7. Maxim
7
MAXIM
I lost her. For all of ten minutes, I had her in my custody. Now, I had no clue where she was.
That stupid fucker got in the way. If it hadn’t been for him, I would’ve had that sexy brunette gagged and tied in my hotel room by now.
Wait. What? I grimaced at the filthy tone of my thoughts. Yes, Nadia required restraint. She’d proven in those few short minutes how feisty she was, prepared to fight back and squirrel away. Once I found her and had her with me again, she would be tied to me until I brought her back. I couldn’t trust her to listen to me.
I’d told her. I directly explained that she would need to come with me, but no. She didn’t listen. I hadn’t left any room for misinterpretation, and I expected my orders to be followed.
“Where the hell did you go?” I muttered aloud as I jogged onto the street and pulled my phone from my pocket.
I had to get right back on the hunt, and as I rubbed my hand over my face and merged in with the foot traffic clogging up the sidewalk on this mild evening, I brought the map app onto my screen.
Her apartment. If she had any sense, she’d run home to hide, right? Somewhere she deemed safe and unknown. When I arrived here, I learned from the landlord that she'd moved out from her old place due to damage from a leak in the walls. That address that Gregory had was old, and she must have assumed that not updating him would be an extra layer of protection to hide behind.
I’d found her new place, though. It was where I'd watched her leave with her friend and walk to the bar. Taking her right out of her apartment hadn’t been an option if I didn’t want the friend to witness the abduction and potentially cause issues. The bar seemed like a safer bet to take her under my custody. Safety among numbers. Just one stranger speaking to another in the crowd.
And if she’s not at home…
Then I’d have to comb through the campus again and look for her there. Nadia would be running scared—more scared now, but that hardly made a difference. I’d find her.
And when I did, I’d hold on.
I reached the apartment building without issue. My face hurt from where that asshole punched me, and that throbbing impact in my knee irritated me, but neither scrape slowed me down. That fucker was still in the alley, I bet, and I wondered if I was stupid to run after Nadia without questioning him first.
No. The priority is to get Nadia. Who gives a shit what that guy wanted? It couldn’t matter.
As soon as I scaled the stairs to Nadia’s apartment, I loathed that the elevator was out of service. Fighting that man was no simple, easy feat, and I would’ve preferred to stop for more than a moment. But duty called. This job would be done.
At the front door, I hesitated and listened for any activity inside. No sounds reached my ears from inside the apartment, and I debated how to go about this. I could pick the lock, but that would reveal that I was here and they could try to counter me. I was in the mood to rely on the easier route, so I drew in a deep breath and knocked.
My charm would have to do.
The short, blonde woman who answered the door seemed impervious to my smile. Women noticed me. It was a simple fact of life. And when I actually put effort into it and tried to seduce a woman, well, I never failed.
She seemed to be the exception, this roommate. Zoe was her name, I’d learned, but I couldn’t startle her by letting her know that I was aware of her identity.
Peering at me through the slight couple of inches that she’d cracked the door, she slitted her eyes.
“Hi.” I laid the charm on thick, smiling easily. “I’m looking for Nadia.”
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.
“Well…” I smiled as sheepishly as I could. “I was supposed to be her date.”
Her brows spiked up high. She was intrigued by my lie. It was a start.
“She stood me up, and I was hoping to ask her why.”
“Nadia stood you up? She ghosted someone like you?” Her disbelief was clear.
“Yeah.” I shrugged and infused as much of a charming, aw-shucks demeanor as I could into my stance here at the door.
It worked, finally. She shook her head, eyeing me closely as she stepped back. The door opened wider, and I didn’t wait. She was a fool to lower her guard this much, and I took advantage. Before she could realize her mistake in trusting a complete stranger at her door, I barged forward. The door flung into her, but she was caught off guard, squeaking out in surprise as I forced her further into the apartment.
“What—” She screamed, but not for long. I lifted my finger to my closed lips as I shut the door beyond me. With my gun in my other hand, aimed at her, she caught on quickly. The universal signal to shut up worked.
Trembling and wide-eyed with panic, she stared at me and froze.
“Sit.” I pointed at the couch. “And don’t scream.” Keeping my gun trained on her, I followed her toward the single sofa. “Where is Nadia?”
“What… what do you want with her?” she asked, every other syllable butchered with stuttered sounds.
