Chapter 18 – Adrian
I can’t fucking sleep.
I toss. Turn. Curse under my breath. Flip the pillow. Nothing works.
I miss her.
It’s pathetic, isn’t it? A man like me—who’s cut throats without blinking, who’s feared across half the fucking continent—can’t sleep because a woman isn’t lying beside him.
Not just a woman. Her.
Jennie.
She’s stubborn, mouthy, unpredictable—and mine. Every damn inch of her. And tonight, I locked her away because she pushed too far. Because I was mad. Because I didn’t know how else to get her to stop cutting me with words sharper than any blade.
But maybe I overreacted.
Logan’s her brother. Of course, she’d be worried. Of course, she’d lash out. I knew that. I just—fuck—I didn’t handle it right.
She also said she didn’t care about me.
And that?
That fucking hurt.
I let out a sharp breath and throw the covers off. My body’s tight with frustration. I can’t let this sit. Can’t let her fall asleep thinking I don’t care or that I don’t feel every damn thing she does—tenfold.
I grab my phone, stuff it into my pocket, and step out of the room barefoot, heading down the dark corridor toward the panic room. Each step echoes with the weight of everything I didn’t say tonight.
I should’ve told her she was right to worry. I should’ve told her she’s allowed to feel things, to need things, and that I’m trying—God, I’m trying—to be enough for her.
She softens me. And I don’t know if that’s a weakness or the beginning of something stronger than anything I’ve ever known.
I reach the panic room. The guards I assigned earlier are gone. I frown.
That’s odd.
Very odd.
They aren’t supposed to leave. No matter what.
A cold feeling creeps up my spine as I reach for the panel and enter the code. The door unlocks with a click, the metal groaning slightly as I push it open.
“Jennie?” I call softly.
I take my gun out before the door is even fully open, every instinct in my body sharp and alert.
Something’s wrong.
The second I step into the room, the air feels different. Cold. Still. Wrong.
My eyes sweep across the space—the bed is empty. The crumpled blanket. The empty gift bag. The gold chain. And then—
A smear of blood on the floor.
Jennie.
I freeze for half a second. Just one. Then something inside me snaps.
A roar tears through my chest, primal and violent. I slam my fist into the wall hard enough to make the panels rattle.
She’s gone.
From my house. My fucking stronghold. With guards at every damn exit.
How?
How the fuck did they get to her?
I fall back a step, chest heaving as I stare at the blood again. It’s not much. Barely a streak. But it’s hers—and that’s enough to make my vision go red.
They touched her.
They hurt her.
They took her.
A sound escapes me—low, guttural. The kind of sound men fear in the dead of night. And they should fear me now. Because whoever laid a finger on her just started a war they’ll beg to end.
I don’t even feel the pain in my knuckles as I slam them into the wall again. And again. Drywall splits. Wood cracks. I flip the bed. The lamp crashes into the ground.
My lungs burn. My throat aches from the roar I didn’t realize I let out.
She’s gone.
Everything in me is unravelling—shredding from the inside out. I’ve killed men for far less. I’ve burned cities in retaliation. But this?
This is something else entirely.
Footsteps thunder down the corridor.
The door bursts open.
Zalar storms in with four guards behind him, guns drawn. His eyes take in the overturned room, the blood, the devastation—then land on me.
He knows.
“Boss….” His voice is cautious, like he’s trying to speak to a wild animal mid-rage.
I spin on him, eyes wild. “Where the fuck were you?!”
Zalar flinches. “I—I was checking the east perimeter—”
“You left her!” I hurl a chair across the room. It crashes into the wall, shattering.
I’m shaking. My hands are bleeding. I can barely see straight through the blinding rage.
“She was in this fucking house. Surrounded by my men. And they still got to her!”
Zalar steps forward slowly, arms raised slightly like he’s approaching a man with a gun to his own head. “We’ll find her. I swear on my life.”
I laugh—sharp and dangerous. “You will, or I’ll end yours.”
One of the guards starts to speak. I silence him with a glare.
Zalar looks around again. “There’s no sign of forced entry. Whoever did this had access. Clearance.”
I freeze.
Of course.
My jaw clenches. “We already established that, fucking hell. We were supposed to clamp down on the mole tomorrow. You couldn’t just watch her tonight? Just one fucking night? Fuck!”
Kaz appears at the doorway, his hair tousled, shirt half-buttoned like he just rolled out of bed.
“What the fuck is all the noise about?”
His voice is groggy, but the second his eyes take in the wreckage—my fists covered in blood, the ruined room, the crumpled sheets, the empty bed—he stops cold.
His face hardens.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “They got her? Fuck.”
I don’t respond.
I can’t.
My fist slams into the already broken wall again. The bone in my knuckle might be fractured—I don’t care. The pain barely registers. All I can see is her. Gone. Taken from me.
Zalar is barking orders into his comm. Guards are running. Sirens are going off across the property. But none of it is loud enough to drown out the rage pounding through my skull.
“I told them—” I hiss, pacing like a caged animal. “I told them she stays protected. I warned them. And still”—I kick the overturned dresser—“they took her out of my fucking house!”
Kaz walks further in, stepping over shattered glass. “Adrian—”
“I will kill everyone,” I snarl, pointing at the guards crowding the hall. “If I don’t get her back alive, I will slaughter anyone who failed her. Do you hear me?! I will burn this entire fucking city to the ground!”
“No one’s saying we won’t find her.” Kaz’s voice is calm, but tense. “We will. But you need to stop wrecking your own house first. Think.”
I spin toward him. “You think I give a shit about this house?”
Kaz turns to Zalar. “Who were the guards watching her?”
