Page 2 of Surprise Bratva Daddy
But something has happened, and my palms are sweating as I move the cursor over to the folder that has appeared in my file explorer. It’s labeled with the word DATA, but there’s nothing else telling me what’s inside.
As long as it’s not a program, I’ll click on it. I want to know who this belongs to so that I return it to them. The idea that it’s anything exciting is quickly fading. It’s probably just work stuff, accidentally left in my mailbox by someone’s coworker.
I push my hair back, finding more sweat at the roots. I feel a little prickle on my scalp as the cool air meets my skin, then a shiver down my spine as I decide to open the folder.
There’s only one file, an Excel document that’s labeled STOCKS. This is a little more interesting, a little more telling as to what I’m dealing with. Maybe this has to do with finance, but my little town isn’t exactly known for its financial district.
That’s a bit of a joke, actually, because we don’t even have one. The only places to work here are in retail and the occasional slow-moving government job.
I hover over the file, right clicking it and checking the metadata. I’m surprised when there isn’t any. Everything is blank, including the creation date and author. There’s nothing at all for me to discover without opening it.
I guess I’ll just have to open it. What’s the worst that could happen?
My finger moves before my brain processes what I’m doing, double clicking the file to open it. The white light of a spreadsheet glows brighter than the morning sun peeking through the curtains, but it’s not the brightness that causes me to pull my head back from the screen.
It’s the information in the spreadsheet, and now I’m certain I’m in trouble.
Deep, deep trouble.
2
Zane
“Eight ball, corner pocket.” I point to the far end of the table where Kiro is standing with his stick before leaning over the table and finishing the game.
It’s a clean shot, but inside, my mind is chaos. I’m good at hiding it. I always hide how I feel from people, no matter how close they are to me.
Kiro lets out a deep sigh, unable to hide his emotions as well as I can. He tosses his stick onto the table and begins digging the balls out of the pockets, tossing them onto the green velvet table.
“You’re too good at this. Maybe give someone else a chance for once,” Kiro says as I light a cigar under the guise of celebrating my victory. He had a thousand dollars on this game, which is now in my wallet.
To a multi-millionaire, that’s nothing, though. All I care about is a little flash drive that will turn my millions into billions overnight, and it was supposed to arrive here an hour ago. I’m nervous that something happened to it.
“You talked to the courier last night, right?” I ask as Kiro starts arranging the glossy pool balls on the table. I bet he wants a rematch. Double or nothing.
He looks up at me, a frown pulling together his already tight features. “The one on the phone with the deep voice? He sounded like a robot.”
“Robots don’t deliver packages, at least not yet,” I grumble. “What time did he say he was going to come with the delivery?”
Kiro glances at his watch, a gold Rolex that’s standard issue in my organization. Every high-ranking member has one, and they’re all set to the exact same time, down to the millisecond.
Nobody under me ever has an excuse to be late, but the courier isn’t part of our mafia group. He’s with another organization ran by a man named Tema. We’re related somehow, hailing from the same small town in Russia, but neither of us have bothered to explore the connection.
We work together when it benefits us, and the package from the courier requires more cash than he has on hand right now to fully exploit. I’m in charge of handling this for both of us, but if there’s an issue with the courier, I’m not sure we’re going to be doing much business together in the future.
Sloppy deals are a bad omen. If one thing goes bad, the whole plan starts to collapse like a house of cards. One wrong breath. One wrong move. Don’t flinch, or you will lose everything.
I can’t afford to lose this deal. You don’t come across opportunities like this very often, and fumbling it would be disastrous, not only for my own personal finances, but also for my relationship with Tema.
Kiro looks up at me from his watch, shaking his head. “Thirty minutes late, unless he left the delivery at the front desk.”
“They would’ve called me,” I mumble, double checking my phone. “No calls. We’re going to have to go down there and check, but this isn’t good. That package is important.”
“No double or nothing, then, I assume,” Kiro says, cracking a smile.
I chuckle with him, but inside, I’m not happy. This package is more important than anything I’ve dealt with in the past twenty years in the mafia. If the courier messed up the address or got intercepted, I might just start showing my emotions, and that won’t be pretty.
“Let’s go downstairs and check,” I say. “If there’s a problem, I’m going to need to leave early to speak with Tema.
