Chapter 4
Alexei
“What the fuck do you mean she hasn’t been spotted?” I bark at Chekhov, our head of security.
Judiciously, he backs away. This whole clusterfuck is his fault, and he knows it.
He was supposed to have guards at the clinic by the time we arrived, but their plane departed Moscow late due to bad weather, and we beat them to the clinic by about an hour.
I figured it was no big deal, as the Molotovs were unlikely to triangulate our location that quickly, and I didn’t want to delay Alina’s surgery by so much as a minute.
Stupidly, I didn’t think she would run. Not after fucking me like that.
Not when her freaking life is on the line.
Motherfucker. I grit my teeth until my molars ache, then scrub my palms over my unshaven face in an effort to wipe away the fog of exhaustion.
I’m taking this out on the wrong person.
This clusterfuck is entirely my fault. I shouldn’t have let her out of my sight—nor gotten off the plane without our usual security measures in place.
But I was arrogant. Or maybe the shock of Alina’s diagnosis and the resulting lack of sleep hindered my ability to think straight.
Either way, I decided Ruslan and I would be enough to keep Alina safe until our guards arrived, and I never imagined she’d be able to slip away right under my nose—especially given how sick she’s been.
Or how she reached for me in that dressing room.
I push the memory away and force myself to focus. I can rage at my gullibility later. For now, I have to locate her and bring her back before it’s too late.
“How could she not have been spotted?” I repeat, a tad calmer. “How much of the footage have our hackers reviewed?”
Chekhov grimaces. “All of it. The dress shop, which you already know about, is the one and only recording of her. Neither of the traffic cams at the cross streets caught her after she exited the shop. Nor did any security cameras from the nearby businesses—though, with this being an old historic area, there were quite a few shops that didn’t have any cameras whatsoever, including several of the ones immediately surrounding the dress shop. ”
Fuck. Unless my wife has suddenly developed the skills of a professional spy, there’s only one explanation for her too-thorough disappearance: her brothers have already gotten involved, specifically Konstantin with his hackers.
Though I don’t know why they’d bother erasing the footage from after the dress shop and not from before.
Why not erase all of it instead of letting us track her for several blocks?
Then again, maybe we got to that footage before they did. Either way, it’s obvious what happened.
Alina saw an opportunity to run, took it, and immediately contacted her brothers—who acted swiftly to cover her digital trail, allowing her to escape unobserved to their designated rendezvous point.
I take another deep breath and try to think through the haze of fury in my brain.
It’s been a little over five hours since she climbed out of that window.
That means she might still be somewhere in Geneva, waiting to be picked up by her brothers or whoever they’re sending.
I doubt the Molotovs just happened to have a trustworthy-enough crew stationed nearby, so they’re probably coming from Moscow, same as my people.
How much time does that give me to retrieve Alina before we have to fight a full-out battle? A few hours? More? Less?
Less, I decide. Much less. If the Molotovs tracked my plane and figured out its destination prior to us landing—which is more than likely given Konstantin’s hackers’ capabilities—they were already on the way here when we arrived.
So I have a couple of hours at best. After that, things are going to get bloody.
“Make sure our people are stationed at every airport, public or private, within driving distance,” I tell Chekhov as his phone vibrates in his hand. “If we don’t find her before her brothers arrive, we’ll follow them to her.”
“Already on it,” he says absentmindedly, looking at the screen.
Suddenly, his posture changes, and his head snaps up to meet my gaze.
“Our hackers located the flight plan for the Molotov jet. It’s scheduled to land in four and a half hours at the same airport we used.
Both Konstantin and Valery are on board. ”
I stare at him, taken aback. “They filed a flight plan?”
That’s not like the Molotovs at all. Normally, they’re very good at concealing their movements—and they’d definitely want to do that this time to avoid leading me to my runaway bride. Unless… they’re sending a separate team to pick her up while we’re distracted by Konstantin and Valery.
Chekhov is clearly thinking along the same lines. “It’s most likely a decoy.”
“I’m almost certain it is,” Ruslan says, looking up from his laptop. Unlike me, who has been pacing around my newly purchased penthouse for the past hour, he’s lounging on the couch, unfazed by the events. And why not? It’s not his fucking wife who’s pregnant, sick, and on the run.
I’m about to snap at him when my phone pings with an incoming email. I glance at the screen, and my pulse jolts.
It’s a reply to the message I sent to the Molotovs the other day, notifying them of Alina’s diagnosis.
Konstantin and I are coming to see her. Don’t stand in our way.
-VM
I frown and show it to Ruslan and Chekhov.
Ruslan’s frown matches mine. “Why would they warn you that they’re coming? We’re supposed to have figured that out on our own thanks to their supposed slip-up, right? Otherwise, it’s a shitty decoy.”
“They’re making it sound like they don’t know Alina ran away,” Chekhov says, scanning the message again. “How stupid do they think we are?”
I take my phone back and read over the message. It could be interpreted that way—or it could be that they’re warning me to stand aside and let them retrieve Alina without a fight. Either way, the message is out of character for Valery.
“Something’s not adding up,” Ruslan says, voicing my thoughts. “They have to know that we know that they’re in touch with Alina. Could the message have been sent prior to her escape? Maybe there was a delay in the email reaching us for some reason?”
That’s a possibility, though an unlikely one.
But it’s a better theory than anything else I can think of.
Either way… “Tell the guards to be prepared for anything,” I tell Chekhov.
