Page 93 of Mistaken
The penthouse is startlingly quiet when I finally emerge, I’m used to the low-key buzz of advisors and security and Alina and her tip-tapping high heels. Other than the guards at the main elevator (and the service elevator now has two guards, I notice) it’s quiet. Wandering into the kitchen, I notice Ludmilla is gone. Good. I haven’t eaten for a day and a half and I’m starving. I stare into the overstuffed fridge, but I don’t think I can keep anything down. Maksim finds me slowly eating crackers at the counter.
His steps slow for a moment, but then he’s right next to me, looking me over.
“I could have had someone bring lunch to you,” he said, eyeing my Saltines.
“This is fine,” I shrug, taking another bite. “Where’s Ludmilla?”
Maksim’s face could have been carved in stone.
“Ludmilla was our traitor. She passed information to Katya Sokolov for months.”
“What? I-” I shook my head, “she worships you.”
Maksim…
Ella was wrong there. Ludmilla’s hate and resentment apparently built for years before turning traitor to the Sokolov Bratva. Once I reviewed the surveillance tapes for the penthouse and figured out how Ella made her escape, it was clear. The footage showed my housekeeper leaving her elevator key out on the counter and asking the guard at the lift to help her with something. Her timing could only work if she knew when Ella would try to leave.
Earlier that day…
“Why would you do this?”
Ludmilla knelt on the floor of my study, bound securely. She looked up at me and for the first time, I can see the malice, her hatred. But I didn’t know why, and it was enraging me.
“You had an honored position in my household. You have worked for my family for twenty years. You were paid well.”
“You elevated thatinostrannaya shlyukhato the housekeeper of your hunting lodge! I should have been next in line! I had to work as a common household maid for another two years before you appointed me to housekeeper here! That outsider worked for this family for hardly any time and you give her this honor overme?You disrespected me!”
Even Yuri looked a little stunned. “You betrayed this family because of some imagined slight?”
Patrick, myObshchak,stood behind her, arms folded. He looked at me, waiting for my orders.
“We do not harm women or children in the Morozov Bratva,” I said. “But you willingly turned traitor. You knew you were sending my wife to her death. You will pay for that with your own.”
Patrick’s men quickly hauled her out of the study, muffling her shrieks as they took her away. He stood in front of me, arms behind his back, awaiting orders.
“I misjudged you,Obshchak.”I said,“It was the wrong choice.”
He smiled, knowing that is as close to an apology as he’ll get from me. “I will never betray this family,” he said earnestly, “I will guard your safety to my last breath. You brought me into this family when my own threw me out. I’ll never forget that.”
Yuri grinned broadly and rose to slap him on the shoulder. “That means I’ll be seeing your ugly face for years to come,ginger.”
Patrick chuckled, darting a glance at me to make sure levity was appropriate. I unbent enough to return the smile and made a note to give him a hundred-thousand-dollar bonus.
Currently…
I explained as much as I could to Ella, who looked utterly astonished throughout the entire story. “She gave you up for an imagined insult? Well,” she shook her head. “In the hierarchy she’s created, the one that gives her life value and status, it was an insult. It’s not something you could have predicted, but it was everything to her.” She’s crumbling her half-eaten cracker, not looking at me. “I guess I shouldn’t ask what happened to her.”
Frowning, I lift her chin, making her look at me. “Forty of my men died because of the information she gave to Katya Sokolov. Over seventy-five million dollars were lost from the theft of goods and destruction of my property. Even if I could overlook that, I would kill her for this one thing. She sent you to your death. She notified the enemy when you left and made it easy for you to escape. There are other Bratva organizations who would kill her entire family, from the oldest down to the youngest with no mercy. But I don’t place the sins of one traitor on their family.”
Ella lets out a sigh. “I understand. All those poor men…” she shook her head sadly, completely discounting the last thing I said.
It doesn’t matter,I thought,I have time now to show her what she means to me. What she means to all of us.
Ella…
It’s time to ask Maksim for what I want. My heart is pounding and it feels like it’s ready to surge up my throat, but I have to do this. I know he didn’t mean anything he said last night, I know it was just part of the moment. But I’d treasure those moments for the rest of my life.
“I have something important to ask you.”
