“Well, not really.”
He narrowed his eyes, looking downright furious.
“No!” I held my hands up. “I’m not trying to defend him! It’s just that since you have me working here, with you, I can directly stop any interference on your accounts.” I winced. “I’m not saying he or someone isn’t trying to two-time you or mess with the finances at the firm. Clearly, someone was. Or is. But I was correcting it before anything bad could happen.”
“That’s correct,” he replied. “But it seems that whoever he has been scheming with is no longer satisfied with your overriding their actions. He’s trying to take off and leave the country to hide.”
Hide?
Someone would only escape the country and hide if they were actually guilty of doing something bad.
And he had. I’d known my father to be an associate with criminals since the day I understood that the accounting he wanted me to do was for bad people.
But I’d never tried to lie about it. I’d never known names, only been provided with numbers.
He knew, though. He’d always been aware of which criminal organizations wanted his services.
He lied to me.
He lied to all the Volkovs.
As I thought back to the morning when he told me that I was being handed over to this family, he’d mentioned a situation being changed.
Because he was up to something.
He was trying to do something dangerous or wrong, something that impacted the Volkovs.
I swallowed hard, hating the churning disgust in my stomach and the anxiety that made my skin tingle with the sensation of being too tight.
As I gazed up at Adrik, I sank to a deeper and hotter—and lower—level of hatred. I hated that I was associated with a man like my father at all.
I’d told Adrik that I wasjustElena. I’d refused to see myself as Elena Morovov from the day my father gave me up.
But I wasn’t a Volkov either. I was still just Adrik’sthing. Without knowing if I could fully belong with this Mafia family as more than something they owned, I wasn’t sure how I could avoid the stigma of once having been my father’s daughter.
Please… know that I’m not against you.
I have done nothing but be loyal.
To you.
To the idea ofus, no matter how silly I am to think like that.
With one more scathing scowl, Adrik shook his head and walked past me, convincing me that my best bet was to stay out of his way while he was forced to react to this news about my father.
23
ADRIK
Maksim followed me into the office. Alexei was on his phone with the informants who’d reached out to us this morning. Downstairs, Elena stood with Viktor and Nikolai, who’d come to assist with this news.
No matter how far I went up the stairs, no matter how many feet stood between us, I felt Elena’s stare on my back. The pressure of her attention.
Last night, I couldn’t bring myself to stay with her.
I was already intimidated by being in too deep with her. I couldn’t let her consume me with this need for her. How could I set myself up for that when I was in the thick of looking into the possibility of my uncle not only being alive but also forming a network to attack us? How could I allow her to mess with my head when I had to get to the bottom of why Morovov Financials seemed to think I trusted them with my accounts?
“Had I not learned that Elena was the one actually handling the accounts, I would have yanked it all from Morovov that fucking day,” I told my brother.
