I want to hear her.
Maybe if I actually hear the words that she was selling me out to her father come out of her fuckable little mouth, I can find the hate I so desperately need right now.
It takes me a while, but soon, I have the audio files pulled up on my computer, and I cue it up to that last day, around lunchtime when she met with her father behind my back.
“Does Julian discuss business around you, malyshka?”
I narrow my eyes at the sound of his voice and lean in closer to the computer, riveted.
“No, he doesn’t do much work from home. Is that why you brought me here?”
“How much time do you spend with the other three men?”
“None.”
She lied to him. She spent a lot of time with my brothers, and I do most of my work from my home office.
She lied to him.
My stomach starts to roll as I keep listening. His words turn more and more abusive, spewing nothing but lies and hate, trying to convince her that she’s worthless, that I don’t care about her, and making it clear that he hates her.
“You’re my father.”
“And you’re my pawn,” he says, his voice hard. “Now, you go back there, and you listen to everything that goes on in thathouse. You ask questions. You get information. And then you feed it to me. If I’m satisfied with your work, I won’t let Julian kill you.”
“No.”
I sit back in shock at the hardness in Natasha’s voice.
She told him no.
Fuck me, she told him no.
“No, I won’t spy on my husband for you. He may be a bad man, and he might throw me out when he’s done with me, but I won’t betray him.”
“So, you’ll betray me?”
“I’ve already done what you asked. I married him. That’s all I’ll do for you.”
I make myself listen to the last of it. He makes it clear that she’s not welcome at his home ever again, andI fucking sent her there.
Spiraling, I stand and pace my office, my hands pushing through my hair and over my mouth, wrapping my mind around the fact thatshe didn’t betray me.
She was upset that day because her abusive-as-fuck father had taken verbal punches at her at lunch, not because she was keeping something from me.
She was fucking upset.
And then I kicked her out.
Jesus, did he kill her when she was dumped off at his house?
Is my wife fucking dead?
Shaking my head, I reach for my phone and dial her number, but it goes straight to voicemail. I’m about to suck it up and call Sergei when my phone rings with an incoming call.
Elliott.
With a sigh, I accept. “Hey, now’s not a great time, I’ll have?—”
