Page 62 of Forced & Owned By the Bratva Boss

I snort derisively. “Is that so? You seemed to like them when you reached out to me claiming you were FBI. What changed?”

“You changed.” He sits up straight, his eyes darkening with what seems to be rage. “You had a job to do, and you dared to tell me you were no longer interested in working for me.”

“You tried to kill me.”

He laughs, the sound so high-pitched and maniacal that it sounds like I’m in a horror movie. It’s chilling. “You think you’d still be alive if I wanted you dead, you little cunt?”

His insult awakens a wave of anger inside me, but I remind myself I’m not in the position to be angry, and even if I was, it’s best to be docile while I’m here. “What do you want?”

He rises to his feet, stalks over to me, and begins to circle me like a raven over a feast of corpses. “You’ll do as I say from now on. No more games.”

Yes.

This is it.

This is my chance to cut a deal with him.

“If I work for you, it’ll be on my terms.” I turn around to meet his gaze. “We’re partners. So you’ll let me do things how I want. We have to trust each other, so you have to tell me before you make any decisions.”

He stops walking…and then he shrieks out a laugh that sounds like mockery. It’s not the first time I’ve heard him laugh, but something about the way it rings in the air this time makes my jaw tick.

“Oh, Audrey.” He says my name like a disappointed teacher speaking to a particularly slow student. “You still think we’re partners?”

He remains quiet for a moment, lifting his brows as if waiting for the realization to hit me. And it does, slowly and intensely.

If we weren’t partners, then—

“You were my pawn. All along. You’ve never been anything more than a piece in my game of chess.”

Air drains from my lungs until I can barely breathe, barely think. His words echo inside my skull until they stop sounding like words at all.

A pawn. He never cared about me getting back at Igor.

“No.” I shake my head slowly, refusing to accept what I’m hearing even though I know it’s true. Maybe it’s my ego being crushed at fully realizing how stupid I’ve been. “We had an agreement. You said if I helped you—”

“I lied.” He says it without hesitation. Without remorse. As if lying is no different from breathing, and for a man like him, maybe it is.

Now there’s only one question burning in the back of my mind. “Why?”

“I’ve spent years studying Igor Nazarov—his businesses, his habits, his allies, his enemies. Do you know what I discovered?” His lips curl into something between a smile and a sneer. “The man doesn’t trust easily. He keeps everyone at arm’s length. Women especially.”

I swallow hard, but it does nothing to soothe the dryness in my throat. “What does that have to do with me?”

“There were plenty before you. Models. Socialites. Actresses. Beautiful women who lasted a few weeks, maybe a month if they were lucky. Then he’d get bored and move on.” His gaze sweeps over me with open amusement. “But you…he kept you for months longer than he ever kept any of them.”

A strange feeling settles in my stomach.

“So you think he loved me?” I smile mirthlessly. “You’re a fool. He broke up with me. He said the vilest things to me. That man never cared about me.”

“Oh, but he did,” Serrano drawls. “The son of a bitch might’ve been in denial, but he did care for you. Maybe he even loved you.”

I would laugh at how ridiculous this is if I wasn’t scared out of my wits right now. Igor…love me? Hilarious. But the last thing I want to do is argue with a psychopath about how much my coldhearted husband cares about me.

“You chose me solely because of that?”

“I watched you after the breakup. You were twenty, heartbroken, impulsive, angry, and desperate to make him suffer the way you believed he’d made you suffer. You were exactly what I needed.” He shrugs lazily. “A woman like you doesn’t ask enough questions. She only wants revenge.”

My stomach twists violently. “So you made me your tool.”