The Final Hour (Volkov Bratva #3)(89)

Lauren balled her hand into a fist, trying to hide the trembling in her hand. Clearing her throat, she carefully stuffed the pictures back in the folder, keeping it on her side of the table in case the agent decided to pull them back out.

“How awful must it be to look into the faces of the men that took everything from you? I know how that must hurt.”

For years, Lauren had held onto that anger, and for a while, she let it consume her, but no longer. She was at peace with it and no matter what Agent Green said, she wasn’t about to start blaming Mishca again.

Lauren looked up, not blinking as she stared into the face of a woman that would do anything to break someone. Too bad for her, Lauren wouldn’t be breaking.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, her voice calm and even. “I haven’t seen Viktor or Ivan in a long time.”

Her fake frown of concern turned into a frown of agitation as she tried to maintain her composure.

“Are we done?” Lauren asked, already standing, more than ready to leave this behind her.

“You must really love your husband, to stand by him so faithfully when he doesn’t do the same for you,” said Agent Green almost thoughtfully as she held onto that last folder, her holy grail.

The meeting was supposed to be over, Lauren was more than ready to walk out of there, but she made the mistake of turning back to face her, ready to tell her off, but she came up short when she saw the new surveillance photos Agent Green was presenting.

She vaguely heard Jessica telling her something, but Lauren sank back down into her chair, pushing the photos around with trembling fingers. There were only a few, but it was enough.

She wanted to believe that it was just a misunderstanding, just a shot of two people that could be read the wrong way, but there was no way to read this one the wrong way.

The photo was of a hotel window, the curtains were parted, the light of the moon shining into the room. Mishca was standing in that room, only his profile visible, but the girl with him was clear enough to see.

Naomi.

She was smiling fondly, her eyes focused solely on Mishca. With each picture, she moved closer and closer to Mishca, her arm going up and around his shoulders. The last shot, the one Agent Green seemed so eager to show her was the most damning.

Right in front of her was Mishca kissing Naomi. It didn’t matter that it might have been Naomi kissing him, he never bothered to tell her that it had happened. Lauren wanted to believe that the picture was old, it was no secret that they had had a relationship in the past…if only Lauren didn’t recognize the clothes he wore in Brazil.

She didn’t bother trying to come up with an adequate excuse, because she knew there wasn’t one that she could come up with that would explain what she was seeing now. The blood was rushing in her ears, drowning out the voices she heard carrying through the walls.

Lauren was still focused on the picture when the door was swung open by Jessica, Mishca storming in before she could take a step into the room. While Jessica’s disapproval was toned down, there was nothing she could say to calm the storm brewing inside of Mishca.

He was spewing angry words in Russian, aimed at Agent Green though she only looked amused, but that only seemed to make him angrier, making him switch from Russian to English.

“You bring in my wife?”

Agent Green merely smirked, turning her attention away from Lauren to where Mishca was standing behind her. “She was free to leave at any time. And we didn’t force her to come in, she volunteered.”

While that was technically true, it was left unspoken that she had talked her way into getting Lauren to stay, but Lauren wasn’t paying attention to the heated discussion between the agent and Mishca, she was still looking at the picture of Mishca in Brazil.

Before Mishca could see it, however, Agent Green snatched the photo, stashing it away. Lauren wished, craved that she could see what other pictures were in there, just so she would know.

Mishca pulled her out of the chair, his hand tight around her arm, she couldn’t protest much as she was practically dragged from the room. On their way out of the station, Lauren saw Detective Rodriguez. Briefly, she wondered what he was thinking, but when his mouth dipped into a frown, she had a pretty good idea.

It took no time at all to file into Mishca’s car, or even to pull out into the late day traffic, but it took ages for Lauren to build up the energy to finally question him, but he beat her to the punch.

“What did she ask you?”

Lauren looked at him, trying to see behind that deceptive mask, wondering if she would see any guilt at all when she got around to asking him about Naomi.

“They showed me my father’s crime scene photos,” Lauren said quietly, her voice sounding far too calm, even to her own ears.

Mishca shifted uncomfortably, but he didn’t take his eyes off her. He had a curious glint in them, like he knew she was hiding something from him, but he had yet to call her on it.

“I’m sorry.”

And she didn’t doubt that he meant it, but for the first time, her father’s crime was the last thing she was thinking about at the moment.

“And Ivan,” she went on, her tone dead, her eyes flat as she stared at him. She had never not felt anything before, but as she watched Mishca watching her, she felt nothing. “And Viktor. And Anatoly. I think I underestimated your need for revenge.”

They were interrupted by his chiming phone, but Mishca didn’t answer immediately. It was like he felt compelled, just as she did, to seek out answers in her expressions, and what she wasn’t saying.