Full Color (ORCA #3)

Chapter 21

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

QUIN

My heart cracked and splintered like the door to Dimitri’s apartment as he let out an inhuman sound of pain. He scrambled out of my embrace, reaching for the car door, but I wrapped him in my arms, pulling him into me, trying to keep him from running headlong into a situation we knew nothing about.

Dimitri struggled in my hold, scratching at my arms as tears fell down his face. “Let me go! I have to go in! Let me go, goddamn it!” But I just held him tighter.

“Whoever broke the door could still be inside. I’m not going to let you put yourself in danger.”

“She’s my sister!” His scream clawed at my insides as his nails clawed at the skin of my arm, but still, I didn’t let him go. If the worst had happened, I didn’t want Dimitri to be the one to find his sister’s body. Dimitri continued to fight me, but I wouldn’t release him. Not until we knew what had happened.

Hadrian looked at me over the front seat, and I nodded. “Go.”

He was out of the car in an instant, his gun in his hand as he toed open the broken door and disappeared into the darkness beyond.

Moments later, his voice echoed in my ear through the comm device I was still wearing.

“The place is trashed, Quin. Signs of a struggle. No blood, but she’s not here.”

“Fuck.” As a rule, I didn’t swear, but given the situation, there was nothing else to say.

Dimitri stopped fighting to look at my face. “What? What is it?”

I cupped his face between my hands, my thumbs attempting to stem the steady stream of tears. “She’s gone, baby. She’s not here.”

“This is my fault. It’s all my fault.”

He closed his eyes, but I didn’t drop my hands. “This isn’t your fault. How could it be?”

A shuddering sob tore from his chest. “It’s Dasselaar. He has her.” His eyes popped open. “The insurance. She was the insurance.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When Scar came to give me the extra dose of antitransmutative drugs, he said he thought they had enough insurance. He meant Athina. I know he did.”

Felix had closed our channel so we wouldn’t hear what was happening during the heist at the airstrip, so I couldn’t reach him through the comms. But I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Julius. He picked up on the second ring.

“Quin? Is everything okay?”

“No. Athina is missing. The apartment is trashed, and she’s not here.”

“Fuck.”

“My sentiments exactly.” Dimitri had rested his head against my chest, all the fight evaporated out of him, but I felt the wetness of his still-falling tears soaking into my shirt as his body shook with quiet sobs. “I’m not sure what to do next.” What I wanted to say was that I felt helpless, adrift, completely unsure of what to do to make my mate feel better.

“Let me give Nero a status update, and I’ll call you right back.”

“Okay.”

Julius hung up without saying goodbye, the urgency evident. While Dimitri and I waited for him to call back, Hadrian emerged from the building and slid into the driver’s seat again.

“I’m waiting for word on what to do next.”

He nodded. “I heard. Good plan to call them.”

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I tapped the screen to answer it. Julius started speaking immediately, not bothering with a greeting.

“Nero says to grab whatever you think she’s going to want or need from the apartment and meet at the airstrip ASAP.”

“Okay. We can do that.”

“Good. See you soon.” He hung up again, the phone going dead against my ear.

“What’s the plan?” Hadrian asked from the front seat.

Dimitri lifted his head and wiped at his eyes and nose. He was a mess, his big green eyes red-rimmed and wrecked, his cheeks a mottled red, and his nose running, but he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I would move heaven and earth to take away his pain in any way I could.

“Nero said to grab anything she might need or want from the apartment and meet them at the airstrip.”

Dimitri immediately grabbed for the door handle, pushing the door open and climbing out of the car almost before I’d finished speaking.

Hadrian and I were a heartbeat behind, but he was already halfway up the interior stairs before we caught up to him. He took a deep breath as he stood before the apartment door, his hand suspended in midair like he wasn’t sure he wanted to reach out and turn the handle.

I grabbed his hand and held it tight in mine. “I’m right here. It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t. I’d witnessed the pain Nero had endured when Felix had been taken, and I knew how horrible it would feel if my brothers were missing. I would burn the city to the ground if anyone tried to take Dimitri from me. And if I thought it was my fault…I couldn’t imagine the guilt, nor could I take it away. All I could do was exactly what I was doing—standing next to Dimitri and offering every ounce of support I could.

Reaching out, I twisted the doorknob in my hand and pushed the door open.

The apartment beyond was a disaster. Chairs were overturned, an easel lay on its side, broken, half-finished canvases bent and cracked around it. Painting supplies were strewn all over the place, and the cushions from the couch were tossed, one ripped open, fluffy white guts spilling out onto the floor. Either whoever had come to take Dimitri’s sister had staged the scene to make it look like there had been a struggle or Athina had put up one hell of a fight.