“And continue keeping an eye on all the other airports, along with train and bus stations. Also, set up checkpoints on all the roads leading out of Geneva. Call in every favor we’ve got. ”
“On it,” he says, his thumbs already flying over his phone’s screen.
I leave him to it and walk over to the window to stare out at the gleaming waters of Lake Geneva.
I’d purchased this penthouse prior to Alina’s escape so we’d have a place to stay during her treatment.
Its proximity to the clinic and pretty views were the main selling points.
Now it’s going to serve as our base of operations as we search for her and prepare for war with her brothers.
“You should get some rest. This won’t be resolved anytime soon,” Ruslan says, coming up to stand next to me.
“I’ll rest when we find her.”
“No, you won’t. That’s when she’ll need you the most. So you should get some shuteye now, while nothing is happening.”
Fuck. He’s right. I scrub my hand over my face again. The lack of sleep is taking a toll on me. My eyes burn with exhaustion, my muscles ache, and my thinking is slow and muddled. Worse yet, my temper is at a hair trigger. If I don’t get some sleep soon, I won’t just be useless—I’ll be dangerous.
“Go crash for an hour or two,” Ruslan says. “I’ll wake you up if we find out anything.”
I nod curtly and go.
It feels like I’ve barely shut my eyes when I’m roughly shaken awake. For a second, I’m disoriented, but then the events of the past couple of days flood my brain and I jackknife off the bed, nearly knocking Ruslan off his feet as I grab for my phone to check the time.
Fuck. It’s nearly six hours later. I should’ve set a fucking alarm instead of trusting my brother to wake me.
“Did we find her?” I demand, stuffing the phone into my pocket.
“No.” Ruslan’s expression is strangely tight. “Her brothers are here, though.”
“You mean they’ve landed?”
“I mean, they’re fucking here, in your living room.”
I shoot him a disbelieving look before stalking out into said living room. Sure enough, Konstantin and Valery Molotov are sitting on my couch, identical hazel-gold eyes trained on me with undisguised hostility.
What the fuck?
“They came by themselves,” Ruslan says in a low voice before I can approach our uninvited guests. “I had them searched for weapons before letting them in. They’re clean. And I think… they don’t know where Alina is either.”
My right hand clenches into a fist. “Bullshit.”
“Just hear them out,” Ruslan says under his breath. “If it’s an act, it’s a fucking good one.”
I fight the urge to deck him, or better yet, both of Alina’s brothers. Instead, I call upon every ounce of restraint and approach the couch.
They stand as I stop in front of them. It’s eerie how alike they look, despite being nearly six years apart in age and Konstantin wearing glasses.
They’re almost like twins. Or triplets, if you count their middle brother, Nikolai—who, it appears, couldn’t make it to the party.
Probably because he’s busy playing daddy to my nephew.
It sets my teeth on edge just thinking about it.
The two Molotovs match me in height, so we’re eye to eye as we glare at each other.
Valery breaks the silence first. His voice is like a shard of glass in winter. “I told you not to stand in our way, Leonov. We came unarmed—now let us see her.”
It’s hard to keep my face expressionless. “You want to see your sister.”
“That’s right,” Konstantin says, his tone calm despite the hatred burning in his eyes. “Your email said she’ll be undergoing surgery shortly. We want to see her before she goes under the knife.”
This is fucking weird. Are they here as a diversion?
Do they think we’ll call off our men and stop looking for Alina if they pretend like they know nothing?
If so, that’s a very risky ploy. The full contingent of my guards is here now, so I could have them both detained.
I could keep them prisoner and torture them until they tell me exactly where Alina is.
Alina wouldn’t appreciate it if I killed them, so I’ll try not to, but they wouldn’t have to know that.
Then again, they undoubtedly have their men stationed nearby, ready to attempt a rescue if needed. Maybe they think that’s assurance enough, and this game is worth it. But to what end? Why take this kind of risk for a not-so-convincing ploy?
I have to find out, which means playing along for now.
“She’s resting,” I say coolly. “I’ll tell her you’re here when she wakes up.”
Valery’s jaw hardens. “We’ll see her now.”
Yeah, sure. “How did you find us?” I ask, as if he hasn’t spoken.
“We tracked your plane,” Konstantin replies flatly. “From there, it wasn’t hard to figure out which penthouse you’d purchased. There were only a few on the market in Geneva, and only one was bought by an untraceable shell company. I’m sure you knew that, though.”
So I did. And they knew that I knew they’d be coming. So why the hell are they pretending like I don’t know Alina would reach out to them first thing?
Unless… she didn’t. Or couldn’t.
Everything inside me goes cold.
What if she didn’t climb out of that window on her own?
What if someone took her?
Fuck knows, her brothers and I have enemies to spare.
Goddammit. What if that’s what the Molotovs want me to think so they can get her out of Geneva without bloodshed? Is this what they’re hoping to achieve by coming here unarmed—convincing me that they’re not involved in her disappearance?
Then again, what if they aren’t?
“We’ll see her now,” Valery repeats harshly, taking a step forward, and Konstantin does the same. Their faces are hard, determined, their postures tense and combat ready—the very picture of brothers dead set on getting to their sick sister, regardless of the risk to themselves.
Ruslan was right. If it’s a fucking act, it’s an Oscar-worthy one.
The threat of violence hangs in the air, thickening the atmosphere, and I make a split-second decision. Because the only thing worse than Alina’s brothers taking her from me would be someone else doing that. Someone who doesn’t care for her.
Someone who wants to hurt me or her brothers through her.
“I don’t have her,” I say, laying all the cards on the table. “And the two of you either know that full well, or she’s in big fucking trouble.”