Chapter 48
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
ALEKSEI
I can still hear her screaming my name.
That broken sound tears through every part of me, branded into my skull.
I see her face when I close my eyes. Her terror, her desperation, the way her hands clawed toward me as they dragged her away.
My tires screech as I speed, cutting through the streets, horn blaring as I fly through red lights and scream past traffic. I don’t register the ache in my muscles or the cold from my soaked clothes. Just that choking fury swelling like a tide inside me.
She’s gone. And I let it happen.
My fist slams into the steering wheel so hard my knuckles split, but it barely registers over the sound of her screams, like she’s here in front of me.
But I will find her. She’s close. The tracker lit up in Brooklyn, and then it was gone. Which means those bastards found it and either figured out a way to block the signal or took it out of her.
If they hurt my wife that way, they will wish they were dead before I get to them.
As soon as I arrive home, I tear the front door open, heading straight for the basement.
Once there, I push a button, and the wall flips before I enter the hidden room.
Lights flicker on, weapons lining the walls.
An arsenal, enough to start a war, and that’s exactly what I’m about to do.
Duffel bags hit the floor with a thud, and I start filling them—handguns, rifles, knives, grenades.
Every tool of destruction I’ve ever owned is coming with me.
Footsteps thunder above me until I register the creak of the stairs.
“Aleksei?” Kirill calls. “You down there?”
I don’t look up as he walks into the room, just zip another bag and move to the next.
He stays there watching me silently for a few seconds before he asks, “Chto sluchilos?” What happened?
My blood simmers in my veins. “They took her.”
“What?”
“They fucking took her. The Volkovs. Or the fucking Italians. I don’t know exactly. But I saw it happen. I was there.” I turn to face him, and the look I give could cut through bone. “I couldn’t stop it. I just let them take her.”
“That’s bullshit. I know you did everything you could.”
“Not good enough.” I grab another duffel and fill it too.
“We will get her back, and we will raise hell to do it.”
He’s already dialing Konstantin and telling him what’s happening. I don’t hear the rest. I’m already gone, lost in the bloodlust of what’s coming. Praying for the moment I finally have her back in my arms and never let go again.
I pack until the bags are full and heavy and the floor beneath me looks like an armory.
An hour later, the jet is fueled and waiting, my brothers and our men all with me. We board without words because there’s nothing to say.
This isn’t a rescue mission. It’s the beginning of a massacre.
“How the fuck did you not know your wife is a Scutari?” Gio’s question cuts through the heavy silence in the SUV as we tear through New York.
I’m in the backseat, one of my men behind the wheel, with my brothers and the rest of our convoy roaring close behind.
“I did know. She didn’t.” My jaw clenches so tight my molars ache.
I was going to tell her when she was ready to hear it, but last night wasn’t the time. She couldn’t handle any more. Maybe that was a damn mistake, but it’s too late now.
Chyort. Damn it. What the hell are they doing to you right now, moya ptichka?
I don’t even want to imagine.
“Did the Italians know about her?” Devlin cuts through my thoughts, heavy with his Irish brogue.
“No, not at first. From what we learned, Elio did this on his own.”
Gio scoffs. “Elio’s a fucking lunatic. You ever met him?”
I nod once. “Years ago. Did not like him. Now he will die.”
Devlin grins, eyes flashing. “Bloody hell. I’ll help you skin the bastard myself, and I don’t even like your mug.”
“Feeling is mutual.”
Though deep down, I’m grateful they came without hesitation. As soon as Konstantin reached out about logistics, since they both live in New York, Gio and Devlin not only sent their men, but showed up themselves. That kind of loyalty means something in a world like ours. And I never forget a debt.
The SUV rolls to a stop about a block from the warehouse where her GPS last pinged. Maybe they’ve moved her by now, but this is the only trail we have left.
Industrial zone. Dead streets. Blocks of steel buildings and vacant lots. The kind of place people disappear into when no one is meant to hear their screams.
Grabbing the duffle with a few handguns and a rifle, I exit, the door slamming behind me, and we’re heading toward the building. Every second she’s out of my reach, it’s like something inside me is tearing open.
I’m coming, detka.
And I’m bringing death with me. If she’s in that building, I won’t just walk out with her. I will level the place to the ground.
They have no idea what they’ve done.
I was born in blood. Raised in it. Shaped by it.
But Fiona? She was the one thing I never expected to need. And now that I’ve had her, touched her, tasted her, watched her fucking smile at me, there’s nothing I won’t do for her. No line I won’t cross. No man I won’t kill.
They don’t know me, not yet. But they will.
Boots hammering over cracked concrete, I head for the entrance with everyone right behind.
