Page 30 of The Enemy of My Enemy: Pt. 2

I shot him a look, not caring that he was the Korolev Pakhan.“Oh, really?”

Aleksei’s lips twitched a bit.“Do you find that so hard to believe?”

“Yes,” I answered candidly.“I do.”

The man didn’t argue with me or try to convince me otherwise.Instead, he asked, “Given what you’ve been through, your answer has been earned.Nevertheless, tell me why you believed that it was Viktor behind the attack?Apart from the assailants being Russian, of course.”

“One of the men made a comment about wanting to rape me, despite being given direction not to,” I answered.“Who else would care about something like that?Any other enemy would have pushed for something like that if they’d been after making my family suffer.It wouldn’t have been a simple hit.”

“She’s right,” Kasimir chimed in.“If this had been a territorial hit, they would have taken her to make Roman pay.”

“Or me,” Viktor said.“After all, she is my wife.”

Eyeing me, Aleksei asked, “Is there anything else that we need to know?Yes, we’ve watched the video a thousand times, but with no sound, there’s so much that we might not know.”

Knowing that it was going to piss them all off, I still said, “I’ve already told my family everything, and they’re looking into it.”

Aleksei Korolev straightened behind his desk, his blue eyes flaring with a power that was reserved for men like him.“Considering what you’ve been through, I am going to let that slide,” he said, his voice as cold as ice.“However, let me make something absolutely clear,rebenok.You are a Korolev.Whether you want to be or not, whether you were pressured into marrying my son or not, you are a Korolev, and when you speak of your family in the future, we had better be included.Do I make myself clear?”

I stood up from the chair that I’d been sitting in, refusing to let these sonsofbitches intimidate me.“You cannot bully my loyalty, Aleksei,” I said, purposely using his first name since he’d felt the need to call me child.“Even without the attack, I’ve only been married to Viktor for a few weeks.I’ve been a Marchetti my entire life.”

Knowing that he couldn’t argue that fact, he said, “Sit down, and tell us what Roman knows.”

Now, while I wanted to tell Aleksei to go to hell, I knew that I couldn’t.No matter what, he was the Korolev Pakhan, and I had agreed to this marriage to strengthen our families against our mutual enemies, so pissing him off wouldn’t accomplish anything.

So, sitting back down, I said, “There was a fifth man.”

“What?”Viktor bit out, but I wasn’t surprised that he’d be pissed.However, Kasimir began humming, and I hadn’t been expecting that.“Are you fucking serious?”

I looked over at him.“I’m not going to keep arguing with you about this, Viktor.In fact, you guys are lucky that I’m even telling you anything.”

Kasimir’s humming got a bit louder, but it wasn’t until I noticed concern flash in Viktor’s eyes that I realized that the rumors were true.There was something significantly wrong with Kasimir Korolev, and his singing really was a sign of something terrible to come, and with that curveball thrown my way, I changed tactics, aiming to soothe the Korolevs rather than antagonize them.After all, the last thing that I needed right now was for Kasimir to go off on some killing rampage in my name.

So, after letting out a deep breath, I said, “He was hiding in the stacks and left after I’d been shot.Honestly, he’s the real reason why I had doubts about you being behind the attack.”

“Why?”Viktor asked, clearly pissed as hell.

“Because everything about the attack was sloppy,” I explained.“If they’d been Korolevs, then it shouldn’t have been that hard to kill me.Plus, the fifth man would have stuck around to make sure that the job had been completed.He wouldn’t have left like that.”

“Could he have just been some random person who’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time?”Kasimir asked, humming no longer.

I shrugged as I looked at him.“That’s the only other explanation for him leaving like that, but it’s kind of shitty that he wouldn’t try to help me or call the police.”

“Fear does crazy things to people,” Aleksei remarked absently.“I’ve seen it.”

“What did he look like?”Viktor asked, and it was clear that he was planning to fight with me later over this.

“He looked like the others,” I answered flippantly.

“Don’t give me that shit,” he snapped.“I know for a fact that you know what he looks like.”

I waited for him to rat me out, but when he didn’t, I finally said, “My father has a sketch of his face.I’ll ask him to send me a picture of it.”

“Is there anything else that we need to know?”Aleksei asked.

“No,” I replied truthfully.“Nothing else.”

“Well, I’m sure that you can understand how your activities must be limited until we get to the bottom of this, yeah?”he said, confusing me a bit.