Unbearable Passion - Total Abandonment: Billionaire Erotica Romance (Unbearable Passion series Book 4)

by Avery, Scarlett

  “I’m so sorry to hear this. ”

  “The situation is so bad between us that my brother and I didn’t cross paths during the year both our parents died. He’d been managing their affairs and we only saw each other after three years at the attorney’s office during the reading of the will.”

  “That’s heavy.”

  “It is. Let me call Misty and tell her we’ll be in the office in an hour and I’ll tell you all about my brother over breakfast. I’ll be forced to call him and I haven’t spoken to him in five years. I hope to God this doesn’t involve having to see my ex-wife again.”

  He’s already jumped out of bed in the direction of the bathroom before I can ask about the ex-wife factor and the connection with his brother. I jump out of bed and run into the bathroom to take a quick shower. When I walk in, I can see from his dark expression that the story about his brother isn’t a good one. By the time I make it to the kitchen, he already has a full breakfast ready—two blenders full of protein smoothies.

  “This is one is for you. I prepared two separate portions because I double up on the protein.”

  “Thanks very much. So you can do more than reheat food in the kitchen,” I say, attempting to break the tension in the room.

  “All right, so let me do this so it’s as painless as possible.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  He pauses, looks at me, opens his mouth to talk and pauses again.

  “My brother, Liam, is eight years my senior. We were the best of friends our entire life. He supported every decision I’ve made in my life. He was my rock. The one person I could turn to at anytime in my life. He admired my guts in being willing to take big risks and I admired his strategic mind in going after what he wanted in life. He became a prominent and well-respected New York attorney and about eight years ago he became a judge. Since then, he’s been climbing the ranks with his ability to see right through people and nab the bad guys. He’s not doing it for the money because he’s done extremely well in real estate during the time he was still an attorney.”

  He pauses again and lowers his eyes.

  “Okay, this is the part I’m going to try to go through quickly.”

  “I understand and I appreciate that you’re willing to open up to me like this.”

  “You need to know about this if you’re going to be part of my life, Sofia,” he says, looking deep into my eyes. “I got married to my third wife six years ago and after two failed marriages, I thought I had met the woman of my dreams. I was willing to slow down for her and be more present at home. I wanted to make it work. We had a great relationship, or so I thought. By the end of our first year of marriage, it was clear my business was growing fast and a lot of the talent I needed to keep growing was in Silicon Valley. Everything is virtual these days, but if you want to build a massive company, you need to have your own dedicated staff.”

  “So you were traveling back and forth from New York to Silicon Valley?”

  “Exactly. I offered to fly her in many times for the weekend, but she was always too busy and she was taking exams during that time of our marriage. She kept saying she didn’t want to be a distraction to me during my growth phase and she’d wait for me here in New York. We spoke every night to keep in touch. I was so busy and leveraged financially at the time, I had no time to even think of anything else but building this company and making it a success.”

  He pauses again to swallow a gulp of his smoothie.

  “After four months away from my wife and her unwillingness to fly to see me, I figured maybe I should go home and surprise her. I planned a romantic weekend and grabbed the red-eye on the Thursday night. I wanted it to be a total surprise, so I didn’t even tell her I was coming in. I arrived in New York at four am, jumped in a cab and made my way home to be with my wife. It was ten to five in the morning when I arrived at my apartment. I was going to call out her name because I didn’t want to slide in bed and startle her. When I walked in, I stepped on clothing all over the floor at the same time as I heard snoring. That was when I noticed two bodies in my bed. Thanks to the bright city lights, I was able to recognize the man sleeping in my bed. It was my brother Liam.”

  “Oh my God. That’s horrible. What did you do?”

  “I was in shock. For a minute I thought of beating him up or better yet choking him in his sleep, but something took over me and instead, I calmly sat in the corner of our room on a leather chair and waited for them to wake up.”

  “You just sat there in the dark watching them sleep?”