“Where. Is. Nadia?” I could already tell she wasn’t here. As elusive and careful to hide as the damn woman was, and likely had been for years, she wouldn’t have let her roommate answer the door to just anyone.
“She took off.”
Fuck.
“Where?”
Tears welled in the woman’s eyes. “Please, please don’t hurt me.”
“Where is she?”
“Don’t hurt her.”
“Where is she?” I repeated. If I echoed that question once more… I gritted my teeth and tried to keep a lid on my impatience and frustration. This day and night had already turned to shit and I didn’t want to deal with any more hiccups. Now that I’d found Nadia and had her for a handful of minutes, I was doubly determined to get her back again, peeved that she’d slipped away.
“She asked me to book a flight for her.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Still, I had to prompt her to spell it out. “Where?”
“I can show you…” She reached for her phone on the low table, and as she stretched her hand out toward it, I brought the gun closer to her.
“Slow. Do not call anyone.”
Nodding like a freaked-out bobblehead, she paused and then moved even slower. Without any rushed actions, she picked up the device and unlocked it. Her fingers didn’t press any emergency buttons, and within seconds, she showed me the screen of an email. “These… these are the details.”
“Hold it up.” When she did, I took a picture of it with my phone, keeping my gun trained on her. “And when did she leave?”
“An hour ago?” she guessed.
“Anyone with her?”
She shook her head.
“Anyone follow her?”
A frown marred her face. “Um. No? I didn’t look.”
“You didn’t take her to the airport?”
“No. I offered, but she insisted that I stay here. No matter how many times I asked her what was going on, she wouldn’t tell me a single thing. I’m clueless, Mister. I saw how… how worked up and scared she seemed, so I figured she really needed to just get away for whatever reason.”
How sweet. Nadia wanted to try to spare her friend by keeping her ignorant.
After looking Zoe over for a long moment, I decided that she’d given me all that she could tell me. Nadia likely wouldn’t have told her friend the truth. No one would willingly be a roommate to the bride promised to a Mafia lord.
“Do not call the cops,” I repeated as I moved toward the door.
I didn’t wait for her reply. Outside, I hurried to track Nadia’s flight information. “Mexico?” I scowled and began making arrangements to chase her there.
Why Mexico?
Was she going to someone for help?
Or was she just trying to run further from home?
Once I secured a flight, wondering if anyone like Alek at home would be curious about where I was going next, I grabbed my bag from my hotel room and prepared to leave.
The flight felt longer than it likely was, and the nap that I managed didn’t restore me with much energy. Ever since my brother told me to fetch Nadia, I felt like I was running nonstop.
I landed without any issues, but I felt more lost here. Back to square one, I had to root out where Nadia might be staying. When I went after her in London, I had the starting point of the university she attended, as well as her former apartment. Here, I had nothing.
After I left the airport and arranged for a car, I waited in the pickup line for the vehicle and considered my options.
Scouring her cards was one step. As soon as she used one of the credit cards registered in her name, I’d be able to track her. So far, nothing had been used.
I was limited to using decent software to track her. Having my computers at home was preferred, but in the meantime, I called the tech staff I trusted and left them messages to follow Nadia’s phone. Once she used the device, I’d be able to follow her better. As of now, according to the app I’d installed on my phone, she wasn’t going anywhere. I needed the technological assistance from home to reset my ability to track her here.
Running around and searching all the hotels would be a waste of time. I had no idea whether she’d try to drive away further from this airport. I knew nothing, but I wouldn’t lose hope yet. I’d found her once, and I’d find her again.
As I waited for the vehicle I’d arranged to rent, I wondered again who that asshole was that I’d left bleeding and wounded in the alley. The man who’d interfered with this job being done already.
I hadn’t recognized him, but I was confident he was affiliated with an organization somewhere. He had that look. If he was a Mafia man in someone’s employ, that complicated things a bit.
Could he be an enemy of the Avilovs, aware of how badly Lev wanted to marry Nadia and they wanted her as leverage? For as determined as Lev was to get his bride, that seemed plausible. Alek, Nik, and Ivan had all expressed concerns about being more vulnerable now that they had their women. That if an enemy wanted to hurt them, an easy method of accomplishing that would be to harm or take what they loved most.
I couldn’t see how Lev might love Nadia. It was impossible. How could he? It sounded like he’d never actually spoken to her.
