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I want her to get this out of her system. Let her push on the walls of that cage now because the sooner she does, the sooner she’ll realize she won’t ever escape.
If she were a man, she’d already be six feet under, and we’d be planning our strategy to take on the LSD. But she isn’t a man.
Oh, hell, she is not a man.
I take the call at the kitchen table—my iPad set up with a dual screen with Isabella’s sleeping form on the left side, my brothers on the other.
“Morning,” I tell them while I fire up the espresso machine.
“Well, good morning, sunshine,” Aleks says with a smirk. “How was your night?”
I snort and pull out a mug. I wonder if she drinks coffee and, if she does, how she takes it. I set my mug in place and hit the button, the rich, decadent smell of hot espresso filling the room. I turn to face the camera. “Exhausting,” I tell him honestly. “But I can’t say this is the worst job I’ve ever had.”
Mikhail smiles grimly. “Did she reveal anything to you when you interrogated her?”
I warm milk and frown, thinking it over. I hit the froth button and watch the milk churn. “More than she knows,” I say with a shrug. I pour the foam into my mug, turn, and sit back down at the table. I glance at the screen before I elaborate. She turns over in her sleep, maybe thinking of waking up. The blanket’s fallen to the side, revealing her perfect form. She starts to stretch.
“Gonna fill us in?” Viktor says darkly, leaning over in front of the screen with a scowl. He will never forgive her for sneaking onto his property unnoticed. He takes it as a personal threat against his wife.
He’s not wrong.
“Yeah. I’m monitoring her on another screen. So, there’s no tracking device on her at all. She really is on her own, which is telling in its own way. I know nothing else about why she’s here.”
Mikhail stares at the video camera in front of him. “Did you really interrogate her, brother? I know it’s harder with her being a woman.”
I take a sip out of my mug before I answer. I nod. “I did. I could’ve continued, but she was exhausted and worn out. So was I. It was a long fucking day. She almost escaped, too.”
Mikhail chuckles. “And how’d that work out for her?”
I shrug. “She didn’t get far.”
“I found out some shit,” Aleks says, looking down at his tablet. “And it corroborates what you’re saying, Lev.”
“Go on,” I say, leaning back in my chair, my gaze locked on Aleks.
He looks up from his tablet. “Isabella’s brother has been making some moves. His alliances are shifting, and he’s burned some big fucking bridges. It looks like he’s preparing for something huge.”
I tense, my grip tightening on my mug. “Like what?”
Aleks taps a few times on his tablet, pulling up a series of documents and photos. “He’s been in contact with some of our old enemies. There’s talk of some kind of seismic power shift, obviously it’s something to do with dismantling what we’ve built here in The Cove.
Mikhail curses. When he took over as pakhan in the wake of my father’s death, his first plan was to destroy our biggest adversaries. However, it was like eliminating fucking weeds from a garden. As soon as we removed the threat of the largest one, smaller, resilient ones popped up. No one wants to see us get stronger, but with each year that passes, that’s exactly what we’ve done.
We’ve come to expect challenges. But the LSD may be the most significant challenge we’ve faced.
Mikhail’s expression grows serious. “And Isabella? How does she fit into all of this?”
Aleks shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe her brother’s using her to be eyes and ears for the cartel. Maybe she’s more involved in his operations than we initially thought.”
I shake my head. For some reason, I don’t believe that to be true. Isabella is not the type of person to be used by any man, and she can’t disguise the raw hatred she has for her brother. Aleks continues. “Maybe her presence here isn’t a coincidence. Perhaps she was sent to gather intel, to find our weaknesses.”
“No… I don’t think that’s it. Regardless, she’s still absolutely a threat to us, but I haven’t gotten to why yet. I’d bet my life she’s not working for her brother. Did you find out anything else?”
“Yeah,” Aleks continues. “Well, Aria did anyways.” Mikhail’s wife Aria is even more skilled than Aleks, often finding hidden layers of information that give us a broader, more holistic picture of the world around us and the threats lurking therein. “She dug deep into her background. You may be right, Lev, because it seems she hasn’t been entirely loyal to her family. There are rumors of her sabotaging their operations. Things like freeing captives, especially women who were meant to be sold. Going against direct orders, etcetera.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “I bet her brother loved that.”
“Yeah,” Aleks says. “There’s a record here of an emergency visit last year. Looks like she had a broken arm and black eye.” My vision turns hazy red, and my cup clatters to the table. Only a fucking pussy raises a hand like that to a woman. A fucking pussy.
