Chapter 26
26
Nico
T here’s no trace of Anya or Breonna anywhere. No answer on either of their phones. My brothers and I are roaming through Seeley Lake, desperately searching for them.
We meet outside the sheriff’s station an hour later. Judging by the looks on Booker’s and Chance’s faces, they haven’t had much luck either.
“It’s as if they vanished into thin air,” Booker says, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “And Breonna’s place was empty. No sign of a break-in.”
“No footprints in the snow other than hers,” Chance adds.
“It was a setup. But why?” I ask, trying to understand. “Why would Anya leave like this?”
“Fucking hell, man, Anya’s pregnant and out there on her own,” Booker snaps.
Chance squeezes his shoulder in reassurance. “Breonna is most likely with her.”
“Forgive me if that doesn’t exactly settle my nerves,” I say, my blood running cold. “Any word from Sheriff Mills yet?”
“No.”
“We need to search around town again,” I decide.
“We turned it upside down and inside out, brother. They’re not in Seeley Lake anymore. And Breonna’s car hasn’t been seen in town since yesterday,” Chance insists.
There’s a duffel bag missing from the lodge, along with a few of Anya’s things. I put two and two together earlier on, but I kept hoping I was wrong.
“She is in imminent danger,” I growl. “What the fuck was she thinking?”
“What the fuck was Breonna thinking, getting involved?” Chance hisses.
Booker looks somewhere over my shoulder, his brow quick to furrow as I hear the sheriff’s car approaching. “Well, maybe she can tell us,” my brother says.
Chance and I follow his gaze just as Sheriff Mills parks his cruiser next to my truck and pulls Breonna out from the back seat. To say I’m confused would be an understatement.
“She was speeding when she hit the town limits, so I pulled her over. Alone,” Mills says with a deep frown.
Breonna doesn’t look at all concerned, though. If anything, she seems downright serene. I resist the urge to slap the truth out of her.
“Breonna, where’s Anya?” I ask.
“Away from here. Away from you,” she calmly replies.
“It’s all she said to me, too,” Mills cuts in. “I’m taking her to an interview room. Maybe some time in the box will make her more talkative.”
“I’m sure this is some sort of violation of my civil rights,” Breonna says in a calm tone. “I mean, I was only speeding. Just give me a ticket. There’s no need to drag me down to the police station.”
“There is when you were the last person seen with a missing pregnant woman,” Sheriff Mills bites back.
Chance is about to lunge at Breonna, but Booker pushes him back. “Where the fuck is Anya, you crazy bitch?”
“Don’t!” Booker warns him. “Don’t give her reasons…”
“He’s right,” I tell Chance, then turn to give the sheriff a nod.
“Where’s Breonna’s car?” Booker asks.
Sheriff Mills escorts her up the station’s front steps. “I called a tow truck. They’ll bring it over to the station in about thirty minutes.”
* * *
“Was there anything in Breonna’s car that could tell us where Anya is?” I ask Mills ten minutes later as we stand in front of an interview room in the station’s underground level.
Chance and Booker are pacing the hallway, making calls and reaching out to everyone we know in the area and in law enforcement to help us get a line on Anya as Breonna sits in a chair, uncomfortable but just as tranquil as before.
“Nothing,” Mills tells me. “You said there was a duffel bag missing from your place, along with some of Anya’s clothes and stuff? I didn’t find it in Breonna’s car. A forensic sweep will tell us more, though. Until I find otherwise, I’m treating Breonna as a kidnapping suspect.”
“Kidnapping?” Breonna scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You will be investigated, charged, and prosecuted accordingly, if you don’t cooperate,” Mills replies. “This is serious.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she insists.
“Let me put this in terms you will understand,” I tell her. “You’re looking at official federal charges. A criminal record. Prosecution in a court of law. A federal prison sentence. And if something happens to Anya… much, much worse. Breonna, do yourself a favor and get ahead of it while you still can. Anya can’t be out there on her own. She’s in danger.”
Breonna gives me a pained look, as if confused. Her calmness bugs the hell out of me. “I don’t understand why you’re mad at me. I did you a favor, Nico. You and your brothers. Anya needed help getting away from here. She knew you wouldn’t understand, but I’ll give the girl credit, she had your best interests at heart.”
“So, then, what… You staged the whole break-in thing this morning just to get us out of the lodge?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“What did you do, next?” Mills cuts in.