Dimitri walked to one of the canvases and gently picked it up, studying it before leaning the broken piece against the frame of the couch. He surveyed the rest of the living room, his fist pressed to his lips, but didn’t touch anything else. There was nothing left to be saved.

With a gentle hand on his shoulder, I steered him out of the wreckage. “Where is Athina’s bedroom? We should try to gather some of her clothes.”

Dimitri nodded and led Hadrian and me down a short hallway. The door to Athina’s bedroom was open, but the damage inside wasn’t as bad. The duvet was off the bed, dragged until it had caught on the leg of a small, worn vanity table that had pulled away from its spot near the wall. Other than that, the room looked normal. All the drawers were intact and the armoire was closed.

“Does she have a bag or a suitcase?”

Dimitri glanced up at me like he’d forgotten I was there, and while I moved to the armoire to look for something to gather Athina’s things into, Hadrian led him to the bed and made him sit down. A growl rumbled in my chest when Hadrian wrapped an arm around his shoulders and Dimitri leaned into him.

“Easy, Quin. I have a mate. I’m not moving in on your man.” I unclenched my fists, and my cousin smiled. “It’s wild isn’t it?”

“What?” The single word came out through clenched teeth, and I whipped the armoire door open with more force than was strictly necessary, making the whole piece of furniture wobble.

“How the second you find your mate, your world becomes all about protecting them, keeping them safe, making them happy.” My cousin’s tone went wistful, and I knew he was thinking about his mate, Ben, who was back in Seattle with Marcus. “They become your whole world, the sun and all the stars.”

I looked at Dimitri who was staring at the wall, held up by Hadrian’s arm and nothing else, and nodded. “I would do anything to take this pain away from him. Anything.”

A wicked smile spread across Hade’s face. “You’re going to get your chance.”

Turning back to the armoire, I found a worn duffel bag and started pulling things off the hangers, stuffing everything I could into the duffel before moving to the drawers and emptying the contents into the bag too. When I was done, I knelt in front of Dimitri and grabbed his face between my hands. “I have as many of Athina’s clothes as I could fit in this bag. Can you think of anything else she needs?”

It took a long time for Dimitri’s eyes to focus on me, and I was worried he was in shock, that the events of the evening had been too much for him. He’d barely escaped Dasselaar only to find out his captor now had his sister. It was too much to process in too short a period of time, and his mind was protecting him the best way it could by shutting down. He blinked twice, and I saw a tiny spark reappear in his otherwise dead eyes.

“Her medicine. She needs her medicine.”

“Okay. I’ll get it. Where is it?” I rubbed my fingers over Dimitri’s cheeks which were pale under the red splotches left over from his tears.

“Kitchen. In the refrigerator.”

“Let’s grab it on the way out.” Hadrian stood and helped Dimitri to his feet, holding him up on one side while I shouldered the duffel and wrapped my arm around him from the other side, pressing a kiss to his hair. “It’s going to be all right, Dimitri. We are going to get your sister back.”

The hallway was too narrow for us to walk three wide, so I passed the duffel to Hadrian, who walked ahead of us, going to the kitchen to retrieve Athina’s medication. He tucked it into the bag and slung it back over his shoulder.

“Is there anything else?” Dimitri was starting to shake in my arms, but he stepped out of my hold and moved to the far end of the couch where it was pressed up alongside the window. He slid his hand into the small space between the window and the arm of the sofa and came up with a battered, leather-bound sketchbook.

He clutched the book to his chest and nodded. “That’s everything.”

Hadrian led the way out of the apartment, and I wrapped my arm around my mate again, keeping him steady as we descended the stairs. Hadrian tossed the duffel into the trunk and was just about to shut the door when I remembered something.

“Wait.” I settled Dimitri on the plush leather back seat, then rounded the car and fumbled in my suitcase until I found what I was looking for.

I climbed into the car next to Dimitri, who was staring at the broken door to his old apartment, while Hadrian started the car.

“Here. I thought you might want this.” I held my offering out to Dimitri, who slowly turned away from the scene outside his window.

His eyes went wide as he looked from what I was holding to me and then back. “How did you get this?”

“I snuck into your room during the gala. You said it brought you comfort, and I wanted you to have it with you.”

“Thank you.” The tiniest smile lifted the corners of his lips as he took his sketchbook from me and stacked it with his sister’s, holding both against his chest like he was using the books to hold himself together.

