was hired over a year ago but there’s no termination notification to their payroll department and the last electronic payment she received from them was at the beginning of this month.”
As I stared at him, the worry in his eyes increased, but he had no idea how concerned he should actually be. I took the thin file he had printed out for me and stood up, briskly thanking him.
“I’m going to have to bring this to Aleks’s attention,” he said, somewhat apologetically. “She’s been with the kids all this time.”
