“All you’ve ever done is hurt me.”
Not something I can deny. Well, if that’s the arrow she chooses to shoot, so be it. My lip curls. “Well, now you’re going to help me. One way or the other.”
Her eyes flutter shut while she breathes deep. “You’re threatening me.”
“I’m telling you what’s going to happen. No more and no less.”
She breathes silently. She’s thinking. Weighing it in her head. What will saying No mean? What about saying Yes? She must see what I see: all roads lead to Rome. One way or another, a Bratva man always gets what he wants.
“I’ll help you and that’s it,” she says finally. “Then I’m finished.”
Like hell you are. But she can think what she wants for now. It’s going to be a very long time before we’re finished with each other again. She’s in my blood. When I’m with her, there’s no one else.
“Okay.”
I don’t count this one as a lie. But to be honest, I wouldn’t care if it was a lie. Not now.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
I know she doesn’t mean tell her about my ever-hardening dick or the fact I want to be buried inside her so badly I can’t think of much else. So, I clear my mind and wipe my hands together.
“I need someone who knows their shit to look at our computer systems. Something’s wrong with ours. Since yesterday, they come on and shut down right away. We reboot. They shut down. We try again. It’s a vicious cycle. Before that, a couple weeks back, maybe, someone was screwing with us using the computers. Attacking our businesses. Sending deliveries to the wrong sites. Making random schedule changes that left us with no staff scheduled at a couple of the businesses. It’s petty shit—so far. But it’s escalating.”
She quirks an eyebrow, frowns.
I can sense I’m losing her. “Corrie, these are legit businesses. Nothing shady.”
“They’re the fronts for the other”—air quote—“‘businesses’?” To emphasize her unwillingness to be associated with any of it, she crosses her arms.
“Hardworking Russian businessmen and women are losing money. And when a business is operating short on a month-to-month basis, losing income for one day could knock it out.”
She’s wavering. I can see it in the softening of her gaze, though she’s still turning herself into a pretzel just to pretend she isn’t.
“Russian criminals are in danger of going out of business. How sad.” Her voice is dripping with sarcasm.
“No, Corrie.” Her judgment pisses me off, and I’m again struck with the urge to turn her over my knee. “The criminals have plenty of money.” I sigh. I don’t want to fight with her. I will, but I would rather her go along willingly so I don’t have to force her.
“Who’s behind these so-called attacks?” Fear turns her brown eyes to amber, and I fight the urge to pull her into my arms and hold her against me. “Italians?”
“Bingo. You’re getting good at this.”
She scoffs. “Good at what? Figuring out that criminals go after criminals? That I might make you horny, but only power gets you off? At knowing a criminal paid for my education and now I owe him? Yeah. Color me genius.”
I want to throw the table across the room. I want to shatter the window with my bare hands. I’ve never asked her for anything in return. I honestly preferred it when she didn’t know anything about my life or my Bratva. Now that she does, I will not let her use it against me.
But fighting her right now won’t work. It won’t make her more accommodating to my needs.
“Corrie, I need someone I can trust. For the obvious reasons.”
My voice is soft because I need to convince her to work with me on this. I need to salvage as much as I can for the people who’re counting on the Bratva to pull them through this and expel the Italians so we can get back to normal.
“People go to make a transaction and end up with an error reading ‘Flash Bomb.’ If all this shit doesn’t stop—”
“Stop right there. What did you say?” Her eyebrows pinch and she tilts her head.
Now I have her attention. But damned if I know what she’s talking about. “I said I need someone I can trust.”
She’s shaking her head. “You said ‘Flash Bomb.’”
“Yes? That’s the error people are getting. Is it a common virus or something?”
All the anger and distrust drain from her face, replaced by an emotion I can’t quite read. She moves around me. “Come on. Let’s go. I need to see your computer system.”
An hour later, we’re in my apartment’s home office. She has my laptop open and is on the network that connects the Russian businesses—both legal and less so—to my father’s office, though he has no idea how to use it.
“This is some serious spy software. Embedded in every keystroke made from your network.”
“Who put it there?” But she doesn’t answer. She’s back in her zone.
Every few minutes, she lifts her head, frowns, then types furiously. Sometimes she mutters something incoherent. Other times, she gives a slight head shake before she puts her fingers down and begins hammering away at the keys again.
I have no idea what she’s found or what it means, but she’s refusing to believe it. The head shakes, the angry grumbling, the way she’s glaring at the screen, making it go blank and bringing it back says all I need to know.
After about the twentieth time, she closes the computer and turns to me. “I have to go. There’s something I have to clear up at the office. Then I’ll be back to work on this.”
Because I have no choice and because I have men following her who will tell me if she tries to lose them, I nod. No matter how much I wish I could, I can’t just keep her here indefinitely.
“Okay.”
“But I want proof these businesses are legit.”
In response, I pull out a stack of files from a locked drawer in the file cabinet. She walks to the table to stand beside me as I flip open the first folder.
“This is Demetri Turgenev. He owns a bakery. Best pryanik on the East Coast.”
Second folder. “This is Elena Ivanov. She runs the Café Dobryvnya. She’s barely making enough for payroll, and one night closed, or one doubled delivery will put an end to her business.”
The third one doesn’t have a picture because Vlad Volstov is paranoid and is sure Stalin is alive and after him. “This is Vlad. When he opens his dry-cleaning shop every morning, he brings coffee and food to the homeless people who live in the alley behind his shop.”
When I go to open another file, she covers my hand. “Fine. I get what you’re saying.”
I wait for more, but instead of speaking, she walks to the door.
“I need to go.”
“I’ll take you.”
When we walk out, I see the car first. Long. Black. Tinted. Not unlike one of my own, but still so different and out of place.
My stomach plummets. I feel for the semiautomatic I usually wear at all times, but I left it in the house, on the desk.
I only have a split second to pull Corrie down, to cover my body with hers, before the shots ring out.