Page 156 of The Bratva King

The sound that comes out of me is not even a scream at first. The animalistic, keening noise boils up through my chest and tears out of my throat. I don’t remember falling, but suddenly, I’m on the floor.

“Gabby.” Nikolai drops to his knees in front of me and cups my face. “Gabby. Look at me.”

“Tell me.”

I’m shaking so hard that my teeth are chattering.

“Tell me,” he says louder.

“They didn’t take Luke because of you.” The words come out in pieces. “This wasn’t about your casino.”

Something shifts in his eyes. “Who?”

I close my eyes. Five years of running and sleeping with one eye open wasn’t enough. Nikolai’s protection isn’t enough.

“My name is Gabriella,” I say. “Gabriella Castellano.”

His hands fall from my face.

“I was eighteen when my father forced me to marry Matteo Castellano.”

38

Nikolai

I guide her off the floor and back into the chair across from my desk. I lean against the desk with my arms crossed and watch her.

“Keep talking.”

Her eyes are unfocused. She’s somewhere else.

“Gabby. I need to know all of it.”

She looks at me, but she’s not the same Gabby from last night. This is a woman barely holding on.

“My father was connected,” she says. “Not like you. Smaller. But he had relationships. Favors owed. Matteo Castellano was the son of the don’s younger brother. My father wanted money and protection.” Her voice is flat. “I was the payment for my father’s advancement in the organization.”

Daughters are currency in our world. They shouldn’t be, but that’s reality.

“I was eighteen. I didn’t have a choice. You didn’t say no to my father.” She exhales slowly through her nose. “Matteo was twenty-five years older than me. I was his third wife. The first two died in accidents.”

My jaw tightens. I keep my face still. She doesn’t have to fill in the details. I already know.

She looks at her hands again. “He had a temper. His goal was an heir.”

She told me she’d never had an orgasm. I understood what she endured. I swallow my rage.

“Go on.”

“I saw things. I heard things. I kept my head down and paid attention.” She pulls in a breath. “When I realized I had enough to put him away, I went to the FBI.”

And now I understand the identity Pasha couldn’t trace.

“An agent named Greg Jones. He’d been building a case for two years, and he had almost nothing. I had everything.” Her voice doesn’t waver. “When I found out I was pregnant, I told Greg I needed out. I provided the evidence needed to put several of them away.” She pauses. “Matteo was supposed to go away, too.”

“Supposed to.”

“Car bomb. He exploded right in front of me.”