  “Yeah. Veronica was an early riser. She made a point of hitting the gym by six every single morning, so I knew she’d be up by five-thirty. I only had forty minutes to wait—the longest forty minutes of my life.”

  “No doubt. It must have been excruciating.”

  “It was brutal. My brother woke up first at about twenty-five past five and he was getting himself ready for a morning fuck. As she rolled over to embrace him, she noticed me and screamed. My brother jumped out of bed and the two of them looked at me as if I was in the wrong for catching them in the act in my own bed.”

  “I can understand why you’re no longer speaking to your brother, Bryce. This is such a betrayal.”

  “I simply got up and said I’d have divorce papers to her during the week and I’d have a service come in later to pick up all my belongings. I told to my brother how much he disgusted me and I also made it clear we no longer had a relationship. Then I walked out.”

  “And now your ex-wife is married to your brother?”

  “Yeah. They got married right after our divorce was final because she was pregnant. I have three nieces and nephews I can’t bring myself to meet.”

  “Oh. That’s so sad.”

  “Not really. I don’t want to be part of their lives. I don’t want to be reminded of their betrayal every time I look at those kids. I know it’s not the fault of the kids, but they’re still part of this messy saga.”

  “I can imagine,” I reply, shaking my head, completely shell-shocked by his story.

  “I now have no other choice because my brother is one of the top judges in the state and she’s a shark of an attorney. They know how to get me those papers to bring Brad Keller back on American soil. They have the power and connections to pull the necessary strings and turn this around before Brad Keller blinks.”

  “I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable situation, Bryce.”

  “You’re not. I’m not allowing this Chechen to get away with what he’s done to you.”

  “I love you for saying that.”

  “Let’s go meet Misty, but first, let me call Liam and arrange to go by his house tonight. It would help me swallow the bitter pill I’m about to ingest if you came with me.”

  “Of course. I’ll be there by your side.”

  ***

  “Good morning, team.”

  “Good morning, Bryce.”

  The room is filled with bright-eyed tech geeks who are all putting their talent to work to help me. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude.

  “All right, so talk to me. What’s the latest on this Brad Keller?”

  Misty looks in the direction of a young guy who can’t be more than twenty-one. “Richard’s been digging deep. He’s found some incredible information and we got confirmation on all this about twenty-five minutes ago. We are definitely close.”

  “Richard, you’re the man of the hour. Fill me in, my friend.”

  “Well, Mr. Van Der Linden—”

  “Richard, how long have you been working here?” Bryce interrupts.

  “I’ve only been here three months, sir.”

  “Then you should know by now that it’s Bryce and not Mr. Van Der Linden.”

  The entire room laughs at Bryce’s mockery.

  “Of course. I’m sorry. Well, Bryce and Ms. Herrera”—Richard pauses to make sure he hasn’t made a mistake by calling me Ms. Herrera before continuing—“I’ve been tracking the money trail and it’s a long one tha
t runs deep and it runs internationally.”

  All of a sudden the twenty-one-year-old nerd transforms in front of our eyes into a confident speaker. Obviously, Richard loves what he does for a living.

  “This guy has been operating under the name of Brad Keller, but his real name is Vladislav Ershova-Kamenev. He was born in the Chechen Republic and he’s thirty-nine years old. He definitely looks younger than his age. He’s been operating under numerous aliases, all American. Thanks to the help of the NYPD, we were able to find out a few important facts—Vladislav isn’t a killer, he’s not involved with prostitution, smuggling or drugs. His vice of choice is extortion and embezzlement.”

  “I guess he can still make a lot of money via these crimes and still remain under the radar.” Bryce is fully invested in this story and I feel reassured that things might turn out okay, although this story has taken a scary twist.

  “Exactly, Bryce.” Richard flashes Bryce a smile as he readjusts his glasses before continuing. “Extortion and embezzlement are perfect crimes because either the victim has something to hide or they are too embarrassed to report the crime. We would never have known of the connection between Brad Keller and Vladislav Ershova-Kamenev had our Russian bad guy not been blackmailing Rocco Belyakov, one of Russia’s highest-paid soccer players.”

