Chapter 20 – Eduard
“The texts have been deleted. The whole thread, including the one in the surveillance video,” Viktor answered.
“It has to be retrieved,” I demanded without a second thought. “Call Yves and have him retrieve them. As soon as possible.”
Viktor was the closest thing to a techie among my men. So if he couldn’t get access to the texts, I needed a professional.
I had noticed Marielle looking around for her phone in our bedroom. Of course, the atmosphere between us wasn’t warm enough for her to ask me. I didn’t feel good about withholding the location of the phone, but I had to do it. She didn’t leave me with any other choice.
“Okay, Boss.”
He turned around to leave before returning.
“Boss, Tiara and Jim are waiting to see you. They came shortly after you arrived, but you asked not to be disturbed.”
Truth was, I still didn’t want to entertain visitors, business or not. But the hours I’d spent cooped up hadn’t given me any answers so far. The message from ‘L’ still nagged me. I had been observing her silently, but all that gave me was more tightness in my chest.
So I told him, “Let them in.”
The nonidentical twins had their usual serious expressions on their faces as they entered.
“Eduard Yezhov, long time no deal,” Tiara greeted, going ahead of her brother to the leather couch.
“Hello, Tiara. Jim,” I returned. “It’s a temporary pause. You know how it is.”
“Hi, Eduard. We thought we’d have to jump on your Porsche tonight to see you,” Jim said, bringing a hand on the couch behind his sister.
“I was busy.”
“We’re here now. Period,” Tiara pointed out. “We have a deal for you.”
“Do you remember the huge delivery made late last year? Three trailers of heavy metal,” Jim uttered, sitting upright.
“Of course,” I replied.
“The guys who worked on most of them want to enlarge their scale. They’re German, with a small cartel over there. They’ve been getting tons of clients and some government hands, too. But they don’t have the capacity,” Jim explained.
“They don’t have that space. But what they need more is financial partnership,” Tiara continued.
“A loan?”
“Surely not. Why would I ask anyone to borrow from you? They aren’t that desperate,” she answered.
“What they need is someone to stock them up with the unassembled machinery they need. They remake, reassemble, and customize as usual. Then they sell to their clients. So, we thought of you. You’re our biggest supplier. Been for years,” Jim disclosed.
“If I’m not wrong, you’re talking about credit. On a large scale,” I stated.
“Yes. But they aren’t some startup just trying things out. They’re big, just working to get even bigger. We don’t have personal relationships with them, but we know their business standing. They just want a steady supply. You’ll get your money. No bullshit,” Jim went on.
“And these new clients are of top class, most of them are names we all know. They’ll pay anything to have their hands on these tools. You get even higher than market price. You can bank on it,” Tiara said.
“We’re talking 40 to 70 trailers of heavy metal. You get to move that all at once instead of tying it down at the warehouse,” Jim divulged.
“But I’m sure of getting paid for them, regardless of how long they stay here for,” I argued.
“You’re definitely getting whatever you agree on. You’ll sign agreements and set a time,” Jim revealed.
His statement sent my mind to the woman I signed a marriage agreement with.
Does the legal agreement mean anything if she betrays me?
“Are you with us at all?” Tiara inquired, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I sighed. “My men will send you an email of what we currently have.”
“Then we send it to them, and they send their offering prices?” Tiara asked.
“Yes. We can talk again then,” I remarked.
“Okay. We’ll expect the mail,” Jim said, standing.
My thoughts were back on Marielle the second they left.
The seduction stunt she pulled the night before was a pivotal moment. It wasn’t just that I hated how confused and angry she was when she left the room. A more dangerous possibility was running through my mind.
The longer my silence toward her stretched on, the easier it might become for me to break. If she tried to reach out to me with those pleading eyes again, I might give in. I might directly ask her about what she had been discussing with Lucien. I might even plead with her to spill everything to me.
It was dangerous for her. There would be no good ending if she were caught in the crossfire. Not when everything pointed toward a betrayal.
Why else would she delete the messages?
Do I still trust her?
I picked up my phone and made the call.
“Go to the third estate. Ask the domestic staff to make necessary preparations. Marielle moves there in the morning.”
***
A splitting headache made me decide to leave the warehouse earlier that evening. I needed a cold shower.
And Marielle out of my system.
Leonid hadn’t pulled over in front of the house when I knew something was wrong. He noticed it too.
The men who were to be at the front of the house were nowhere to be found. With Leonid beside me, I burst into the double doors at the entrance.
“Boss!” Ruslan rushed over to me.
