Paying The Bratva’s Debt by Cole, Jagger (best classic books to read .txt) 📕

She yells back. “I’m sorry, Viktor. I’m sorry that Lev doesn’t see it, or anyone else. But you’re…” she shakes her head. “Your guard is down with her. Your suspicions aren’t raised as they should be.”

“Nina…”

“Sacrifice the rook so that the king may fall.” She glares at me. “You taught me that yourself when you were teaching me chess, Victor. Look at Joey Drucci. He stalls you for months, and then one meeting with the cute little miss lawyer, and he gives it to you for less than half of what you were offering before?”

“She tricked him. She used his paranoia of Federal surveillance to—”

“Or she tricked you, Viktor. Or she was perfectly set up to fall into your lap back at Thomas’s office. Young, beautiful, innocent, doe-eyed? She’s perfect for you, Viktor. If you see it, so do your enemies.”

I stand slowly. I’m angry, but I’m at least trying to see this from the perspective of Nina trying to protect me.

“I always appreciate your counsel, Nina. You know that. But I think we’re done here—”

“Who ‘stumbled across’ the two men at the factory site the other day?”

I snarl. “She was being threatened, Nina. They were going to—”

“They looked like they were going to.” She glares at me. “Sacrifice the rook so that the king may fall. The factory? Those low-level stooges? Those were Joey’s rook. He’ll get the land back when the king…” she jabs a finger at me. “Falls.”

I stare at her. “You honestly think Fiona Murray, daughter of the District Attorney and probably our next Mayor, is somehow working with a mid-level thug like Joey Drucci to take me out? Are you listening to yourself?”

“Are you!?” she snaps back. “Maybe it’s not just Joey. Maybe she and her father are working with him to get to you. I mean you’re hanging a sword above his fucking head, Viktor. At some point, the idea has to have crossed Thomas’s mind that getting rid of you would get rid of a whole lot of his problems.”

My jaw grinds. My eyes level with her.

“I’m sorry, Viktor. I don’t relish hammering this theory. But who knew you were even visiting the factory the other day?”

“Lev is looking into it.”

“I’m sure he is. But we both know that your people are loyal to the death to you.” She pauses. “Me included.”

I look down. “I know that, Nina.”

“So what’s the variable. Who’s the variable?”

I glare at the desk. My teeth grind, and my hands grip the edge of it with a dangerous strength.

“I need a moment, Nina.”

She nods quietly. “I’m really sorry. I mean that. I just…”

“I know,” I growl quietly.

When Nina quietly files out of my office, I snarl. I pace the floor behind my desk, seething. I know she’s just doing what she does. But I hate that she’s planted this seed of doubt in my head. I hate that it’s taking root, too. I pace the floor another minute, before the ticking time bomb in my head finally clicks, and pops.

I sit down at the computer and bring up the software that has Fiona’s phone mirrored on to it. I look through her history, her texts, her call logs—anything I might have missed. There’s nothing in her texts. No emails, nothing sketchy in her browsing history. But then my eyes narrow on the call log.

She’s called her father—five times in the last few days. All while I’ve been… preoccupied with her. I was monitoring her phone before. But I haven’t been since the night I took her to bed. When I think about it, I haven’t really been monitoring it all that much before that, either.

I look further back, and my heart grows harder. There’s another two calls to her father from the very day of the attack at the factory. And they’re both from right before we left. My jaw clenches. My eyes burn into the screen before I swear violently.

I storm out of the office. My mood on the way back up the stairs is the polar opposite of what it was when I came down. I’m snarling when I get to Fiona’s quarters. She’s still in my room, probably waiting for me. I know this is a gross violation of trust. But the seed has been planted. The doubt is there, like it or not.

I’m not even sure what I’m looking for. But I look nevertheless. I root around her bathroom, dumping out toiletries and poking under towels. I tear clothes from the closet and empty drawers, fury on my face. I want to be wrong. I want to find nothing. But those calls to her father, and Drucci’s men waiting for us? It’s too much of a coincidence, even if it’s a painful one.

I finally storm back into the bedroom. My eyes land on the vanity she’s been using as a desk. I ruffle violently through the papers and files on the top before I yank the drawer out. I’m about to dump it entirely. But my eyes land on the first thing they see, and I freeze.

“What the fuck…”

I pull out the legal pad covered in her handwriting and stare at it. It’s… evidence, for lack of a better word. Testimony. It’s a list of things she’s seen being under my roof—everything from her being here against her will to minute little bullshit like my guards carrying illegal, fully automatic guns. I glare at it, seething. It might not be the smoking gun, but it’s one more bullet to my heart.

“Viktor?”

I whirl on her, a snarl on my face. “What the fuck is this?” I hiss, brandishing the notepad.

Her face turns white. “Viktor… I…”

“Answer me!”

“It’s just words!” She yells back. “I was angry!”

“Angry?” I snarl. “You were angry, so you—”

“I was angry because you kidnapped me! Viktor, you took me, against my will, to settle a fucking Bratva debt! That’s it! Full stop! What happened since then is…” she blushes and looks down. “It’s changed things, even since I wrote that.”

“But at the end of