Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

27. Andrik

27

ANDRIK

“ G o back.”

Konstantine scrubs at his tired eyes before doing as asked. We’ve been working nonstop for the past eight hours, attempting to infiltrate a system the world’s greatest hackers invented, so I shouldn’t be surprised that what should have been an easy task to end our day took a dramatic turn.

“There. Just before Mikhail ducks behind the pillar.”

I should have realized Zoya has too much gall for Mikhail to subdue.

There’s only one man capable of breaking her will.

It isn’t my little brother.

My chest stops expanding like a peacock’s feathers when Konstantine murmurs, “Holy fucking shit.”

He cleans up a portion of the footage Mikhail has been capturing since he commenced following Zoya home hours ago. The images are grainy because the dirtbox Zoya is utilizing as her own personal cloak of protection requires Mikhail to maintain a decent amount of distance. Finally.

“That’s—”

“Irina Ivanov,” I interrupt, my tone announcing my disbelief.

Irina is the mother of Maksim and Matvei Ivanov. Although she now goes by her maiden name, the surname cited on all her official government records is known across the globe. She is Bastian Fernandez’s first wife—heiress to one of the most notable Italian crime syndicates in the world.

Her ties to the bratva are limited, but with Matvei’s shrewd business skills having him in favor with many mafia families, and her eldest son’s business dealings across the globe reminding the federation that the bratva isn’t solely for Russian-born descendants, it is notable enough for my gut to declare caution when Konstantine cleans up the image enough to unearth who she is corresponding with.

Dr. Abdulov must have immediately returned to Myasnikov Private Hospital after our meeting today. The footage is timestamped only an hour after he left.

“He couldn’t be that stupid, surely.” Konstantine leans low in his chair before folding his arms over his chest and crinkling his dark brows. “There’s stupid, and then there’s stupid . That’s the latter.” He nudges his head to the still image of Dr. Abdulov standing across from a wheelchair-bound Irina at a nurses’ station desk in the surgical department.

I shrug. It is unexpected. My replies are usually more cut and dry.

After checking Zoya’s feed and noting it is still blank since she charged the dirtbox within minutes of Konstantine advising me it had finally gone flat, I ask, “What can you get me on Irina’s admission?” Konstantine’s fingers stop flying over the keys of his laptop when I say, “Not what the hospital’s information system says.” I wet my dry lips before straying my eyes to the command center he set up in the room next to my office earlier today. “From the system we unearthed today.”

“You clearly believe he is the latter,” Konstantine murmurs when he gets the gist of what I am requesting.

Government staff are the same as politicians. They tell you what they want you to know and only share the truth with those who need to know.

To the federation, that need rarely goes past them.

Konstantine’s fingers barely touch his keyboard over the next fifteen minutes. We can’t have our infiltration announced or we will be booted out in less than a nanosecond. He needs to follow steps already taken more than create his own. It makes it a slow and tedious search, but the result makes up for the delay.

Irina Ivanov’s admission is for the exact reason I accepted an invitation to meet with Dr. Abdulov and Dr. Azores today. Except she isn’t purchasing organs. Hers were sold to someone as desperate as me to save a loved one as I am to avenge the death of another.

After a moment of reflection not long enough to ensure I’m not making a mistake, I say, “Get me contact information for Matvei.”

Konstantine looks at me as if I have grown a second head. I’m beginning to wonder the same. Maksim has more ties to the bratva than his younger brother does, but that’s why I need to go around him. I need to be in favor to someone outside of our realm, and Matvei is the best person to help me establish that.

It takes a lot of fucking gall to potentially hurt the people you’re trying to save from the carnage, but if anyone can do it and come out stronger, it’ll be me.

With guilt that I’m taking steps that may hurt someone too young to defend himself, I log into the security feed of Zakhar’s room a little after midnight instead of slipping into bed with the woman who has my head in such a state that I refuse to wash my hands for the fear of losing her scent.

I’m not surprised to discover Zakhar is actually asleep this time. The pain medication they’ve been pumping into him via an IV over the past two weeks makes him groggy, but he’s been struggling to keep down even water the past two days, so he’s more lethargic than usual.