  “This story is connected to soccer now?”

  “Wait, Bryce. It gets better. It seems like Belyakov had a penchant for the finer things in life—he’s a lover of elaborate parties, fast women, designer drugs and sports cars. He once famously split a four-hundred-thousand-dollar custom Maserati in half in an accident in Germany and lived to tell about it.”

  “Impressive. It pisses me off when I hear about professional athletes who burn through money so foolishly. I guess money comes way easy for them.” Bryce is obviously annoyed by these stories of wasted money.

  “Belyakov also had a thing for very young girls.”

  “How young?”

  “From my research, Belyakov has had sexual relationships with girls as young as thirteen. His supplier was one of Vladislav’s mobster friends who also happens to be living in Brighton Beach, aka Little Russia.”

  “I can’t believe these scumbags.”

  The entire room agrees with Bryce’s statement.

  “Ershova-Kamenev knew of this and in fact had arranged with his mobster friend to photograph Belyakov in the act. When Ershova-Kamenev started putting pressure on Belyakov to get more and more money, Belyakov hired investigators who contacted the NYPD for help. That’s the first connection we have between Ershova-Kamenev and extortion. We contacted Rocco Belyakov’s contact in Russia and he was happy to talk on behalf of his client. He’s the one who tipped us off to the fact that the federal agents had been keeping a very close eye on our friendly Russian bad guy.”

  “What do you mean federal agents? What do they have to do with a story like this, since it doesn’t involve a U.S. resident? I mean, Rocco Belyakov is Russian and still living there.”

  “Yes, but there’s a lot more to Vladislav Ershova-Kamenev than meets the eye.”

  “It’s sounding like it.”

  “He also had an affair with Amaliya Chashnik, a Russian spy nabbed by U.S. authorities in 2010 who has since become a pinup in Russia. Since the U.S. authorities had been tracking Chashnik for several months, they had photos of her whereabouts on American soil. They were tracking her from dusk until the middle of the night. It was a twenty-four-hours-a-day job because she had highly sensitive information that could put the country at risk if she ever talked. On some of those photos we recognized a familiar face, but the kicker was the license plate on the guy’s vehicle. Since Brad Keller never conducted his personal life under his American name, he was careless. We matched the license plate to Vladislav and we were able to open up a Pandora’s box of nastiness.”

  “Sofia, are you okay? I know it’s a lot to handle and I’m sure none of this is making you feel comfortable, but at least you now know who Brad Keller really was.”

  “I’m shocked by what Richard has been sharing so far,” I say, dumbfounded.

  “There’s unfortunately more, Ms. Herrera.”

  “Keep going, Richard.”

  “Thanks, Bryce. As I’ve said earlier, the money trail runs deep. This guy was raking in money each and every week from his victims. Brad Keller had a number of accounts in the Cayman Islands, Monaco, Luxembourg and Switzerland. All his accounts were quite full which suggests Ms. Herrera was not the only person he was swindled.”

  “So what next?”

  “Well, as I was saying to Misty earlier, we need to block his access to his funds in order to seize all those millions. We also need to find the origin of the transactions in order to track the people he embezzled or blackmailed.”

  “All right. Great job, gang! That was some serious thinking on your part, Richard, to put all of this together. I’ll get the necessary papers to get Brad Keller, aka Vladislav Ershova-Kamenev, back in America and I need the rest of the team to focus on tracking anyone he’s stolen from who would be willing to talk to us. We need as much data as possible to find this creep.”

  “We’ll get on it immediately and I’ll work with Richard and a few others to track more foreign accounts.”

  Misty is already headed for the door with her team and they’re all eager to keep digging to find more incriminating evidence against Brad Keller. Bryce waits for everyone to leave the room before he approaches me and takes me in his arms. “Are you okay?”

