Page 58 of Paved in Hate

“I don’t know. My brothers don’t include me in their business. They assigned someone to watch me, and no one was allowed to even look at me. I was invisible.”

“That’s good, though,”Matvey cuts in. “Surely you heard something.”

I hear the desperation in his voice, and I know how badly he wants this, but I also know Katya isn’t lying when she says she doesn’t know anything.

“They kept her out of it,” I tell him. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to find Alina. We have the fuckers. We can grab them and get the information out of them.”

“They’re very well protected,” Katya warns. “It won’t be easy, and my brothers are cruel. They don’t give a shit about anyone. They won’t care about your sister, and they’ll enjoy knowing you’re worried about her.”

Matvey’s dark eyes meet Katya’s. “She’s not my sister. She’s the woman I’m in love with and the woman I’m going to marry. I can promise you that I will be able to break your brothers and get the information I need out of them.”

Katya looks at me, and I can tell my words from earlier are running through her head. She understands now why I asked her to not bring up how pets are treated. It would only hurt Matvey to hear it. He’s already imagined enough horrific things; he doesn’t need to learn they’re all true.

“Maybe I can help,” she starts to say, and I immediately cut her off.

“Not a chance in hell,ptichka.”

Her brow is furrowed in irritation when she looks back at me. “Why not?”

“Because I won’t allow you to be put in danger.”

“Allow me?”

My little bird is getting pissed, and when I smile at her tone, her look makes it clear I shouldn’t have. I’m going to have to fuck that attitude out of her later, and that thought has me grinning even bigger.

“You’re terrible,” she mutters before turning back to my brothers. “How did you all get rid of the Italian threat? I heard Konstantin talking about it. They told me I had to marry Vitaly because they know how strong your Bratva is and they need your help keeping them away so their business can continue to run smoothly. They also wanted the strip club connection.”

Lev smiles. “Dominic Alessi is a bit of a friend of ours. We met under unusual circumstances, but it turns out his sister was also taken by your brothers’ Bratva. She was taken and sold, and when her beaten body washed up to shore, the only clue he had to go on was that fucking viper tattoo.”

I feel Katya shudder in my lap, and the look on her face has me hooking a finger under her chin and forcing her face to mine. “You are not responsible for what they do.”

“It’s my family,” she whispers. “It’s my blood that did this.”

“Blood doesn’t mean shit,” I tell her. “That’s why my brothers and I chose to become a family. The ones we were born into weren’t worth keeping.” I run my thumb over her cheek. “You’re not to blame for any of this. You’re a victim, baby, just like all the other women your brothers have abused and hurt. It may not be in the same way, but it’s abuse all the same.”

“We would never blame you for what they’ve done,” Matvey tells her. When she turns her head to meet his dark eyes, he adds, “But we are going to kill them, and you need to be aware of that.”

“I know.” Her voice is small but steady. “They can’t be allowed to keep doing what they’re doing, and death is the only thing that will stop them. I just don’t want any more women getting hurt.”

She rests against me when I pull her close and kiss her head. I run my fingers through her hair as my brothers fill her in on everything that’s happened since Roman first meet Emily when he was gathering information on her dad, to the auction with Simona, the death of Stefan, and our meeting Dominic, and finally ending with her brother’s interest in Lev’s underground fights and our arrangement with the Alessi mafia. Katya’s quiet when we finally stop talking.

I brush the back of one knuckle along her cheek. “You okay?”

“It’s just a lot to take in.” She gives me and my brothers a small smile. “If it makes you feel any better, Konstantin and Osip have no fucking clue they’re being played.” After she says it, her smile grows and then she lets out the cutest damn laugh. “It’s perfect.”

She grips my thigh and turns to look back at me. “They have a lot of men, though. Konstantin always keeps twenty well-trained men around him. He never travels far without them, and that’s on top of all the other men in his Bratva. Men are constantly guarding the house, walking the property line, and there are security cameras everywhere.”

“I can handle the cameras,” Danil says. Simona gives him a smile that shows how damn proud she is of her husband’s skills. He gives her a quick wink before looking back at us. “Do you know if Konstantin has a laptop that he uses a lot or where he might keep it?”

Katya thinks for a minute. “I only know what I’ve managed to catch small glimpses of. They’re usually very careful to keep me out of it, but there is a guy in the Bratva who comes over and he’s always carrying a messenger bag, almost like he has equipment with him or something, and they always disappear into Konstantin’s office when he arrives.”

The mention of a messenger bag has me raising a brow at Danil because that’s exactly what Danil is always lugging around. The man has a hard time being away from his laptop. It’s gotten a lot better since Simona, but that thing was practically glued to his ass for a solid decade.

“Do you know his name?” Danil asks.

“I’m trying to remember. I think it might’ve been Casimir.” She nods. “Yeah, I definitely heard Konstantin call him Casimir once.”

“Can you remember anything else?” Matvey asks.

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