22. Kira
KIRA
I didn't know what happened but something jarred me awake in the middle of the night.
My hand slid across the bed, reaching for Niko, but his pillow was cold and his side of the bed was empty.
I lay still for a moment, listening to see if he'd gotten up to use the toilet, which would make sense if it woke me, but the house was silent.
The only sound I could hear was passing traffic, which was faint like usual.
"Niko?" I called, sitting up. After feeling so sick after sex last night, I'd been certain he would ask me if I was pregnant, but he hadn't said a word. Now I felt lightheaded and exhausted, but stirred awake by something that had my heart pounding.
Still naked, I slipped out of bed, groping in the darkness to find my clothing, which lay crumpled in a heap on the bathroom floor.
Without light, I could barely see, but my heart was pounding now.
Adrenaline had kicked me awake, whether by nightmare or something in the house, and my fight or flight was going off.
I kept the lights off and dressed quietly.
But as I tiptoed across the bedroom, I still heard nothing.
Even when I pressed my ear to the door and listened intently.
If Nikolai was home, he wasn't making noise.
But whatever had startled me awake had startled me enough that I knew I'd never get back to sleep unless I checked the house out, or asked Gregg what was going on.
To my surprise, when I turned the doorknob, it wasn't locked. The door creaked as I pulled it open, but Gregg wasn't in the hallway either. No Gregg and no Niko, with no locked door, wasn't normal.
"Niko?" I said, softer this time, whispering down the hallway where I swear I heard footsteps.
But it was pitch black. No light came from any doorways, and no other sounds hit my ears.
I tried to calm myself a little, tell myself that it was just a strange night, that Niko was in his office.
So I moved that direction hoping to find him.
When I found his office door unlocked and unguarded I figured he was inside, but I pushed the door open and still no Nikolai. However, the light was on, and I immediately felt safer.
His desk was a mess like always, papers everywhere and a glass of water next to a stack of folders.
I don't know why the light being on made me relax so much but it did, like someone had just been here a few minutes ago and would be right back.
So I sat down in his chair because my legs were shaky and the nausea from earlier was threatening to come back.
My eyes swept over the mess on his desk and I thumbed through a notepad that had his handwriting on it.
I found the marriage certificate still sitting on the corner of the desk like he'd forgotten to put it away safely and scrutinized the signature. There was no way it would pass for mine, but at this point it didn’t matter.
I had no way to fight him anyway, not if my father wasn't fighting for me.
When I moved a pile of receipts, I found a phone.
Not his real phone, which he kept on him at all times.
This was one of those cheap prepaid ones, the kind my father's guys used to use when they didn't want calls traced.
Niko must've tossed it there and forgotten about it, which didn't seem like him, but there it was.
I pulled it out from under the papers and turned it over in my hands.
I had waited for an opportunity like this for seven full weeks now, for Niko to give me my phone back or someone to make a stupid mistake like this. The men all guarded their phones well. It wasn't like I could lift one, but this felt like the gods had smiled on me.
I flipped it open and stared at the keypad, thinking about calling 911, but the second I played that out in my head, I saw how it would go.
Police show up, Niko gets arrested, but then they start digging and my father's name comes up and his whole operation gets pulled into the light right alongside Niko's.
Everyone I'd ever loved would get caught in that.
My mother, Jasper, everyone connected to the Markin name.
And if the pregnancy came out through some police report or court document, my father would hear about it and so would Nikolai.
Hell would have no fury like a criminal who's been scorned.
That ideal fizzled out about as quickly as it'd come.
The thought about calling my father directly made me laugh at myself. Secondary concern. Not worth diverting men. Those words from Nikolai's messages lived in my head now like a scar I couldn't stop touching, and I wasn't about to beg for attention from a man who'd written me off.
But my mother… God, I missed her so much, it made my chest ache just thinking about her voice.
How many times had I thought about her and wondered what she'd make of this if she knew?
And here I was with a phone and privacy to make that call I'd been thinking about for weeks.
So I dialed her number before I could talk myself out of it.
"Hello?" She sounded like I'd pulled her out of a dead sleep, which I probably had, though it was past dawn there at least.
"Mom, it's me," I rushed out, scared to hear her reaction. I didn't know what to expect because I didn't know what she'd hear or if she'd heard anything at all.
"Kira?" All the sleep dropped out of her voice at once. "Baby, where are you? Are you okay? Your father won't tell me a single thing, he just keeps saying it's being handled—"
"I'm okay, Mom." My heart felt anxious but safer now. I hadn't talked to anyone other than Nikolai and his staff for so long I was beginning to forget who my real family was. "No one has hurt me, okay? But I want to go home and—"
"Your father is a dangerous man, Kira." She sighed and I heard sniffling. I never stopped to think about how she'd feel for real if she found out I'd been taken. "I don't think you should go home. Where are you? Can you get away? Are they locking you up?"