  “No, Bryce, I really am not. This story is bigger than me and bigger than any help Ciara could have provided. Brad Keller is a mobster. He could have killed me or he could have had me killed by one of his mobster friends.”

  “I understand why you’d feel this way, but in general, these types of thieves don’t have the balls to kill. They are looking for fast money and easy victims.”

  “Oh, I’m an easy victim now?”

  “Sofia, you’re a good and kind person. For a shark like Keller, you are an easy victim. Don’t take it the wrong way. You have a generous heart and I love that about you.”

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to help me. This is a very scary situation for me and what’s scarier is the fact that I was in a partnership with the Russian mob.”

  “We’re going to put this story behind us very soon.”

  I love the way he says us. I feel so protected and safe with Bryce.

  Bryce’s phone startles me. I’m afraid it’s going to be more bad news.

  “Liam. Thanks for getting back to me. As you must imagine, I wouldn’t be calling if this wasn’t extremely important.”

  Bryce looks tense and I can only imagine how difficult this conversation must be for him. It’s true that most of my boyfriends have fallen head over heels for Ciara, but although she could have had her pick, she always sent them packing. She’d never sleep with a man I was dating. I know I’ve always been insecure about Ciara and men, but she’s told me many times that we don’t share the same taste in men and she’d never waste her time sleeping with a guy who couldn’t keep up with her. I guess it’s her way of saying she’d never betray our sacred sisterly trust. The fact that Liam was willing to sleep with Bryce’s wife is beyond me. That’s betrayal at its deepest core.

  “Sure. We can come over for five today. No, it’s not a problem and I do understand you have kids and can’t meet too late. Is it okay if I come by with Sofia? She’s the person who’s in the middle of this nasty story. I can explain everything to you when I get to your place, but I’ll get Misty, the project supervisor on this affair, to call you and email you a briefing document so you understand the urgency of the matter. All right, we’ll see you later today.”

  He hangs up the phone, places it on the conference room table and sits on one of the chairs.

  “I can’t believe I have to face my brother and ex-wife.”

  “Once again, Bryce, I’m so sorry you have to do this on my behalf.”

  �
�Don’t be sorry. You’re not the one who betrayed me.”

  “Still, I can’t help but feel your pain. There’s a bond between siblings and Liam’s selfish actions destroyed your relationship forever. There’s a lot I can say about Ciara, but she’d never cross that line. I’m certain of it.”

  “You’re right about Ciara.”

  His answer surprises me. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you remember when I met her for breakfast before I took her to the office so she could assess how she was going to help transform our work space?”

  “It’s impossible for me to forget that morning.”

  “The night before she showed up at the restaurant looking ravishing. I’m not going to lie. My eyes popped out of my sockets when I saw her.”

  “Great. You find my sister ravishing.”

  “Hear me out, Sofia,” he says, as he wraps his arms around my waist. “You’re equally ravishing as Ciara, but there’s something about the way she carries herself. She walks like she owns the place. I know tons of successful men who don’t have one ounce of your sister’s confidence. In any case, I expected that same enigmatic force the next morning for breakfast. She came in and she was still gorgeous, but she was all business. She didn’t make a move nor did she say anything suggestive. There was something about the way she carried herself during our meeting that clearly stated she knew I belonged to you.”

  “You belong to me?” I repeat softly.

  “Do you still have to ask? Is it not obvious how I feel about you?”

  ***

  At five o’clock sharp, we arrive at Liam’s classic red-brick brownstone home. A beautiful black woman of medium complexion greets us. She’s impeccably dressed and I can’t stop admiring her jewelry.

  “Bryce, come in.”

  “Veronica. Thanks for inviting us to your home. I’d like to present Sofia.”

  The tension is insupportable. Neither Bryce nor Veronica look at each other. They’ve decided to focus all their attention on me.

  “Sofia, welcome to our home. If you’ll follow me, Liam is waiting for us in his office. He received the documents Misty sent over and I took a look at them. Sofia, you’ve been hanging out with some pretty shady characters.”