“What’s going on?!”
“We discovered a breach in the back gates just now. We—”
The rest of his information fell on deaf ears as I ascended the stairs. I flung our bedroom door open.
She wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the bathroom or the walk-in closet.
Since she was too angry to sleep in the room the night before, I concluded she spent the night in her old room. But I thought she would be back in our bedroom today. Clearly, I was wrong.
I went straight to her old room and opened the door.
When I didn’t find her there, the tremor in my chest intensified.
“Where is Marielle?!” I practically barked at my men as I joined them in the sitting room.
“She hasn’t come downstairs today, Boss,” Ruslan answered, his eyes enlarging.
“Downstairs? She was downstairs throughout last night!”
They looked around one another, moving in different directions to look for her.
Throwing my suit jacket on the dining table, I went to the study.
The first thing I saw as I moved toward the chairs was the broken windows.
Then I saw the note. It was a small, neat cutout that read:
“I don’t belong with you. I never did.”
It blurred and clarified before my eyes, almost bringing me to my knees.
She’s gone.
***
“I didn’t resume duty until 3:00 p.m., sir!” the bald guy shouted, wiggling his upside-down body.
I was in the basement with all the guards on duty when Marielle got out, the useless bastards who didn’t know when the study window was broken or when the CCTV sensor was sealed off.
It had been two hours since I got back to Marielle’s absence, and I still couldn’t bring my body to stay calm.
When Ivan shot one of the guys dead, one of them shouted, “I have information! I do!”
I signaled for him to be let down.
He stumbled to the floor again as he tried to stand.
“We found the back gate open. It wasn’t broken into.”
“What the fuck did you just say?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, sir. We were scared that you would punish us for negligence, so we thought not to tell you. We didn’t know they got to the house at all.”
Pulling out my gun, I shot him in the head. His body fell to the floor.
“When did you notice the gate?!” I asked the others.
“Last night!”
“Yesterday.”
They prattled.
“Boss, that means it was an inside job,” Leonid remarked, wiping sweat off his forehead.
“There’s still a mole,” Harry agreed, nodding.
“The question is, who is it? He’s the key to finding the boss’s wife,” Ruslan added.
But that wasn’t the only question on my mind as I left the stuffy basement.
Was she abducted, or did she leave?
I couldn’t sit as I got to our bedroom.
As I paced, the fact that Marielle had been out of the house for close to 24 hours made me want to punch someone. Namely me.
I was the asshole who didn’t run after her when she left me angrily. I was the idiot who didn’t think to check on her this morning before leaving the house.
The note made sense. If she had been colluding with Lucien, she might have suspected that I knew what was going on. Then she probably left before I could catch or punish her. Or maybe it was the plan all along for her to leave last night with Lucien’s men.
What if they really abducted her?
Anyone could write a note. It might have been one of Lucien’s men who wrote it.
Knocks on the bedroom door cut into my thoughts.
It was Ivan.
“Boss, Sir Oleg is here.”
“Oleg? What is he doing at my house this close to midnight?”
“Said he was passing by,” Ivan answered.
I met a smiling Oleg in the sitting room.
Oleg Yezhov was one of the youngest among us. But he was, in no ramification, less dangerous. The green-eyed guy would do almost anything to attain more power.
“Eduard,” he greeted. “I missed the recent Bratva meetings. It’s been a long time since I saw that cold face.”
“Your visit is unwanted at this moment. I’m dealing with something,” I told him.
“What? Did something happen at your warehouse?”
Ivan looked at me, and I blinked, giving him permission to share the news.
“Lucien Navarro’s men took the boss’s wife last night.”
“That is some situation,” he declared, tilting his head. “Weren’t they involved? I mean, I heard you initially took her thinking she was the wife. What if she just went back to her lover?”
Suppressing my anger, I asked, “And what if she didn’t?”
“Uh…well…it’s more likely she did. It’s better to let her go.”
“I say what is best to do.”
“So, are you going after them?” he asked, like it was an incredulous idea.
Before the thought of hitting him resurfaced, I turned around.
“You’re not planning an overnight picnic here, are you?” I asked over my shoulder.
“I guess I’ll be back when you’re in a better mood.”
The decision was made as I ascended the stairs back to our bedroom.
I would look for her. And I would find and bring her back.
I didn’t care if Lucien manipulated her or if she was shouting not to be saved; I would find her. I would burn every city to the ground until I found her. Nothing could stop me from finding my wife.
I protect what’s mine.
And she’s mine.