Chapter 52 Rook
ROOK
Finn rushed to bring the car around the back.
I sent Aidan and Liam after Asha’s friends and the three pricks they’d been drinking with.
Guilty or not, I didn’t care. They’d been near her. That was enough.
I carried Asha through the kitchen, weaving past gawking staff. She hung limp in my arms. Too pale. Too still.
My pulse thudded in my skull. Every step tightened the coil in my chest, until I thought my ribs might snap.
Someone had gone after her. In my city. On my watch.
I’d find out who and make them wish they’d never drawn breath.
Out the service door, into the alley. Finn pulled up hard, tires squealing. I yanked the rear door open, laid her on the seat, and brushed red hair from her face.
My phone rang. Aidan.
“Yeah?”
“They’re gone. All of them. Those guys. Asha’s friends. Not a trace.”
Fuck. “Meet me in the security office.”
I ended the call and turned to Finn. “Take her to our doctor. I want updates every fifteen minutes. Don’t leave her side.”
He nodded. “I’ll keep her safe.”
I found Aidan and Liam in the security room, crowded around the guard’s console, running footage.
“There.” Liam paused the frame and pointed at the bar’s main doors.
The girls were leaving, half propped up by two of the guys they’d been with.
“Shite.” I scraped a hand over my face. “Get screenshots of those fuckers. I’ll have my tech guy ID them. And check the front cameras. I want a license plate—anything.”
As soon as I got their faces, I sent them to my hacker, a grad student at MIT, who called twelve minutes later.
“What have you got?” I answered.
“They came in on a Moscow flight two weeks ago. Passports say Russian.”
Bratva? I hadn’t noticed any identifying ink, but maybe it was hidden beneath their clothes.
“Send me everything you can find on them,” I ordered.
“I have a midterm tomorrow.”
“And you’ll have a funeral in a week if you don’t do what I fucking pay you for.” I hung up.
I glanced at Aidan. “I thought the Italians pushed the Bratva out years ago.” Decades before we’d taken over.
“They did,” he said. “But I heard about Ukrainians nosing around. Could’ve been Russians trying to go unnoticed.”
“Find out.”
Finn’s name lit up my phone.
I answered to strained breathing. “Finn?”
“They took her,” he panted. “Sorry, Boss. I fucked up.”
“Then get her back!”
“I tried. Got hit. Leg’s a mess.”
I clawed at my hair. Rage. Panic. Not enough air in the room.
Less than an hour ago, I’d told Asha I loved her. The words had slipped out and caught me off guard, but I’d meant them. Now, they felt like a curse.
Because an enemy had her.
And I knew what they’d do. They’d hurt her to hurt me. The very thing I’d tried to protect Asha from and my worst fucking nightmare all rolled into one.
I had to find her.
“Where?” I snapped.
“Fifth Street tunnel. North end.”
“Hold tight. We’re coming.”
I was already moving. Heart pounding, vision narrowing.
Tonight, three Russians would die.
I’d carve them down to bone and make sure the last thing they saw was my face.