Page 101 of Tarnished Tyrant (Zhukova Bratva 1)

I’ve spent my entire life focused on my Bratva. On rebuilding the empire that was stolen from my grandfather. On dismantling the Battiato mafia and owning every inch of this city.

No woman is worth throwing all of that away.

Suddenly, Florian squeezes my shoulders. “Relax, Mr. Zhukova.”

I drop my shoulders and roll my head from side to side.

“Nervous?” he asks brusquely.

“Hardly.”

“So you really love her, then?”

“Love who?” I snort. I can’t remember the last time Florian had so much to say.

“Your fiancée,” he says. “But since I had to remind you, maybe you’re thinking of someone else.”

“I’m not thinking of anyone.”

Now, it’s his turn to snort. “I’ve tailored too many grooms to count. I can tell when the man is distracted. When there is someone else.”

Is that who Belle is—someone else? If anything, Xena feels like the other woman.

“Why the fuck do you even care?”

He stretches the tape across my back and then down my arms, mumbling numbers under his breath. Finally, he looks over my shoulder and catches my eyes in the mirror. “Because if you back out of the wedding, I might not get paid.”

I smirk. “You always have the bottom line in mind, don’t you?”

“That’s how I’ve been in business so long,” he says. “Is this other woman going to be a problem?”

“So far, she’s been nothing but,” I mutter.

Belle shouldn’t even be on my radar. She should have been just another cog in my machine, doing her part and then leaving.

But things went too far. A mess I need to clean up.

Florian squints. “What did you say?”

I sigh. “No, she won’t be a problem. She’ll be gone soon enough.”

Especially now that fucking Roger showed up to help her. The man is as gullible as he is repulsive. Seeing her wrap her arms around him, hugging him like he was some kind of savior… As if that sorry sack of shit could defend her from me. As if she needs defending from me at all.

I should have peeled his grimy hands away from her. Belle may be innocent, but Roger isn’t. The look in his eyes when he touched her made me see red. Motherfucker is lucky he’s still breathing.

Florian turns away from me to jot down measurements on a piece of paper. I reach for my phone. I told myself when I left the office that I wouldn’t check the cameras. Belle and Roger were still in the conference room, hunched over a single laptop, sitting way too close together.

But still, I find myself opening the app and pulling up the feed of security footage. I scroll through to Conference Room #3 and click the livestream.

The room is empty. For a moment, I let that calm me.

Then I notice Belle’s purse sitting on the table, her laptop open, papers strewn around. The room is empty, but she isn’t gone. She’s in the building somewhere.

Quickly, I flick through all of the streams, looking in on empty hallways and offices, checking in on the dark break rooms and my office.

But it’s the last camera that shows me what I’m looking for.

The lobby camera shows Bridget’s desk and a portion of the main hallway. And Roger is standing just at the top of the screen.

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