She rolls her eyes. “I got Anya into my car and dropped her off at the airport in Missoula. Seriously, Nico, you are too emotionally involved to see it, but I really did you all a favor. Anya was too dangerous to stick around.”
“That wasn’t for you to decide,” I reply just as Chance is about to go on another furious tirade as Booker keeps one ear on the conversation and the other one on his phone. “Anya was safer with us.”
“Haven’t you noticed she brought us nothing but trouble? Russian mobsters, murderers. Nico, Anya’s bad news. I get that you’re fond of her, and I can’t blame you. She’s a sweet girl. But she doesn’t belong here, and she certainly doesn’t belong in your life.”
“Again, not for you to decide,” I say. “You said you took her to the airport in Missoula?”
Breonna shrugs. “I got her a first-class ticket to New York, gave her some cash to move around the city. She’s headed to her grandmother’s place in the Hamptons, I think. She asked for help. I did not kidnap her! Trust me, Nico, I did it for you”
“You did it for yourself, you conniving bitch,” Booker hisses as he gets off the phone. “I just spoke to our contacts in New York. Nobody knows if Zoya Asimova is even still alive.”
Mills checks his phone for incoming texts. “And my deputies are telling me they did another sweep of the town and its surrounding hotels and motels. There’s no sign of the Russians anywhere. It’s as if they vanished into thin air, too. Something’s going on here.”
“And Anya’s right at the center.” I exhale sharply and level my gaze on Breonna. “For once in your life, do the right thing. Who knew that you were taking Anya out of Seeley Lake this morning?”
“No one,” she says, but I don’t believe her.
I scoff, shaking my head in dismay. If I can’t get her to do the right thing, I can at least take advantage of her twisted affection for me, whatever it takes to get Anya and our unborn child back before it’s too late. “I expected better of you, Breonna. I thought you had genuine feelings for me.”
“But I do,” she replies and gets up, walking toward me with a pleading look in her eyes. “I care about you, Nico, which is why I helped Anya get out of your life. You will thank me later; I promise. When it’s all over, when the pain has healed, you’ll understand.”
“The pain… Breonna, Anya is pregnant. She’s the woman I love. And if you care about me, why would you actively do something to hurt me? Anya thought she was doing the right thing, but something tells me you’re not being entirely honest with me.”
“What makes you say that?” Her cold tone of her voice gives her away.
“The kind of affection you feel toward me isn’t the selfless kind. It’s not your style, no matter how hard you try to act like it is. If you do have feelings me, you should at least be honest.”
Breonna stares at me for the longest second, then looks at the sheriff. “What time is it?”
“Why?”
“Just asking?”
Mills checks his watch. “Just past noon.”
“Okay.” She glances back at me. “Leo Sokolov took Anya home where she belongs. By now, they’re far away from here and out of your reach. Like I said, someday, you’ll understand. Bloodshed was avoided today.”
Chance curses under his breath. “Fuck.”
“There’s no way that plane is landing where it’s supposed to land as per the flight log,” Booker adds, a deep frown casting a shadow over his eyes. “We need to find her, Nico.”
“So, let me get this straight,” I say ad exhale sharply, my attention on a softening Breonna. I think, in her delusion, the true gravity of her actions is finally starting to sink in. “You helped Anya leave the lodge and get away from us because you both knew we wouldn’t let her leave.”
“Yes.”
“And you drove her to Missoula. Got her a ticket on a plane and sent her off with Leo Sokolov? The man who butchered her family? Whose brother tried to kill her twice here in town?”
“When you put it like that—”
“There’s no other way to put it!” I snap. “You betrayed Anya. You betrayed me, my brothers, and this whole fucking town. Leo Sokolov is a dangerous Russian mobster, and you sent Anya off to slaughter while pregnant with my child!”
Breonna quivers in her boots and sits down. “I did it for you.”
“You did it for yourself,” I hiss, rage burning through me. “You did it for yourself because you thought that once enough time passed, I would forget about her and welcome you back into my bed, make you a part of my life. That’s never going to happen, Breonna. I would rather eat a bucket of rusty nails; I would rather saw my own arm off than ever even consider touching you again.”
She gives me a hurt look. “You don’t mean that.”
“You’re going to rot in prison for what you did, you fucking snake,” Chance growls and punches the wall.
“Nico, what the hell are you going to do?” Mills asks me in a low voice.
“We’re going to find Anya,” I reply. “There’s no other choice.”
I just need to figure out how the fuck we’re going to do that.