All the hairs on the back of my neck rise as Bambi and the others stand behind me. I don’t trust them for a second, but I don’t let them sense how vulnerable I feel, either.
I have everything under control until the noxious bitch leans close but talks loud in her broken English as she passes to standin the front to lead the procession. “In our culture and traditions, brides wear red.”
For good measure, she waves her fingers, the motion likely done to draw my gaze to the ring she’s got on her ring finger. Well, the new one that sits next to her larger copy of my engagement ring.
I think I’m meant to be horrified by her suggestion that she’s already married to Sergey. I want nothing she has, especially him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
KADE
I’m clenching every muscle in my body so hard, my asshole hurts.
The rage I feel is all-consuming. I want to pay attention to her, and I mean, I am, but I’m also hoping someone does something stupid, and I can explode and let out some of what I feel.
So much fucking torment.
And just as much conflict and guilt.
A whole lot of my fury is directed at myself for being so fucking blind to what I should have seen. A shit ton more of what I’m feeling lies squarely athisfeet.
Perhaps there should be some sort of comfort in the fact the file we have on Sergey Petrov is wrong. The file is full of leads that end up in a dead zone, where witnesses suddenly can’t remember any detail, or the places you investigate are simply not real places.
It’s been a waste of endless police resources, but each lead was followed up because the people who took those reports and did the initial investigations were solid policemen, and detectives, with years of experience and good credentials behind them.
Standing here now, a burning realization is curdling in my stomach. It’s not the intel that’s been soured; it’s what happens to the information after we get it. We, as in the police. Our files on Petrov, everything on him, has obviously been tampered with. And considering the level of security needed to be on the Organized Crime team, it points to someone above us having some real influence behind the scenes.
Someone has been swapping out photos or manipulating the originals because I know this fucking cunt. This prick inadvertently pushed me onto my career path, all because of a family vacation we took to London one summer years ago.
It wasn’t until we were back home that my sister, Josie, died. Her death certificate ruled it an accident, but I knew that wasn’t right. I knew in my gut there was nothing wrong with my memory.
While in London, I’d gone to the rave with Josie. I’d seen them talking, flirting, kissing, and then he handed her something. She denied it, of course, and we fought over it, which was memorable because we never fought.
Our argument never sat right, and after she died, and I found her diary and found out it never sat right with her either. She even wrote in her tiny handwriting a huge entry about the guilt she had for lying to me. Sadly, that guilt didn’t stop her from taking the pills she smuggled home. She was in her bedroom after we’d all gone to bed. Talk about fucking guilt; our rooms were right next to each other, and I slept through her falling face-first and convulsing as she overdosed so violently she broke her nose.
When I finally got to pull the file on Sergey Petrov, all the evidence laid out in the files suggested I had forgotten the face of the asswipe who gave my sister the MDMA tabs.
The man who I have been chasing for too many years in my work with Organized Crime wears the face of the Russian we know as Sovietnik. Our file on Sovietnik is right. He features a lot and appears prominently as one of the newer players in child and Omega trafficking, but until this very moment, he has been a ghost. Because someone has been looking after Sergey Petrov for a long time, it seems.
Quinn wipes her hand across her face, using it as a veil to look over at me. One glance, a fraction of a second, and it’s like I can feel her soft, quiet voice in my head, promising everything will be okay.
Instantly, I feel better. It’s like a factory reset for the noise inside my head. I watch her hold her head high as Sergey Petrov, the man I am going to fucking murder, makes fucking goo-goo eyes at the women standing next to Quinn.
So much fucking injustice in this world.
So much motivation is welling inside for me to be the best person I can for my beautiful, strong-willed woman.
SANTIAGO
Kade needs to put a plug in his emotions. He’s practically vibrating next to me, and the longer the service goes on, the more noticeable it’s becoming.
“Calm down,” I snap, infusing more than a suggestion in my Alpha bark. It’s low enough that no one hears.
The reality is, I’m not sure anyone would hear a thing over Bambi’s less-than-subtle sobs each time the priest speaks, or the murmurs at the back of the room where a group of men haven’t stopped speaking since the service started.
I thought the Russians were all about tradition, but Sergey Petrov apparently lives by his own rules, given he allows another woman to continually steal the spotlight on what should be a big day for him and his actual bride. Obviously, it’s an arranged marriage, but how he’s acting, and how he’s letting people around be so blatant in their disrespect, is a sign of what a weak Alpha he is.
It’s odd seeing him, and now that I have, it makes sense in a way that Quinn hasn’t said a word about him. I already hated the prick, and I’m okay admitting I’m seething with jealousy, but in the flesh, it’s plain as day that Sergey Petrov is piss fucking weak and has relied on everyone else for too long.
