“Arkady Markova.”
“It has been him all this while. The useless man has siphoned millions,” he explained. “To the same account he uses for his illegal dealings.”
“Now,thatis an issue,” I muttered, annoyance crawling up my skin.
My phone vibrated.
Viktor was calling.
“Hello, brother,” I greeted, sighing in a bid to switch gears.
“Roman,” he uttered in a no-bullshit tone that told me it was pointless.
He already knew; nothing evades the Pakhan, after all.
“Arkady has made a dangerous move. The account he sent all the money to is very bad for us; if any light comes to it, the public cover of the charities will go down with him. And that could be anytime now, considering how stupid his decision to steal from us is. It’s a huge risk that we can’t take. The facade is your jurisdiction; you have to stop him, or it all burns to the ground.”
“I’ll contain this. I’m on it as we speak,” I assured.
“Good. Stop at nothing short of that,” he uttered, his words a compliment and a warning.
“A sit-down with Arkady as soon as possible,” I told Stepan, dropping my phone. “Find out exactly where he is at the moment.”
“Already on it, boss.”
I shot to my feet, walking towards the glass walls.
“The motherfucker,” I muttered, pacing slowly.
As the face of the Lobanov Bratva’s ‘clean business,’ Arkady’s actions directly affected me. I clenched my teeth as I tried to contain the anger that was slowly morphing into fury inside of me. That tiny old bug Arkady had been stealing from me with no idea of how his greed was creating webs of complication.
But I knew I needed to keep a level head, even though I could already visualize how I’d slowly gut the bastard when I saw him.
So I blew out a breath and went back to my seat as Stepan typed on his phone.
He placed a file over the open dossier in front of me.
“His daughter, Elizaveta,” he disclosed.
I opened the file, skimming the papers. Her face was one I had seen before—in fact, I was sure I’d met her more than once. There were blog posts, glossy photos, and newspaper headlines calling her ‘Russia’s Princess of Philanthropy.’
Of course, she’s a part of his act.
“She’s quite the star in Russia,” Stepan said, placing his phone on the desk. “She runs his public events.”
Just as I closed the file, his phone pinged, and he picked it up again.
“He’s no longer in Russia,” Stepan divulged. “Only his daughter is still visible. She’s hosting a ribbon-cutting in St. Petersburg tonight.”
“If the king runs, we take the princess.”
Chapter Two
Liza’s POV
I woke up slowly. Some days were like that. Days when I imagined what it would feel like to wake up in a different place, as a different person, born of different parents. Days when I wondered how many decisions concerning me were being made behind my back. Days when I wished I could just snap a finger and all the mysteries on my mind would magically unravel. Days like that had been frequent recently.
I forced my body off the bed and, hugging the ends of my cream-colored satin sleepwear closer, I made my way to my bathroom.
