Champagne Venom (Orlov Bratva, #1)(120)

“Jimmy who?”

Konstantin narrows his eyes in confusion. “Our missing money man. The one we’ve been talking about for God-knows-how-long now.”

I frown. “Did you get a lead on him?”

“I figured you had,” Konstantin says, baffled. “Why else would he have run outta here with a broken nose?”

“Why else would—oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Anthony. Anthony is our missing money man?”

My cousin looks completely lost as he tries to follow along. “What are you talking about, Misha?

Who is Anthony?”

“Jimmy Garner is a cover, Konstantin,” I growl, disgusted at my own short-sightedness. “It’s a fake name. The man that just ran out of here with a broken nose is Anthony. Paige’s ex.”

Konstantin takes a moment to process that. “Oh, shit. Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately.” I nod. “So tell me what you know.”

My cousin leans against the wall, hands tucked in his pockets. “There’s a paper trail that leads right to him. He’s been siphoning money for a few years now. Never enough to actually get caught, but he’s gotten bolder in the last twelve months or so.”

I glance back at the door of Paige’s hospital room. A couple things are clicking in place, and it’s making me feel like my head’s about to explode.

“Where’s your mind at?” Konstantin asks cautiously.

“He’s working with Petyr,” I assert, locking eyes with my cousin. “The flowers Paige received…

they weren’t from my mother. They were from him. Petyr. And the only way he could have possibly known about Paige’s chamomile allergy is through—”

“The ex,” Konstantin says, breathing out slowly. “Fuck him.”

I signal over my guards, Remus and Maddox, and give them a description of Anthony. “He left a few minutes ago. Locate the motherfucker and take him to the basement cell. Spread the word.”

“Got it, boss,” Remus says. They move out, propelled by my orders.

Konstantin is looking at me warily. He knows what I’m thinking. “There’s still a lot of unknown factors here, Misha.”

“She opened two separate accounts, Konstantin,” I tell her. “That’s what Anatoly told us. She’s siphoning money into two different accounts.”

Konstantin holds out his hands to slow me down. “Okay, hold on, let’s not get carried away. We have no proof that she had any idea that her ex was working with Petyr.”

“She applied for a job at my company, sobrat! ” I growl. “As my P.A.. She found me in a random fucking restaurant in the middle of the city. These can’t all be coincidences!”

“Misha—”

He keeps talking, but I’m done listening. All I can see is the image of their interlocked hands when I walked into that room. It didn’t look like the dynamic of an estranged couple.

Why the fuck didn’t I see this before?

Because you were busy feeling things, I hiss at myself. You let yourself be blinded by a pretty face.

Enough that you married it.

I’m almost at her door when Konstantin grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop. “Stop, man. Just take a moment.”

“To do what?”

“To give her the benefit of the doubt. She’s pregnant with your children!”

“If they’re even mine.”

Konstantin’s eyes go wide with shock. “Of course they’re yours.”

I shake my head. “If she’s been planning this with Anthony, then she could have been pregnant before we met. The pregnancy was the deciding factor in me marrying her in the first place. It’s the whole reason I moved her into my house and put that fucking ring on her finger.”

Konstantin lowers his chin, his expression serious. “That’s not why you put a ring on her finger, Misha.”

I glare at my cousin until he looks away. “Petyr knows enough about my family to know what I would

do if I knocked up a woman.”

“Petyr tried to kill Paige twice now,” Konstantin says. “And those are only the times we know of.

Why would he try to hurt a rat he planted by your side? Why would he take out an operative who was doing her job properly?”

I don’t fucking know, and I hate that I don’t know. “He was probably trying to throw me off,” I speculate. “We don’t know what his ulterior motives are. And right now, I don’t give a shit.”

I shake Konstantin off and smash through the door to Paige’s room. She’s sitting on her bed, chewing on the chain of her necklace absentmindedly. The force of my entry makes her gasp.

“Misha…?” she says tentatively when she sees the murderous look on my face.

My eyes jerk away from hers when I realize how deep my desire is to turn a blind eye to all of this.

To pretend like I haven’t been warned. To ignore the instincts roaring at me that I’ve been fucking duped.

I have to admit, her poker face really is stellar. Paige is looking at me with open-hearted concern. She looks innocent and startled.

But most devastatingly, she looks like my wife.

That’s the biggest problem of all.





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