She was a gorgeous, brave, and determined woman, one any intelligent man would fall for. Hell, I battled the fickle figments of attraction still to this moment. From the second I saw her, crushed against me, I experienced a flicker of awareness. Desire, even. Both were ridiculous. She was just a job to finish.
I sighed, looking up the bastard who’d claimed her. I didn’t know much about Lev Avilov or the family he represented. And what I saw of him now, with a cursory search on him, I regretted that such a young beauty like Nadia would be shackled to a sick old fucker like him.
He was sleazy personified, and while he looked fit, he couldn’t escape how damn old he appeared. Sun damage had weathered him badly. The man was three times her age, and in all the pictures obtained of him lounging on his yacht, he clearly preferred them very, very young.
You’re a twisted creep.
One I couldn’t blame Nadia for wanting to avoid.
The more I recalled how good she felt pressed against me, her slender body near mine, the more I realized how ideal she’d be for me . It was stupid to cling to the memory of how we clicked, how she seemed to be made to complement me, but it was difficult to dismiss it, too.
I’d never given much time to considering settling down with one woman. Sleeping around suited me fine. There was nothing wrong with casual sex. Now that my brothers were finding their wives and starting families so quickly, I wondered what it’d be like. What it would feel like to have a partner. That when you saw your woman, you’d just know she was yours and only yours.
God. What the hell am I thinking? It had to be a lack of quality sleep getting to me. This was complete nonsense.
I am not going down this train of thought. I couldn’t fantasize about keeping Nadia for myself. She was promised to another. I’d been sent to deliver her to the old sicko who'd demanded her to be his wife. Besides, I didn’t know her. I barely knew enough to track her down, and that was not a good foundation for sticking with a woman. Nadia, in essence, was nothing more than a stranger to me. A job to complete.
And it’s not possible, anyway. If and when I settled down with one woman who could be the mother of my children, it would be with someone who wanted me. I wanted to marry a woman who chose me. Being forced to unite would be a lifelong obligation.
Before I could lose my patience completely and ask the car rental attendant to get a fucking move on with getting my car, my phone rang. Seeing that it was Alek, I stepped to the side and answered.
My first thought—and worry—was that he would be calling with news about Dmitri. While I was focused on Nadia and getting her to Lev as I was charged to do, I had not successfully forgotten that my brother had been captured and might need help.
Wrap this up with Nadia, turn her in to Lev, and then get right on the case to find Dmitri. It sounded like a plan.
After we greeted each other, Alek got straight to the business of his call. “Gregory Petrov was beaten.”
I frowned. “Yeah. I know. I told you that before I flew out?—”
“ Again ,” he explained. “Avilov had Gregory beaten after you spoke with him.”
“Shit. He’s really getting impatient.”
“Yeah.” Alek grunted. “And not only that, but he also directly put us into the middle of it. It sounds like when Gregory was getting beaten, he blurted that he knew Nadia would be home soon. Because you , a high-ranking Valkov, were on the case to retrieve her.”
I nodded. “All right.” It was common knowledge that the Petrovs were loosely beneath the overall Valkov protection circle.
“I’m not telling you this to put pressure on the situation, but Avilov didn’t seem happy that I sent anyone to help bring Nadia home for her marriage.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know. He’s obsessed with her only being his , and he’s not fond of the idea of any other man being near her.”
I rolled my eyes, thinking back to the dorky guy who’d hit on Nadia at the bar. “Well, I’m on it.”
“Listen, Maxim,” Alek warned. “He’s not going to be happy if she’s not here to marry him. I don’t know why. I don’t want to know why. We’ve never had to deal with their family much, but what I know isn’t good. Lev Avilov is a demented man. He could cause a war over this, should you fail to find Nadia and bring her home.”
And war—another war—is the last thing we need now. As if we didn’t have enough problems already.
“Find her, Maxim. Find her and hand her over as soon as possible.”
“I will.” Saying it out loud felt… wrong.
“Lev wants his bride, and anyone who stands in the way of that will be his enemy.”
Then he won’t want to hear that competition, that other man I left bleeding in the alley, is already trying to get in the way.
“I can’t handle any more fires to put out,” Alek warned tiredly. “Not with Dmitri missing.” As if on cue to remind us of how hectic life had become back at the mansion, Alana’s cries sounded in the background.
“I’ve got this,” I promised him before we disconnected the call.
And I would. One way or another, I would locate that alluring runaway bride. This time, I’d hold on to her tighter, too.