“You’re welcome.” There was nothing more to say, so I set my hand on his leg, squeezing gently and trying to send as much of my warmth into him as I could as Hadrian sped toward the private airstrip.

“No. Hell no. I’m not getting on that plane without my sister.”

Dimitri’s fire had returned on the drive to the outskirts of Amsterdam. Nero, Cal, and Jack had managed to steal the painting from the cargo hold of the other private jet, and it was now safely secured in the cargo hold of Reuben’s jet, ready to head back to Seattle. Hadrian was working his way through the preflight checks and the plane would be ready to wheels-up in less than twenty minutes.

My older brother crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at my mate. “You need to get out of Amsterdam. The longer you stay here, the more likely it is that Dasselaar is going to track you down. You’re safe now, but every minute you stand here arguing with me is another minute I can’t guarantee you’ll stay that way.”

“I’m not leaving my sister behind.” Dimitri mirrored Nero’s posture, the sketchbooks still crushed between his chest and folded arms.

“Nero, we promised to get his sister out.”

Nero rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And we will. I just need to get the painting and your mate out of here first. Then we’ll come up with a plan.”

Dimitri’s jaw was set. “Not good enough.”

Watching my mate go toe to toe with Nero was hot as hell, but he also had a point. We’d—I’d—made a promise, and I wasn’t going back on it.

Jack poked his head through the open door of the plane. “What’s the hold-up? You ready to go?”

Nero waved him away, which just made Jack curious. He walked down the stairs to join us on the tarmac with Cal close behind. Felix and Julius filled the doorway, watching the standoff.

“I’m not leaving without my sister,” Dimitri repeated.

Cal cracked his knuckles. “Then let’s go get her. I haven’t gotten to shoot anyone yet.”

Nero sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose again. “We need to get the painting out of Amsterdam, and it’s best if Dimitri and Quin go too.”

Cal raised his hand like he was waiting to be called on, and Nero rolled his eyes. “What?”

“We have two planes, remember?”

Jack smiled. “Yeah, that’s right. Send Hadrian back to Seattle on this one. Add Dimitri and Quin to the flight manifest. If Dasselaar is looking for them, it will throw him off the scent. We can go back to the hotel and regroup, then go get Dimitri’s sister.”

“We don’t know where she is.”

“Yes, we do,” Felix called from the doorway. “I pulled footage from the traffic cameras around her apartment and a set of cameras on Dasselaar’s estate that we weren’t watching. He’s holding her there.”

A shudder rolled through Dimitri, and I wrapped my arm around him and leaned in close, speaking so only he could hear me. “You don’t have to go back there. You can get on the plane and get out of here. I’ll stay to make sure Athina is safe.”

He shook his head. “I need to see with my own eyes. I have to.”

I nodded. “Okay.” My attention returned to Nero. “We’re not going without her. It’s not negotiable. If you want to go, fine. Dimitri and I will get Athina from Dasselaar’s estate on our own.” I used my most professional tone and touched the gun that was tucked into my waistband at the small of my back. “I still have the gun Cal gave me.”

“Would you leave my sister behind?” Felix asked.

“You don’t have a sister,” Nero growled, shaking his head. “Fine. Cal, tell Hade he’s flying solo.”

“I’ll go back with him.” Julius pushed Felix out of the way so he could see our brother. “I need to see if Marcus has been able to trace AB Holdings any further than I could.”

“Okay. Tell Hade about the change in plans. The rest of us are going back to the hotel. Jack, call Reuben and let him know we’re going to need a pilot. Cal, you’re driving.” While Nero issued orders, Felix and Julius ducked back inside the plane. Felix emerged, hustling down the stairs with his laptop bag slung over his shoulder, a few seconds later, and the muscle in Nero’s jaw ticked. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Felix stood on his tiptoes and locked his lips with Nero’s in a passionate kiss that made my brother uncross his arms so he could hold on to his mate. When Felix finally broke the kiss, he rested his forehead against Nero’s. “Where you go, I go.”

Nero’s jaw worked again. “Fine. Let’s get out of here before we draw any more unwanted attention.” He grabbed Felix’s hand and tugged him toward the surveillance van.

Using the arm I still had wrapped around Dimitri, I urged him to follow.

“Thank you.” His words were a little watery, and I saw tears shimmering at the edges of his eyes again now that he wasn’t fighting with my brother.

“For what?”

“Keeping your promise.”

I squeezed him tighter and prayed we would actually be able to deliver.