Zalar stands straighter. “I’ve sent out orders to find them.”
Kaz nods and turns to me again. “Adrian, take a deep breath and think. You can burn later. Now, we have to think.”
Zalar comes closer. “Boss. You need to sit. We’re sweeping the grounds. The dogs are out. Whoever took her couldn’t have gotten far.”
I grab him by the collar. “They got far enough.”
Kaz sighs. “You’re no good to her like this, man.”
Just then, a guard pushes through the chaos, a small black box in his gloved hands. His face is tight. “Boss,” he says, breathless. “This was found outside the east gate. It…it has your name on it.”
My stomach drops. I push Zalar away and snatch the box from him and rip it open, my fingers trembling. Inside is a USB drive. Just one. No note. No emblem. Just silence and threat.
I leave the panic room and storm down the hall to the surveillance room. Kaz follows. Zalar stays behind to keep coordinating the sweep. I shove the USB into the monitor, jaw clenched so tight it feels like it might shatter.
The screen flickers. Static. Then—
Jennie.
Bruised. Tied to a chair. Her head hanging low like she’s barely conscious. Her lip is split. There’s blood on her temple. Rope burns on her wrists. My knees almost give out.
My hands curl into fists, fingernails digging into my palms. I can’t breathe.
She lifts her head. Just barely. And even in that state, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Her eyes are swollen but defiant. Her breathing shaky but still steady.
Then a voice—distorted—cuts through the speakers. A masked man appears. “She’s alive. For now. But that depends on you, Adrian.”
Kaz curses under his breath.
I just stand there. Frozen. Dead inside. But burning. Fucking burning.
The voice continues.
“If you want her back, you’ll wait for my green light. I’ll tell you what to do or where to meet me. If you act before then—’cause I know you can be a rabid dog—if you act before I give my order, I’ll make sure she bleeds.”
He’s ordering me? That’s laughable.
I lean closer to the screen, my fists shaking at my sides.
Jennie’s still tied to the chair. Her head droops, lips parted, blood trailing down her chin. Unconscious. Unmoving.
My vision goes white.
The masked man moves in closer to the camera, blocking her completely.
“You don’t get to make the rules anymore. I’ll be in touch.”
Then the screen cuts.
Dead silence.
And I lose it.
I roar like something feral and slam my fist into the flat screen. The television explodes into shards, crackling and sparking as glass flies across the room. Kaz jumps back.
“Fuck!” I bellow, dragging the table into the wall. “Fuck!”
I see red. My entire body is shaking, chest heaving, muscles locked. She’s hurt. She’s hurt, and I wasn’t there. I left her. I locked her in thinking she’d be safe, and now she’s God knows where, and I’m supposed to sit around and wait?
Wait?
I turn to Kaz, who’s already pulling out his phone to mobilize a trace on the video. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw throbs.
“I’m not waiting for anyone’s green light.”
Kaz looks up, eyes narrowing. “Then what’s the play?”
My knuckles bleed. I don’t feel a thing.
“I find him. I kill him. And I take my wife back.”
I slip the USB back into my pocket and storm out of the room, already barking orders. This city? This game? It’s mine.
And someone just made the biggest fucking mistake of their life.
We’re barely out the door when Zalar rushes toward us, his face drawn and grim.
He doesn’t waste time.
“One of the guards outside the panic room—” he starts, breathing hard, “—we found his body on the front lawn. Headless.”
I freeze.
Kaz mutters something sharp under his breath.
My voice comes low. Deadly. “And the second guard?”
“Gone,” Zalar replies. “Missing.”
“What’s his name?” My blood starts to boil.
Zalar looks me dead in the eye. “Alexei.”
Alexei.
The name clicks. Quiet guy. Newer to the estate rotation. Had a clean record, nothing suspicious—until now.
I clench my fists. “I want every fucking piece of information on him. Birthplace. Bank records. Affiliations. I want to know who he fucked last and what time he took his last piss.”
Zalar nods. “Yes, Boss.”
“You have until I put my shirt on, or—I’m not kidding—you’ll wish you were the headless corpse on the lawn.”
I storm into my bedroom, shedding the thin cotton T-shirt I’d slept in. It reeks of sweat and fury. I yank open the closet and grab the first black button-down I see—something sharp, something that makes me look like the version of me the world fears.
I throw on the shirt, tuck it into my slacks, and strap my gun to my side.
Kaz is leaning against the door, watching me.
I won’t say it yet, but I am grateful for his presence.
It was rare for him to sleep over at my house, and he only did so because we had planned to make an announcement that would reveal the mole in the morning.
Just like we planned in the car ride back home.
Kaz stretches out his hand. “Give me the USB. I’ll send the clip to Dima. He’s good with audio distortion. If there’s anything off in the voice, he’ll catch it.”
I hand the USB to him and watch him slide into the chair at my desk, pulling the laptop to himself. His expression is blank—but I know him too well. That’s his kill face. The calm before the fucking storm.
I pace behind him, every nerve in my body coiled like barbed wire.
“She didn’t even scream,” I murmur, more to myself than anyone else. “She looked like she was already gone.”
Kaz doesn’t answer for a beat. Then he says, “She’s strong. Whoever took her knew exactly what they were doing. And they wanted you to see her like that.”
“Shut up, fucker, that doesn’t make me feel better.”
Kaz shrugs. “Who’s trying to make you feel better?”
The study door opens again, and Zalar strides in, a thick folder clutched in his hand. It’s heavy—stuffed with papers, printed records, photos.
“Everything we have on Alexei, Boss.”
I nod once, jaw tight. “Let’s dive in.”