Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

11. Andrik

11

ANDRIK

M y fists ball when the security server monitoring Mikhail’s apartment displays an error. I’m meant to be going over last quarter’s profit and loss statement with the CFO of my company, but I’ve spent the last forty-five minutes scrolling through the surveillance I had my security team hack into minutes after arriving at my hotel for a meeting I couldn’t get out of.

As he advised earlier, Mikhail shut down the cameras inside his penthouse. My security team had them back in operation up until two minutes ago. I got kicked out a second after Mikhail announced Zoya had seen him naked, and no matter how much code I fill the screen with, it won’t come back online.

“Why isn’t it fucking working?” My anger is too high to contain for a second longer.

Mikhail won’t touch Zoya. He’s too cunning to play a hand he knows will only ever win him a bullet hole between his brows, but there wasn’t an ounce of untruth in his eyes when he leered up at the camera before making his bold statement.

That fucker pranced around Zoya naked, most likely during their lengthy exchange in the walk-in closet and bathroom facilities that have no cameras, and the knowledge of that has the gun on my hip as heavy as it was when my surveillance team caught him removing the note I’d left with Zoya’s orange juice, requesting for her to wait for me at Mikhail’s apartment.

Melor, my CFO, looks at me as if I’ve lost my marbles.

I’m on the cusp of agreeing with him.

I don’t pine over women. I sleep with them and then move on. That was the principle of finding a reared-for-the-task bride for my latest campaign. There’s just something about Zoya that flipped my life plan on its head.

I want to blame Mikhail’s interest in her. He can rile me like no one else can because he knows he’ll never be buried in a shallow grave others would face for their insolence. I can’t, however.

I researched Zoya’s condition for hours last night.

I stalked social media for the hope of unearthing the fools she’d previously permitted in her bed.

I slipped back between the sheets before pulling her into my arms to catch a couple of hours of sleep while spooning her like a soft cock.

Mikhail was there for none of that.

It was all me.

Yet for some fucked-up reason, I wouldn’t change a single thing about last night.

Well, except for that one part I’m still endeavoring to fix.

I’m reminded that I asked a question when Melor endeavors to answer it. “The figures are good, Kazimir. Profits are on a steady inc?—”

“Not the figures. I don’t give a fuck about the figures.” That’s a shock for everyone in the room, including me. Money usually comes before anything and anyone. “I’m talking about the surveillance in Mikhail’s building. Why can’t I see what’s happening in the elevator?”

My answer comes from the man I make sit in on my meetings so my wealth never extends further than this very room. “It’s being blocked by a portable dirtbox.”

Thank fuck Konstantine isn’t a man I have to pry answers out of. He coughs up the goods as regularly as he beds hookers.

“It impedes camera frequencies and phone signals. Pretty much anything with radio waves with one click of a button.” My jaw firms to the point of cracking. “Mikhail was seeking one a couple of weeks back. Right around the time you started that…”

His words trail off as his eyes stray to the stack of files I left Mikhail’s apartment with. I have no intention of using them—my grave has been dug. I merely didn’t want to leave Mikhail with more ammunition to use against me.

He’s already got the charm that makes the ladies weak at the knees.

I just don’t see his gimmicks working on Zoya.

She doesn’t want a sentimental schmuck who’ll make her breakfast in bed and massage her feet when they’re sore. She wants to be taken hard and fast. Fucked. She wants to be claimed by a madman who’ll send hitmen to her exes’ doors because he can’t stand the thought of any man seeing her how he saw her last night.

I will do precisely that once I find them.

Zoya’s online presence is as limited as my patience.

“Can you work past the block?”

I slam down my laptop screen with so much force it cracks when Konstantine shakes his head. “I designed it so it can’t be overridden. Its range is short, though.”

I doubt it is as short as my temper.

“The server will resume broadcasting the instant he is twenty feet out of frame.”

It takes me longer than I care to admit to work through the barrier Mikhail is attempting to throw up. The delay ensures it is nothing short of brilliant. “Extend the brief I gave you this morning. Add any discrepancies to our servers to your reports. I want to know if a camera is offline for even a second.”

When I couldn’t find any information on Zoya this morning, I put a tail on her instead. She’ll be able to move freely, but each step will be monitored.

Well, they would have been if my punk-ass brother hadn’t tossed himself into the ring of a fight he’ll never win.

Konstantine jerks up his chin before his focus shifts to his laptop. He only types one line of code when a clear warning to pull in my theatrics smacks into me.

“Who is this girl, Kazimir?” My father stands from the chair he begrudgingly sat in at the commencement of our meeting and paces closer to my desk. “Is she someone we need to be worried about?”

He says we as if we’re a team, completely neglecting how often he’s only ever looked out for himself since I was five.

Unsurprisingly, his comradery doesn’t linger for long.

“Do I need my team on this?”

“No.” I almost use my frequently spoken “she’s no one” line. I don’t see it playing out how it generally would, so I devise another tactic.

I fucked up by exposing my hand, but they don’t call me The Fox for no reason. I’m sly, intelligent, and adaptable—more cunning than anyone in this room. And it is proven without a doubt when I say, “She was placed on my radar when she was spotted with Mikhail’s keys last night.”

Just like that, my father’s interest wanes.

“Mikhail?” He chokes on laughter. “All this worry for a bitch in heat hoping to sink her hooks into a Dokovic nowhere near the top of the pyramid.” Huffing, he returns to his seat, unbuttoning his suit jacket on the way. “I give it until the end of the week before her cum melds in with the other hundreds of samples smeared on his sheets.”

He drags his eyes across the room, missing my spasming jaw. I thought leaving Zoya to rest was the amicable thing to do. I like my women floppy with sexual exhaustion, not genuine fatigue. I didn’t consider the possibility of another man smelling the delectable scent of her multiple arousals.

That man may be my brother, but the itch to kill still floods my veins when I imagine him dragging his nose across the sheets we made sticky with more than sweat.

“Half of the Chelabini female population has been in Mikhail’s bed at some stage over the past six months. Promiscuity is the only trait he inherited from me.”

My father’s snarky comment gets a laugh out of the fools unaware of the repercussions they’ll face for siding with him. The only people not grinning are Konstantine and me. We know he’s not finished yet. His “solutions” always include bloodshed—even for a son he considers below his league.

“Still, I’ll get someone on my team to unearth where her interests lie.”

His hand freezes halfway into the breast pocket of his jacket when I snap out, “I said no. I’ve got a handle on it.”

My father takes a moment to authenticate the legitimacy of the threat in my tone before he removes his hand from his pocket and slumps low in his chair. “I’m just trying to be helpful.”

He isn’t, but I’ll pretend that this is the only lie he’s ever told me by focusing my attention on Konstantine, who’s been inconspicuously trying to obtain it for the past two minutes instead of my gun.

Upon realizing he has my focus, Konstantine spins his laptop around to face me. Hundreds of cameras monitor the guests and staff of the Broadbent Hotel, so the pattern of their failures over the past five minutes announces one thing.

Zoya has landed on my turf.

Unfortunately, so the fuck has the devil I’ve been avoiding this morning.