Deceitful Vows (Marital Privileges #2)

43. Andrik

43

ANDRIK

“ A nything yet?”

Konstantine has been with me for years, so he knows who my query centers around even with me not saying her name.

After a quick breath that flares his nostrils, he shakes his head. “You’ll be the first I inform when I find her.” His next words are barely a whisper, but I still hear them. “Perhaps you should send Mikhail out in the field. It’s his dirtbox making my life fucking difficult.”

I had considered his suggestion. The thought only lingered for thirty seconds. It wasn’t solely jealousy that squashed it like a bug. It was knowing there’s no better man to explain to Zoya why I need to continue with my ruse than me.

As I said weeks ago, betrothed or not, she wants me.

She will have me. There’s just a handful more obstacles I need to find my way around first.

“If she had kept her necklace on, we wouldn’t be facing so many issues.”

Yes, I placed a tracker in Zoya’s necklace. It wasn’t solely to keep an eye on her. It is the fact the diamond would cost over eight million dollars to replace. A tracker lowers its insurance premium.

Yeah, right .

Konstantine only shared the tracker’s brilliance with me after I instructed the jeweler to place it in Zoya’s necklace.

Konstantine hums in agreement as his focus returns to his laptop. After his brows furrow, he releases the breath he just sucked in.

“What is it?”

Mindful there are more strangers in my house this morning than there has been the prior ten years, he twists his laptop around to face me so I can unearth my own answer instead of him vocalizing it.

With my ruse back in full swing, a handful of Arabella’s school friends arrived for her bachelorette party tonight. Although I’m frustrated by how many people are trampling my personal space, this is only one skit of many I’ll be forced to endure while endeavoring to secure Zakhar a new heart. It is by far the least harmful since the festivities are about to move to a hotel not too far from my home base. It is the same hotel I have a meeting at with Maksim Ivanov tomorrow morning, though he may need to postpone if the footage Konstantine is showing me is un-doctored.

Matvei must have gotten word to his older brother. Maksim is as gung-ho for revenge as I was only weeks ago, but he’s gunning for immediate blood.

“Has his body been found yet?”

The murderous gleam in Maksim’s eyes as he guides Dr. Abdulov down an isolated alleyway tells me everything I need to know. Dr. Abdulov won’t leave their exchange breathing.

Days ago, I would have been pleased.

Now I feel the opposite.

Dr. Abdulov was an easy solution to my predicament. I wouldn’t have even needed to blackmail him to find Zakhar a new heart. He, and many of his colleagues, work for one thing and one thing only. Profit.

There’s only one doctor I haven’t been able to lure onto my payroll with a heap of coin. It is the same man I let live because he kept Zoya safe before I took over the role I was born to live.

“Send someone to Dr. Hemway’s safe haven.”

You have no clue how hard it is to send others to do my bidding. It isn’t solely the trust I have to instill that they will represent me in the right manner, but also that it makes it seem as if my contact is more a business endeavor than a personal venture.

This is as personal as it gets—in more ways than one.

“Dr. Hemway?” Konstantine checks, lost.

His bewilderment intensifies when I jerk up my chin. “Dr. Makarand said congenital heart defects are genetic.”

“So Zakhar’s mother couldn’t have been properly vetted by the federation,” Konstantine adds, clicking on. “They would have never let her get this far if they knew she had a hereditary condition.”

“Exactly,” I agree. “Someone fucked up. Most likely on purpose. If we can find out who that is, perhaps we can convince them to tell us who else is willing to do the same.”

I glare at him when he mutters, “You’ll just need to keep your bullets out of their skulls long enough to get answers when we find them.” When the heat of my stare becomes too much for him to bear, he huffs out, “I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done the same. Dr. Makarand was getting too big for his britches.” His dark eyes flick up. “As is he.”

I work my jaw side to side when Dr. Fairmont is greeted in the driveway of my home by Dina. She air kisses his cheeks before gesturing for him to come in.

“This is his third visit this week.”

“Fourth,” Konstantine corrects. “He dropped off some pamphlets yesterday afternoon.”

He clicks on his keyboard a handful of times before bringing up the footage he is referring to. The pamphlets are similar to the ones Dr. Hemway gave Zoya during her last visit, but they’re excluding risqué cartoon character art.

Does that mean what I think it does? Was Arabella’s first attempt at conception unsuccessful for reasons other than me praying long and fucking hard for a negative outcome?

If so, perhaps I should be paying more attention to my wife than the occasional grunt I’ve directed at her over the past month.

When my eyes dart from Dr. Fairmont to Dina, the heat of my gaze shifts her focus to me. She startles, as if surprised by my watch, before she bows out of our stare down with a faint smile.

That’s unexpected. She usually fights tooth and nail to gain my attention, even more so when someone keeping her daughter in my favor is close by.

The changeup ensures I was wrong to place an extra set of eyes on only my father. Dina deserves her own shadow, and for once, that cast won’t be instigated by her daughter.

Konstantine looks up from his laptop when I say, “If Dr. Fairmont so much as gets within a foot of Arabella with a vial of my sperm, take him out.”

The federation wants Arabella to be their next First Lady. Their terms state nothing about her birthing an heir. Now that I know why that is, there’s no longer any reason for me to continue with that side of my deception. I will find out what happened to my mother, and with Zak’s fifth birthday looming, it may be soon.

Konstantine’s grin leaps onto my face when he mutters, “It’ll be my pleasure.”