Page 45 of Vow Of Fire

I shook my head. I swear, if someone had told me, even two days ago, that this was how my month was going to pan out, I would have jumped off the George Washington Bridge right then and there.

“Who would do this?” I whispered, raising my head to look at him.

“That’s what I was about to ask you.” Dante looked at me with an expression I didn’t recognize. Was that…? No, it couldn’t be. Concern?

I knew he wasn’t capable of that.

“How should I know?” Hot tears stung my eyes. I blinked furiously, determined not cry in front of him.

“Does anybody have a reason to break into your apartment?” he asked.

“Like what?” I was beginning to feel like I was stuck in some crazy nightmare where nothing made any sense. Alice in Wonderland, except this version featured the mafia, money laundering, and drug smuggling.

He shot me an exasperated look. “Like valuables? Artwork? Pure unadulterated hatred?”

I crossed my arms, hugging myself. “Of course not. Any art I have is kept at the gallery under lock and key, and I don’t really own any other valuables. A couple of pieces of jewelry, maybe, but nothing worth stealing.”

“What about enemies?” He slanted an eyebrow at me.

“Other than you, no,” I responded, with a scathing look.

He smirked. “What about Malakov?”

“Why would Sergei break into my apartment?”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “He could be worried you figured out he was using your gallery to launder his money, so decided to silence you.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” I croaked, feeling nauseous.

His tone was icy. “If you think that, you don’t know Malakov.”

“Oh God.” I was seriously going to throw up. I couldn’t imagine Sergei wanting to kill me too. What the hell had I gotten myself into here?

I felt Dante’s gaze on me.

“You all right?” he asked.

I gave a brittle laugh. “No, actually. Thanks for asking. I feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. When I looked up, he was staring at me with that unreadable expression on his face.

“Well, now we have your laptop, we can figure out who that payment was from.”

Was that all he cared about? I bit back a sob. Obviously.

I took several deep breaths to calm myself. Maybe it would help if I shifted away from that problem and focused on another one. “I found more.”

He paused. “More payments?”

“More questionable payments,” I clarified. “While you were out, I went through all the transactions over the last two years and highlighted the ones where I know the sales prices were inflated. I thought they were just good deals at the time, but now…” I petered off. I’d definitely learned a thing or two in the last few days.

“Show me,” he barked.

He could have said please, but too shattered to argue, I got up to fetch the documents and brought them back to the table.

“I’m assuming none of these are transactions by your… er, family?”

He glanced down at the list. “No.”