Chapter 23 Emil
EMIL
In the morning, I rolled over and tried to get more comfortable.
I liked that this apartment offered more leisure than the rough conditions that safehouse in the jungle did, but I missed being in my bed.
The one at my main residence, not the room I had at my father’s house.
With the amount of traveling and getting up and going on the spot that I did in my line of work, the creature comfort of my bed, custom made and precisely fitted with the sheets I preferred, the pillows I chose after trial and error, wasn’t a trivial thing.
The Dubinin Dynasty was one of the wealthiest organizations in the country, the world, even, and no expenses would be spared. Still, I wasn’t that picky or hard to please. By nature, I wasn’t a materialistic man.
But I did enjoy a solid night of sleep in my bed. That seemed like a more feasible possibility in the near future, too, with Sadie and I coming to a general agreement that she was with me.
With me and my family. She agreed to talk to my father.
In fact, it seemed like she was expecting the obligation to do so.
She hadn’t come forward with the initiative to suggest that she talk to my father in an attempt to win his approval, but it wasn’t like I’d given her time to speak up about details when I peppered her with questions about her pregnancy.
Even though she told me she’d gone to a couple of appointments with a doctor, I wanted to prioritize having her checked over again with the best of care, maybe even asking Gabby about the doctor she was going to for her second pregnancy.
It will all come together.
It had to.
Sadie had made her way back to me despite all the odds stacked against us, and I had to have faith that it was fate. That this could be love uniting us. That it would last even though we came from opposition.
We’ll start the rest of our lives today.
Introducing her to my father would be the first and most important step.
It would be the beginning of her being integrated into my family.
While it wouldn’t be an instant process, I was confident that my father would come around.
When he did, all the men under his rule, and mine, would fall into step too.
He accepted Raisa. Everyone eventually let her in.
Raisa had faced issues fitting in at first because she came from a rival family, yet she stayed strong and didn’t let the grumbling guards bother her.
She won over Luka, proving to him that she wasn’t a spy or a threat.
In the end, she killed her own father, choosing to be a Dubinin and ally with us over her former family. Nothing could trump that action.
Sadie would be under similar scrutiny. No, she’d be subjected to a harder trial of earning my father’s respect.
She was an agent. She held intel about many families, which would be an asset for us, but he would be slow to get over the fact that she was an enemy, an agent formerly expected to arrest me.
But he will come around.
He will.
He has to.
The alternative wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t leave her again, but I dreaded having to vouch for her when we hadn’t talked in depth about what she could bring to the table.
What assurances she could give us that she was fully changing her attitude about law and order and the rightness of our style of seeking and delivering justice.
It would be a big day, a long one, too, but I wouldn’t stray from her side.
She would be with me the entire time. Even my father wouldn’t come between us during this interrogation.
He trusted me, and he wouldn’t stop me from sticking with her.
It would be the first sign of how deeply committed I was to her, one more way to show him that this wasn’t some fickle little fling or phase.
Counting on this experience to exhaust us, I appreciated that she at least had gotten a solid night of sleep.
Her headaches came and went, mostly from tension, I bet.
I wasn’t a doctor, but it seemed that with how often I noticed her clenching and grinding her teeth at night, she was giving herself tension headaches from that strain.
Stress couldn’t be good for an expectant mother. It only pushed me that much more to bring her home and be able to provide for her, to remove any stressors that I could.
I shifted, seeking her out in the bed. It was strange that she wasn’t rolling over to me and looking for my body heat. As a light sleeper, she almost always stirred first after a solid night of slumber.
But she wasn’t.
I moved my arm, roving my hand over the bed.
And found nothing.
She wasn’t there.
Alarm had me opening my eyes quickly. She wasn’t in the bed. Blinking quickly to erase the sleep from my eyes, I leaned up and studied the rumpled sheets and blanket. Her pillows were right where I expected them, in a messy heap, but she wasn’t hidden among them.
“Sadie?” I sat up more, worried that she wasn’t with me.
I rubbed my face, dragging my hand over my jaw as I swung my legs over the side of the bed to get up and find her.
I hated the possibility that she might be sick, in the bathroom on her own to handle any episode of belated morning sickness. She had seemed lucky so far, not often nauseated from the pregnancy, but I bet fluke moments of uneasiness would still get her down.
“Sadie?” I left the bedroom, walking down the hall and then toward the bathroom. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it served us well. Once I got her to my father’s house and we endured the beginning of the interrogation, I’d treat her to luxury in my room and bathroom there in the mansion.
“Sadie?”
Nothing.
She didn’t reply. No noise came from the bathroom as I approached. The water wasn’t running from the shower, sink, or toilet. Sounds of puking or gasping didn’t greet me.
“Sadie?” I pushed open the door that wasn’t fully closed. The motion sensor kicked on the light, revealing an empty room.
What the hell?
I backed up, trying not to panic that I couldn’t find her where I expected her. She wasn’t in bed, she wasn’t in the bathroom, but that was only the start of searching. This apartment wasn’t that big.
I didn’t call out for her as I looked. Retreating to the bedroom to grab my gun, I checked every inch of the apartment. The kitchen, the lounge. The other bedroom that didn’t even have any furniture.
She wasn’t here.
Anxiety laced through me. Tension kept my movements stiff and jerky.
I searched the entire unit again, rejecting the idea that she could be gone. We’d just found each other again. She’d just come back into my life, and I wanted to stick with denial and refuse to believe that she was already gone.
Or at all.