"It's complicated, Mom." I didn't know how to explain any of it without telling her everything, and I couldn't tell her everything. Not only would it take too long, but I was ashamed. "I just… I'm scared."
"Well, baby. You're right to be scared. Your father is a monster. Jasper told me what's happened and you know Xavier. He hasn't bothered to call me or return a single call. He cares about no one but himself, and that's what drove your brother and me away…"
I closed my eyes and let that sink in. Everything Niko had been telling me was coming out of my mother's mouth now, and hearing it from her made it so much worse because she wasn't the enemy.
She wasn't trying to manipulate me or keep me captive or use me as leverage.
She was just my mom, telling me the truth.
"Mom, I think I'm pregnant."
The line went so quiet I thought the call had dropped.
Then I heard her exhale hard and when she spoke again, she sounded frightened.
"Kira, listen to me. Your father cannot find out about that.
Do you hear me? His pride's the most dangerous thing about him, and if he finds out you're pregnant by that man, he won't come at it like a father who's worried about his daughter.
He'll come at it like a man whose reputation is on the line, and baby, you do not want to be in the way of that. "
"Mom—"
"I'm serious, Kira. Promise me. He cannot know." If Jasper told her who took me, then she's probably right. Dad would hate me simply for being Nikolai's wife—even if he forced me to do it. If he knew I had willingly slept with his enemy, all bets were off.
"I promise." My voice cracked and I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. "Mom, I have to go."
"No, baby, wait. Tell me where you are. Let me come to you, let me do something—"
"I love you. I have to go, Mom."
"Kira, please—"
I hung up, but as I did I heard footsteps in the hallway and I knew it was too late. Nikolai stepped through the doorway and his eyes went to the phone, then to my face. I watched his eyes narrow as the softness from earlier tonight drained out of his expression and it darkened.
"What did you do?" Nikolai wasn't shouting, but the tone he used terrified me. "Who did you call?"
"Niko, it's not what you think." I started to stand up, but he moved toward me and I sat back down.
"Who did you call?" He pulled the phone out of my hand and looked down at the screen. When he saw the number, something flickered behind his eyes but the anger didn't go down at all. The foreign number must've jogged his memory or something.
"My mother," I blurted. "That's all it was, Niko. I swear. I needed to hear my mom's voice." I stood, reaching for him, but he threw the phone onto the desk, knocking the water off the other side. It shattered on the floor and startled me.
"You went through my desk." When he grabbed my wrist and pinned it to my chest, I whimpered. "You waited until I was gone and you went through my things?"
"I didn't go through anything. The phone was sitting right there in the open—"
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" He started pacing, running his hand through his hair, and I'd never seen him like this. Even when he caught me trying to escape in the hallway, he wasn't this angry.
This was different. This was fear underneath the rage and it was pouring off him so strong, I started to get afraid too.
"Your father has people monitoring everything.
If anyone on his end is watching your mother's phone, they can trace this call back to a tower and from the tower to a radius and from the radius to this house. "
"My mom wouldn't give that information up."
"She doesn't have to give anything up, Kira. That's not how it works." Those words came out in pure hostility. I hated that he was talking down to me. "They pull the records whether she cooperates or not, and it leads them right here. Right to you and me and everyone under this roof."
"You're overreacting." I started toward the door but he spun around, grabbing me again.
"I'm overreacting?" His grip on my wrist hurt, but I didn’t think he'd really hurt me. "Kira, I just stole about fifty million dollars of cocaine from your father, and when he learns about it and he figures out where I live, do you know what that means?"
"Holy shit…" I mumbled. My hand fluttered to my mouth and I felt my face opening up like a book. There was no way to hide my shock when my eyes went wide and my jaw hung loose. "He's gonna…"
"I know!" Nikolai snarled, coming at me angrily again. He wrapped his arm around my waist and started dragging me toward the door as I pelted his wrist with my fists. "I can't believe how foolish you were."
"Let me go!" I snarled, clenching my teeth. I gripped his forearm, trying to pry him off, but it was no use. "You swore you wanted me in your life for good, Nikolai. What did you think I would do, pretend I don't have a family?"
My hysteria didn't seem to bother him one bit.
He kept moving, dragging me out the door of his office and down the hall.
And then suddenly, we were on the ground, and a large boom resonated around us, so loud, it swallowed every other sound and shook the walls.
I fell, and Nikolai collapsed on top of me, shielding me as debris rained down and more booms echoed.
My head hit the floor hard, and pain shot through my neck and chest. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest, and the lights went out. And when I clamped my eyes shut in fear, unable to make a sound, the world went black.