In the Beginning (Volkov Bratva #1)(91)

“Wellll…” He scratched his head. “There’s a possibility of a fine and prison time and I mean honestly, do I look like I can survive in prison?”

“Fine!” Lauren said throwing her hands up though she was smiling. “The new Call of Duty and that special remote thing you wanted for your system.”

Cracking his knuckles, he grinned shamelessly. “It’s not like I’ll get caught anyway.”

Digging through his bag, he withdrew an external hard drive, as well as a double-sided USB cable that connected the two laptops. He typed furiously on his own and whatever he was doing made her father’s computer light up, mimicking the actions.

“I think I underestimated you,” Lauren muttered as she watched him effortlessly sort through hundreds of files.

He chuckled, not looking away from the dual screens. “First in class. Now, what am I looking for?”

Lauren held out the picture, showing him the code across the back of it. “I think this is a password and I need to find whatever file it unlocks.”

He nodded, using the trackpad to click open a folder. It opened to another image, this one of Lauren sitting beneath the Christmas tree, antlers on her head and a glowing red nose.

“You were adorable,” Matt said in an unusually high voice.

“That’s it?” Lauren asked, feeling like the results of her search were a bit…anti-climatic.

“What were you expecting? Military war plans?” Matt grew serious as he regarded her. “Were you though, seriously? Because I have a theory that our government is preparing—”

Lauren smacked his arm, trying not to laugh. “Not now with the conspiracy theories. Is there anything unusual about the picture?”

“I don’t think so.” He glanced back at the screen, pulling up the details of the image. “Huh…”

“Huh…why huh?”

He gestured to the image. “It’s like one gigabyte.”

“Okay?”

Realizing she had no idea what he meant, he rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder what they’re teaching you in school. Like the f*cking Pythagorean theorem—I mean I know I’m into computers and shit—but it’s just useless and—”

“Matt!”

“Anyway, most pictures are only fifty megabytes, and that’s pretty large. This one is too big.”

“So why is this different?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Unless…” He began typing again, dragging the file from the folder to his desktop. Grabbing the flash drive he had attached to a chain around his neck, he inserted it into the drive, copying the image and pulling it up on his own laptop.

“I have a program that decrypts hidden content inside video or audio files. Was your father like a spy or something? That would be pretty cool.”

“He was a doctor, a surgeon.”

“Alright, here we go.”

With ridiculous ease, Matt extracted the content, opening a gray window with a question mark, a cursor asking for a password. Picking up the picture, he typed in the series of numbers and letters, pressing enter. A little dial appeared, spinning for several seconds before the box expanded into a larger window.

They both leaned forward to see the screen better, Matt reading the document aloud. “Okay, case number 24369. A girl, two years old, needed a blood transfusion because of an accident. Is this making any sense to you?”

Lauren shook her head, still reading. She understood the gist of what the report was saying from her time volunteering at the hospital, but what she didn’t understand was why any of this was important enough for her father to bury it.

“It says the father on file was not a match for the girl—uh oh, baby daddy drama.” Laughing, he read on. “Ah, here we are. The girl’s name was Volkov, Aleksandra. Hey, isn’t your boyfriend’s name Volkov.”

And there it was, the crux.





Chapter thirty:


The Final Meeting


Lauren sat at her desk, her feet resting on the edge of it as she balanced on the back two legs. She watched the cars drive by, happy pedestrians going about their lives.

She missed that blissful ignorance. One morning had changed her life, had changed everything she thought she knew. She almost wished she hadn’t gone, had heeded her mother’s advice, but she needed this. Even if what was about to happen would destroy everything.

Heavy knocks sounded at the door, just as she dropped down, climbing to her feet. It was time.

Grabbing her bag, she swung it over her shoulder, taking a calming breath. She didn’t take a moment to rethink what she was doing. Through the peephole, she looked at the men standing on the other side, waiting. Even without their visible tattoos, it was obvious who had sent them.

Touching the knob, she briefly wondered if this was how it happened to her father. If he had sat alone, waiting for the day the Vory v Zakone would show up at his door. Is that why he made her hide in the closet, for her own protection?

Tamping down a new wave of anger, Lauren swung the door open, facing the enforcers with her head held high. She couldn’t act irrationally if this was going to work, she had to remain calm.

“You were sent to kill me.” It wasn’t a question. “But if the Pakhan wants the information I have, I want a meeting.”