Once we arrive, I turn the knob slow, gun up and ready.
The door gives an inch, then two, before I slip inside, eyes sweeping the room.
There are metal stairs ahead and a single man off to the right, back to me, rifle hanging low at his side.
I slide the flip knife from my pocket and close in behind him just as he starts to turn, eyes going wide. His hand jerks toward the trigger, but I’m already there, faster than the fear hitting his face.
The blade slices clean across his throat. He lets out a wet, gurgling sound as his body goes slack. I catch him before he hits the concrete and lower him to the ground, leaving him there in silence.
Everyone’s behind me now, guns drawn, while I replace the knife with the rifle from the duffle.
“Alyosha, ty tam?” someone calls from above the stairs. Alyosha, are you there?
When no one answers, he appears, and I greet him with a bullet between his eyes, killing him instantly.
Then chaos erupts.
We charge up the steps, my rifle kicking with every shot, bodies dropping like fucking dominoes.
A man lunges for Devlin from behind, and I put a bullet through his skull before he even knows I’m there.
Another dives low, so I shoot him in the leg, bone shattering.
He howls as I close the distance, knife already in my hand, adjusting the rifle strap over my shoulder.
When I’m standing over him, I kneel for a moment, just long enough for him to see what’s coming, then drive the blade into his eye. He drops with a strangled scream, and I step over him without slowing.
Someone charges from the left, and I twist, shooting into his chest, then drop another before the echo fades. Blood splashes the wall behind them in thick, dark strokes.
A scream rips through the carnage—ours, theirs, I don’t fucking care. The only thing that matters is finding her.
The room dissolves into pure anarchy. I lose count of how many I put down, and with each body that falls, the fear that she isn’t here claws a little deeper.
My elbow smashes into another man’s ribs, and I slam him into the wall. He wheezes, gasping for air, and I pin him there with my forearm across his neck.
“Is she here?”
He grins, blood slicking his teeth and dripping from the corner of his mouth. “She cried your name like a little whore.”
A low growl tears out of me. I picture her begging them to stop as my teeth sink into his throat. Flesh gives under my bite, hot blood flooding my mouth while he thrashes beneath me, choking, hands clawing at me.
Something slams into my left shoulder, burning straight through me, but it barely registers. I don’t let go. Only when his body finally goes limp and the last breath rattles out of him do I shove him aside, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, smearing blood everywhere I touch.
And then I move again. One of them is going to tell me where they’re keeping her.
By the time the fighting slows, bodies lie on the ground, too many to count. But my brothers are still standing, and so are Devlin and Gio.
“You’re shot.” Konstantin glances at my arm, and I find a bullet graze there.
“Nothing that will slow me. We need to move. She has to be close.”
Konstantin crouches down and rips the shirt of one of the dead. “But you’re leaking like a stuck pig. If you lose more blood, you will pass out before you see her again.”
“Hurry up.”
I barely sense the pain as he wraps my arm tight enough to cut off circulation. Once he’s done playing nurse, we start surveying the rest of the building.
Konstantin nods toward a man still breathing on the ground, bleeding from his mangled leg. “He might know something.”
The bastard tries to crawl when he sees me coming. But I don’t rush. I want him to feel every second of the inevitability closing in.
Konstantin crouches beside him. “Privet, you don’t look so good.” A cold grin bends his mouth. “So it would be in your best interest to tell us where the girl is. Otherwise, my brother here will turn what is left of your leg into soup before you bleed out. Painfully, of course. I assure you.”
The man spits. “Edi na khuy. You kill me anyway.”
Konstantin lifts both hands in the air. “I am a man of honor. You tell me where she is, you walk out of here alive. Or maybe not walk. Crawl. Same thing, right?”
The hesitation lasts all of two seconds before the man’s gaze jerks to me.
“She…she is next door. Building there.” He points toward his right. “They knew you had GPS, so they tricked you.”
“How many men are inside?” I ask.
“Not many. Five, maybe.” He looks nearly hopeful, like he’ll actually survive this.
It’s almost cute.
“Spasebo.” Konstantin pats him on the arm before he straightens himself.
And with an icy grin, I point the weapon at him.
He backs away, his nostrils flaring. “Padonok! You said you wouldn’t kill me.”
“I am not.”
The shot cracks through the silence, echoing off the concrete walls. His shriek follows a second later as the bullet tears through his other leg, leaving him rotting in a pool of his own blood.
I step over the spreading red. “You will still be alive when we walk out.”
With that, we head for the exit.
Weapons drawn, I lead the way out, heading for my wife, my heart, my goddamn salvation, hoping that I’m not too late.