That’s how the doctor in charge of his care survived telling me he won’t clear him for travel. I pushed to get the answer I wanted how I always do—with violence—but no number of threats rolled the dice in my favor.

Zakhar is too sick to travel. Not even a motorcade of ambulances could guarantee he would survive the three-thousand-mile trip I wanted him to face. He’s in his final stages of life, and I feel like a complete fucking prick that I keep placing my needs before his.

If Mikhail had done the same, I wouldn’t have a future to contemplate, much less one that involved others.

The motion-detected surveillance camera announces my watch has been busted a mere second before a husky, sleep-deprived voice breaks through the speakers of my laptop. “He’s slept more than usual today, but he has also eaten more.” Under the watchful eye of a monitoring system mothers-to-be would pay out the eye to have, my father leaves the corner of Zakhar’s room where Anoushka set up a cot for him. “I think that’s a good sign, but what would I know? I was trained to read a teleprompt from the age of four. That’s as far as my skill set goes.”

This is the first time he’s announced disdain for his life plan.

It isn’t something I thought he would ever display.

I guess Zakhar’s condition is affecting more people than just me.

As he scrubs at his tired eyes, he inches closer to the camera with inbuilt speakers. “How was the meeting today? Did they have a solution?”

I’m so caught off guard by the genuine hope in his tone that I nod before recalling that he can’t see me. “They believe they can find a suitable candidate for Zak.”

“But?” my father asks, aware I left my reply short for a reason.

I don’t often take the honesty route, but when I do, I leave no stone unturned. “I don’t believe they’re the right outfitters for the job. Their work is sloppy. They leave a paper trail a mile long, and their candidates aren’t worthy of Dokovic ties.”

Usually, the mere mention of our family name would puff his chest high.

Tonight, it deflates it.

Since I know why, I say, “I will find someone more suitable.”

“We don’t have time to find someone else, Andrik.” The camera follows his eyes as they drift to Zakhar, who stirs from his roar. “Zakhar doesn’t have time. He needs a new heart.”

“That I will find him,” I shout back, my voice just as loud, my anger as palpable even via a speaker. “But not like this. Not at the expense of everything I’ve been working toward.”

My marriage initially commenced as a way to find out what happened to my mother and why she and the many other women before and after her disappeared either hours after discovering they were expecting a daughter, or within days of their son’s fifth birthday.

It wasn’t meant to be about appeasing the federation’s every want with the hope that they’d supply my half-brother with a heart he so desperately needs.

The only reason I’ve continued my ruse is because Zakhar’s condition is bringing the main players out far sooner than the possible months it could take Arabella to conceive. He’s demanding the attention of the hierarchies I will take down. I’m just confused as to why.

Mikhail is closer to the imaginary throne my family governs than Zakhar, but remains so far off the federation’s radar he could knock up a dozen hookers and no one would bat an eyelash.

There’s more at play here than I am being told, but I won’t know what it is until I’m buried so deep in the federation’s underbelly they’ll never get me back out.

The reminder adds a ton of angst to my voice—angst I am not used to handling. “For how much you are asking of me, the least you could do is trust me.”

“I do?—”

My huff cuts him off.

He doesn’t trust me because he doesn’t trust anyone.

It wasn’t solely my mother the federation forced from his life. Mikhail’s mother walked the same narrow corridor with the same faceless men. It was just a year earlier than planned since the unborn child in her stomach was a girl.

“If he?—”

I cut him off again. “There are no ifs. Life is too short for ifs and buts.” My eyes bounce between his suddenly wet pair not even a grainy feed can hide when I whisper in a deadly tone, “You should know that better than anyone.”

Needing to end our exchange before I’m tempted to express myself how I usually do when snowed under—with my fists—I click out of the feed of Zakhar’s room, losing one set of worldly eyes.

The pair I didn’t notice straight away are more notable than my father’s, more seeped in history. They belong to my grandfather, and although they put my head in as much of a state as Zoya’s unexpected visit to his palatial mansion today, I have a solution to my problem. An out for my angst.

I have the perfect outlet for emotions I haven’t handled in years, and for the first time in a month, she is only a thirty-minute drive away.