Page 147 of The Darkness is Calling

“But who were the people who tried to attack you that night?”

I tilt my head to one side and smile, while Sasha adds something to help her.

“Someone who tried to stop Artem from getting to your concert and remove him from the picture, preferably for good. Because he was the only one with enough power to stand between you and the wedding.”

Her face turns almost white as she looks at Sasha, then back at me.

The name is on the tip of her tongue, but she seems unable to believe it.

“Somehow, he found out about us,” I explain patiently. “I suspect we have a mole among the soldiers, which is why we’re staying here for now. In the meantime, we’re setting a trap for the traitor, and we’ll probably catch him in a few days.”

She slowly sinks onto the chair beside me, almost dizzy.

“Your former fiance is a very bad boy, Katya,” I say while stroking her fingers between my palms. “He is greedy and very manipulator. But also cold, as he confirmed to you at that dinner, when you hoped he would understand how you felt about the wedding.”

Her eyes widen. “How do you know what I talked about with him that night?”

I smile.

“There were microphones under the table. I knew you were going there. I even wanted to send you a rose, but Yar convinced me to sit back in the car and watch you from a distance.”

“You were there?!”

I press my lips together.

“Yes. I was barely stopping myself from coming to your table or running over the reporters Prescott had brought.”

Shaking her head, she sighs.

I wouldn’t be surprised if she drops dead from exhaustion in the next hour, overloaded by all this news, and she will probably sleep until tomorrow evening. Unfortunately for her, it’s our wedding night, and I intend to exhaust her in a different way.

“I realized he was behind them, even though he tried to lie to me.”

“He brought them because he needed to make a public statement to me, but also to his investors, that he still had control over you and over the partnership with Bratva. The bad news is that in this whole story, the Prescott family isn’t the only one involved. There are families from Ireland and Albania too.”

“Different from the ones you have partnerships with?”

I nod.

“New players have appeared on the market. People who made a lot of money over the past few years. They have no history, but they got rich through cryptocurrency or stock trading. We call them ‘new rich,’ and we refused to associate with them because they lack something very important: honor.”

“But the Prescott family has history behind it...”

I interrupt her.

“Recently, we found out that Lord Prescott was on the verge of losing his title six years ago because of unpaid debts. But someone in Albania saved him from a disgraceful bankruptcy and proposed a shady partnership to him, about which we don’t know many details.”

“Unfortunately,” Yaroslav adds, “it seems we also have several people in the Russia who are part of this partnership, helping it grow.”

“And do you know who they are?”

Yar sighs. Sasha drinks from his glass.

“We know for sure who isn’t involved,” he answers thoughtfully. “Which means we can’t trust almost eighty percent of the people.”

“And what do they want?”

“Monopoly,” I answer. “Down with the old hierarchy and the policies of the Russian mafia.”