Page 57 of The Bratva's Innocent Forbidden Bride
It was easy for him to be calm; he was only after revenge and money. This was my family. I sent a few shorter messages to some of Papa’s associates in Moscow, though I didn’t expect anything back from them.
“You’d be more likely to get an answer from those guys,” I said.
“That’s where you’d be wrong,” he said. “I already tried. They might feel some kind of loyalty to you as Grigor’s child. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Oh, good, more of that.” I grumpily watched him put my phone back in a wall safe, his back hiding the panel so I couldn’t see the code.
For the next few days, every morning and evening, Kon checked the phone, telling me it was futile to keep sending messages until we got a reply. Not a single person answered, at least not anything helpful. One of Papa’s cronies told me to keep out of it, then actually blocked my number when I tried to call, Kon leaning in close as we put the phone on speaker.
Once again, we were at a dead end, and Kon wasn’t budging on letting me reach out to anyone else. It was looking more and more like I was an orphan, and desperation made me lash out at dinner, not even looking forward to when Kon opened the safe afterward to let me look at a whole bunch of nothing on my phone.
“It’s time to contact Riku,” I said. Did I think my forceful tone and hard stare would sway him? It was more hope than anything else, and Kon’s stormy look doused that fast enough.
“No, it isn’t,” he said. “It’s never going to be that time.”
“It’s the only road we have left. I have a plan. How can it hurt to send a simple message? It might help you find him if nothing else.”
He winced, pissed off for days that he and his team of experts couldn’t track Riku. He was as hidden as we were, and he didn’t like it. I hated it. That was why I wanted to try something different. And I was going to make Kon listen.
I stared at him so long, my chest heaving with barely contained frustration, that he finally set down his fork. “You’re going to burst. Just spit it out so I can tell you all the reasons it won’t work.”
God, he was infuriating. Well, he’d see that this was our only recourse, and it would work. “Just let me message him. Same deal, you can hover over me, breathing down my neck the whole time.”
He looked offended. “If I were breathing down your neck, you’d be forgetting all about your phone.”
Shaking my head at his obvious attempt to distract me, I plowed on. “I’m only saying I don’t care if you see exactly what I tell him. I’m trying to be completely transparent here, because I want to make him believe I’m ready to play ball and betray you. Your whole family, actually.”
He wasn’t expecting that. His mouth dropped open, and he quickly snapped it shut, eyes blazing. “What?”
“In exchange for information. That’s all.”
“But what would make you think of offering that?”
“Because it’s what he wants.”
His eyes narrowed, his mouth set in a firm line, no longer interested in distracting me with jokes. Leaning back in his chair, he stared at me, everything about him suddenly ice cold.He didn’t think it was a good plan at all, and not because it might fail. Because he believed I’d actually work with Riku to betray his family.
He still didn’t trust me. We could never be what I truly wanted. He was making it very clear we weren’t on the same side at all.
Chapter 34 - Konstantin
A glacier seemed to wash over me at the mention of Riku’s name from Tati’s lips. Once again, she was asking to contact him. I understood she was upset about being at another dead end. She was scared to death that she’d never find her father alive, and every day I found myself searching for him for her instead of for my own vengeance.
But Riku was a different story. The thought of her even messaging that scumbag made my skin crawl. The bigger problem, and probably an even deeper source of my sudden anger, was that it was a damn good idea.
CJ and her crew couldn’t find a trace of the Yakuza leader anywhere, and the few people we were able to capture for interrogation either honestly didn’t know anything or kept their mouths shut until the bitter end.
Tati was right that offering Riku something he wanted might break us past this wall we were up against. She was right about him wanting to destroy my family. That wasn’t going to happen, but what if it was the only thing I could offer in order to give Tati the only thing that was important to her?
It was tearing me up inside, watching her scowl at me. But having her angry was better than letting her near Riku.
“We’re done discussing this,” I said.
A cowardly response. Even worse, I stood up and stormed out onto the deck, in hopes that the sound of the crashing waves would soothe away the war going on in my head. I hoped she would follow me, push the issue, somehow make me come around to her side of things.
Anything but letting her near Riku Yoshida.
The closest thing we had to a sighting was on the east coast of Mexico. If that was his actual location, it wasn’t as far as Tokyo, like I would have preferred, but it wasn’t that close, either. Maybe it would be safe enough.
