Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

41. Andrik

41

ANDRIK

O ne hundred thousand in cash, delivered to me, in person, by close of business tomorrow night. If you can achieve that, I’ll stay away from your son.

I wet my lips before rewinding the video clip Konstantine forwarded to me this evening. With Zoya’s name associated with the footage, I had planned to immediately watch it, but I was approached by a key member of Zakhar’s medical team, so I set it aside for when I was alone.

Now I’m glad.

I wear jealous as obviously as every other fool. That’s not a look a man should express when standing across from his alleged wife.

One hundred thousand in cash, delivered to me, in person ? —

I slam down my laptop before I can hear the remainder of Zoya’s demand again. Since the cracking of the screen offers little relief to my anger, I send my laptop flying across the room. It crashes into a bookshelf in my office before crumbling into pieces on the floor.

“Why didn’t Lilia stop her from going on stage?”

I’m fucking furious Zoya put a price on our relationship, but I also understand that sometimes you’ve got to fight fire with fire. My father was railroading her. He had her cornered, so she pushed back. Was it in a way I approve of? Fuck no. But that is a matter for us to handle in private, after I’ve waded through the shit raining down on me, and when there isn’t three thousand miles between us.

Zoya’s ass will need to travel just as long to recover once I’m done with her.

“Lilia was not aware she was performing until she was already on stage,” Konstantine answers, his voice low, as if he knows I’m one measly millimeter from losing my cool.

“How can that be? Lilia?—”

“Was given the day off.”

“By whom?” Confusion hits me first when he spins around his laptop screen to show me the email forwarded to Lilia this morning. It is quickly replaced with fury. “Anoushka doesn’t sign off her emails with her job title. She’s family, not staff, so she’d never pretend otherwise.” Konstantine jerks up his chin in agreement. “Find out who really sent that email. I want a name by the a.m.”

Again, he nods.

His brisk shake does little to hide his smirk when I add another task to his list.

“And send extermination orders for anyone who didn’t immediately recognize Zoya. I don’t issue no touch orders for fun.”

My jaw tightens when Konstantine asks, “The men who stayed after she removed her shirt or just her skirt?”

I could offer leniency. The men who remained seated around the stage wouldn’t have seen more than they would have if Zoya was at the beach, but after the day I’ve had, I’m at my limit of pleasantries. I’m fucking done.

“Both.”

Konstantine smiles the way he did when he hand-delivered the last man on the list of names Zoya unknowingly compiled for me when she joined a social media site two weeks ago. Her exes came out of the woodwork faster than I could take them down, meaning someone got word to the final man I need to return her tally to one.

He went into hiding— went being the prominent part of my confession.

He’ll be dead when I get two seconds to breathe without someone from the federation calculating exactly how much air I’m intaking.