Page 38 of Married to the Don (Kornilov Bratva Duet 1)

I want to keep her and Theo safe, but if I put a Bratva guard on her, that will make it seem even more like she’s important to me. I need to have her covered by someone no one else would know or recognize—a civilian guard.

I’m almost home, but as soon as the idea crosses my mind, I turn the car around and head back towards the strip of bars and liquor stores I visited just over a week ago.

* * *

I get pulledinto another meeting when I’m only two blocks from home. The call is from Petr.

“Discipline case for Geoff,” he says.

Petr tells me Geoff had been hiding out in a halfway house with one of his ex-con friends. The man is guilty of stealing our profits. He was in charge of our books and had been skimming some off the top for years until one of my new guys—a young guy with an amazing head for numbers—noticed the discrepancies and came to me with his concerns. Geoff’s actions cut into my men’s paychecks. Any man willing to steal from his own family doesn’t deserve to be part of the Bratva. Though he’d been evading us for a few days, he finally surfaced at the bar where a lot of the Bratva members hang out. They had him trussed-up in the back of an SUV within the hour.

I hang up and head towards the Bratva’s unofficial headquarters. It’s where I meet with actual suppliers for the motel business, but also where I keep an office. It has a large basement—with no windows—that doesn’t appear on any of the city’s blueprints. It’s the perfect place to handle cases like this. Cases that might get a little ugly.

Petr’s car is parked just outside the front doors right next to an SUV with deeply tinted windows.

I unlock the front door, walk down the long hallway, and enter the hidden door inside the maintenance closet that leads down to the basement. There are three secret doors in total. The basement is a secret, but I still wanted multiple points of exit.

I’m halfway down the stairs when I hear someone begging for mercy. Geoff, no doubt.

“Thank God you’re here,” Petr says, clapping me on the back. “He won’t shut up.”

Geoff is sweating, his face pale, eyes wide. He looks like an animal caught in a trap. But I see him for the spineless, opportunistic predator he really is.

One of the other soldiers reported Geoff’s misdeeds to me as soon as he found out. There are many crimes I’ll turn a blind eye to, but a few I won’t. Don’t hurt a woman. Don’t talk to the cops.

And don’t take my fucking money.

“Did you do it?” I ask as I approach, pulling back my leather jacket to reveal the gun I keep tucked underneath.

Geoff swallows, trying to decide how to answer—whether to be honest or not—and that is answer enough. An innocent man denies the crimes until his dying breath. Only a guilty man weighs whether an admission could lead to a better outcome.

Before he utters a word, I whip out my gun and pull the trigger.

* * *

By the timeI make it home, it’s well after dinner.

Molly’s design books are scattered across the couch as I walk in and there are plastic blocks spread across the floor, under the coffee table, and all over the sofa cushions like shrapnel from some kind of toy bomb.

I curse under my breath and swipe some of the debris to the floor just as Molly walks into the room.

“Oh, sorry.” She hurries past me, sets a steaming mug on the coffee table, and begins cleaning up Theo’s toys. “I was just coming in here to clean these up while Theo is busy. Esmerelda volunteered to give him a bath tonight.”

“The maid will get it later,” I say, waving away her efforts to tidy up. “Sit down.”

I regret the order as soon as she follows it.

She’s wearing a pair of dark gray leggings with a white tunic that hugs her waist and hips. The neck scoops low across her chest, revealing a lacy maroon material that must be one of the new bras I paid for. I should have instructed she be clothed in oversized sweats. Maybe I can get an extra jumpsuit from the prison next time I’m there. Though Molly might even make orange look good.

She scoops up a stack of notecards and places two of the books in her lap. I can tell by the arrangement of the cushions that she was much more comfortable here before I arrived. Now, she’s sitting with her back straight and her feet firmly on the floor.

“Don’t let me interrupt.”

“You’re not,” she says. “I mean, I wasn’t doing anything. Just reading.”

“And taking notes, apparently.” I nod to the notecards.

She chews on her lower lip. “A bit. Just vocabulary. It’s stupid, really. Pointless.”

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