She wouldn’t have run.
The thought snuck into my mind as I tried to rationalize what happened, but I scratched that. She would not have run off.
But what if—
I gritted my teeth, denying it.
If she wasn’t committed to sticking with me and going to see my father and being with me, she would’ve had the motivation to run. She had to be nervous about seeing my father, her former enemy and target.
But she couldn’t have run.
She wouldn’t be a liar and dupe me like that. When I told her my father wanted to see her and that I had to bring her in, she hadn’t cried or freaked out. She’d listened with acceptance, like she already expected it.
She didn’t run.
I knew it in the depth of my soul.
Convincing myself of that had to mean one other thing.
She was taken.
Someone had broken in here to snatch her. Right from the bed we’d shared.
Again, I checked the apartment. This time, I obsessed over looking for clues of a break-in.
For marks on the doors and windows. Any evidence that someone else had been here, or that she’d struggled to resist a capture.
She would have. Sadie would not have left willingly, but that sickened me even more.
What if she was drugged? Sedated? Knocked out?
Keeping these fears at bay, I breathed harder and faster as adrenaline filled me.
Even though I saw no signs of blood or anything to suggest violence, I had to suspect that something bad had gone down to allow anyone to physically remove Sadie from this apartment.
How the fuck did this happen?
No security measures or cameras had been installed here since the property was newly acquired. No guards were patrolling as backup. Sadie and I came here to hide, but someone was aware of how to find us. How to capture her right from under my nose.
“Fuck.”
I didn’t stall. I couldn’t dwell here and overthink it all on my own. Already, I was locked into an emotional response, not looking at this situation with a strategic or logical perspective.
I ran back to my room and grabbed my phone and shoes. Shoving my feet in them, I called my cousin.
“Alex. I need your help.”
It was preemptive of me to tell him to help me find Sadie before getting my father’s approval that Sadie could be an ally and accepted as someone belonging under our protection.
But I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t follow the plan and protocol to bring her to my father first. How the fuck could I when she was gone?
I told him the barest basics, knowing that my cousin who supervised security would hear the sincere grave tone I spoke with.
Alexsei wasn’t stupid. He’d move and react first, then ask questions later.
Ivan, too, didn’t pepper me with too many questions.
I called him second, frantically asking him to come too and help me hunt the area for Sadie.
Telling them that I needed help to find a woman was enough to get them to move.
And they came.
“This is the agent?” Ivan asked after they showed up.
I nodded, unsurprised that my father would’ve already told them about Sadie to some degree.
We split up, canvassing the area.
None of us found her, and it was with a daunting dread that I worried she was taken too far.
“You’ve got no idea when she left?” Alexsei asked when we regrouped. Both looked at me with worry, but also skepticism.
I scowled. “She didn’t fucking leave. She was taken.”
“Hey, hey.” Ivan held his hands up. “Calm down.”
“I will not fucking calm down!” I roared. I was ready to tear every inch of this earth apart to find her again. I couldn’t live like this, twisted and burning inside with the rage that I’d let her down and failed to keep her safe.
“Then don’t panic,” Ivan barked. “Not yet.”
“You can’t blame us for assuming she could’ve taken off,” Alexsei said. “An agent asked to break her loyalty to her agency and come to talk to Luka? She’d be nervous and prone to running scared.”
“No.” I paced angrily on the sidewalk. “No. She wouldn’t have run from me. From us.”
“Stop.” Ivan grabbed me by the upper arm. “Stop and think this through, for fuck’s sake.” Alexsei turned to answer his phone while I glared at Ivan for even trying to suggest that I take it easy.
Sadie was gone.
She was taken.
My child could be in danger too.
Nothing would make me calm the fuck down now.
“That was Luka,” Alexsei said with a somber frown. “He’s pissed.”
“I don’t fucking care.” I gripped my hair and held it, feeling like I was about to explode from the anger.
I knew it would look bad, her disappearing the night before she was supposed to be brought in to talk to my father.
I knew how bad this looked. But she wouldn’t have run.
She wouldn’t have defied me or my father like this.
“Let’s go,” Ivan said, glancing around. “Before we run the risk of anyone else noticing that something is up.”
“I can’t—” I shook my head, vibrating with fear and anger.
They both stared me down, questioning me silently.
“Fuck. Don’t look at me like that.” I paced some more, needing to do something before I screamed.
“I’m not avoiding him.” I knew I’d be questioned harshly about Sadie’s disappearance and the timing of it.
I knew it and there was no way out of it, but at the same time, I wanted to get it over with.
The faster I could convince my father that she hadn’t defied me and run away, the sooner we could put our energy into finding her.
I had to.
I needed to get her back now.
Every second of knowing someone had taken her was agony, piling on more dread and worry.
“I need her back.”
“Then let’s go,” Ivan said.
I shook my head again, so enraged and sickened with fear that I couldn’t think straight, much less see straight. “I can’t drive. I can’t—” I growled, fisting my hands and wishing I could rip something to shreds. That was how panicked and furious I was.
“We’ve got you.” Alexsei urged me to go with them, his hand on my back.
I knew they did. My family would be here for me, even if I had to suffer through my father’s wrath at what looked like Sadie escaping before being questioned.
My family would have my back and help me find her. I couldn’t be wrong about her, about us. She had been taken. She hadn’t run away.
But I hated how she didn’t have me. Someone had cruelly taken her from me, leaving her alone to survive without my having her back.
I’m coming, Sadie. I will find you and I won’t fail you again.