8. Domenic
Chapter 8
Domenic
My door opens and Tino bursts in.
I’ve not been up long, having slept for absolute shit. I’ve been trying to get my dad to use all the contacts at his disposal to find out who has Mackenzie. He thinks it might be the men who threatened her and her mom, and he’s asked the police in his pocket to try to find out anything they can.
“Kill is gone,” Tino announces. His eyes are wild. His hair is sticking up, too, and his tan skin looks wan and tired. He’s clearly slept as well as I have.
I sit up. “What? Where?”
“I wish I knew. He’s not in his room.”
I frown. “Is his car gone, too?”
“No, it’s still there.” Tino paces the room, spearing his fingers through his thick, dark hair and yanking at the roots.
My mind is spinning. “What the fuck is going on? Has someone taken him, too?”
He pauses his pacing for a moment. “Not from inside the building. We’d know if someone was here who shouldn’t be. The security is fucking tight, and more so now than usual.”
This doesn’t make sense. “So, he left voluntarily? What the fuck was he thinking?”
Tino draws a breath. “There’s only one person I know who could make Kirill act in such a way, and that’s his father.”
My stomach plummets.
It all slides into place like a horrific jigsaw. The fact that Kirill’s dad wanted him to marry our Duchess. The way Kirill is scared of him. The way his father looked at Mackenzie that day. As if he wanted her for himself. That utter bastard.
He’s sick and twisted enough to do something like this and arrogant enough to believe he can get away with it. He’s also a Machiavellian man who plots and plans, and his schemes are always bad news for everyone else.
“Fuck.” I cup my hand over my mouth. “This is bad. I think Kirill’s father is the one who has Mack.”
Tino’s white teeth dig into his lower lip. “I can’t think of any reason Kirill would leave now if it wasn’t connected to her, can you?”
“Fuck,” I say again, digging my fingers into my scalp.
I want pain. I need pain. I crave it so badly; I want to scream with it. Kirill’s father having Mackenzie is really bad fucking news. I’d have preferred it to be the professor, and that’s saying something. Grigoriy is sick and twisted. He did depraved things to his own son, and he walked into our college like he owned it. He’s not scared of my father, which puts us in a uniquely volatile situation.
“The men from my compound will be landing soon,” Tino says. “I need to be there to meet them.”
I nod. “Okay, good. The more people we have on our side, the better, especially if Kill’s father is behind this. If he wants a war, he’s got one.”
I’m going to need to tell my father about these new developments. I hate constantly having to go to my dad for help, but he runs this place, and I don’t have much choice. He told me the cops are trying to pin down the vehicle that took Mackenzie. I’m aware the professor is also out there somewhere, trying to track her down. What if the son of a bitch has better luck than we do?
I go to Tino. I can see he’s as tormented as I am. We almost lost him not so long ago, when his pain got too much, and the pills took over and he accidentally overdosed. I grab his forearm and yank him into me. I squeeze him hard and smack him on the back. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get her back.”
He doesn’t reply but gives a tight, curt nod against my shoulder.
We leave my room and part ways. He goes to meet his men, and I go to find my father and Lucia. My dad is going to be pissed when he finds out about Grigoriy Stepanov. They already had that run-in on campus when one of Girgoriy’s men hit me. This is going to be the final nail in a coffin. What would a mafia war mean for the college?
I find him in his office.
He looks up, and I can tell from his eyes that he already knows there’s been a development.
“The kitchen is saying one of their trucks is missing,” he announces. “I checked the cameras and saw this.”
He beckons me over so I can see his computer screen.
Sure enough, there is Kirill sitting behind the wheel of the vehicle. A baseball cap is pulled down over his face, but it’s still clearly him. He’s alone in the truck. Where the hell does he think he’s going?
I clench my jaw. “I think his father might have taken Mackenzie. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
For a moment there is silence, and then my father whirls around and punches the wall.
Ouch.
“That motherfucker,” my father explodes. He’s normally scarily in control. His power lies in not needing to make big displays of his anger or his might, but right now, he’s a force of nature. “I’ll fucking kill him. How dare he? This is a declaration of war against me, against the college. Against all the families here.”
He’s way angrier than I’d expected.
“If he took the daughter of my wife-to-be, what sort of message does that send to every other family sending their kid here?”
He’s more concerned about his reputation and that of the college than he seems to be about Mack herself, but that’s okay. I can use it and channel it to get what I want.
“It says we are weak, or at least it does if we don’t get her back and take our revenge.”
“Revenge?” he spits. “I’ll fucking tear Grigoriy Stepanov limb from limb. I’ll use his body to power the fucking furnace and his ash to feed the plants.”
Jesus Christ. I stare at my father in awe. Of course I know he’s a ruthless man, but I mostly only see the buttoned-up, control-freak side of him, not this raging anger.
He pulls himself together. “I will make sure we get information from police cameras and see if we have a direction on the truck.”
I nod. “Thanks, Dad. It means a lot.”
“You’re all seeming a little bit rattled by this.” He examines me, his gaze shrewd and too intense.
“Of course. She’s one of us.”
“A fellow student?”
I draw a breath. “Yes.”
“Soon to be your stepsister—assuming you don’t find another way to sabotage things.” His gaze narrows.
I duck my head in shame. “I won’t.”
Fuck, where is this going?
“Is Tino in love with her?”
I jerk my chin back up. “What?”
“Tino. He seemed very upset.”
“Um, no. I mean, no, it’s not like that.”
“Good, because she’s going to be my stepdaughter soon, and your sister, and Tino isn’t right for her.”
Maybe I should be offended on Tino’s behalf but I’m too grateful to realize my father doesn’t seem to have any further suspicions about our relationship with Mackenzie.
“Or Kirill.”
Those words make my blood run cold. He’s leading up to something with this. I know how his mind works.
“She most certainly wouldn’t be right for you.” He stares at me hard. “That would be sick, especially considering she’s to be your sister.”
I swallow, unable to speak.
He smiles at me coldly. “I will do all I can to bring her back here, but once I get her home, I think she will be moving into this apartment with her mother and me. Where we can keep a close eye on her.”
Shit. It’s like the jail cell clanging shut. Even if we free her, if we stay here, we won’t get to see her. I wonder how Mack will react to all of this. She won’t like it. She’s a grown woman, after all. They can’t keep her under supervision like she’s a child.
My hands are shaking, and I do my best to hide it.
My father continues, “You know, when I was young, my friends and I would do crazy things like sharing a woman.” He shrugs as if he’s talking about the weather.
I cannot believe my buttoned-up father is saying this.
“It was stupid kid stuff. Boys will be boys, right? Then one day it went wrong. Feelings got involved. There can only be one winner in that case.” His all-seeing gaze is cutting through me like a damn laser, right to my fucking soul.
“Who was the winner?” I dare to ask.
He gives a slow smile. “I was.”
I swallow. Does he mean my mother? Was my mother passed around between guys the way we do with Mackenzie?
“Mom?” I whisper.
“Christ, no. Not your mother. I couldn’t marry a girl like that. I won her, and then I discarded her because she was used goods. We ruined that girl. Be a shame if anyone tried to do the same to Mackenzie. I am sure as her older brother, you’ll do all you can to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
Blind anger surges in me. Even now, with Mackenzie missing, he’s using events to twist things the way he wants them. Tino, Kirill, and I have all been fucked up and betrayed by our fathers in their sick rush for power and control.
It hits me then that Mackenzie was, too. Her dad was in debt and almost got her killed because of it. No wonder we have all bonded so well.
I stare at my father, my jaw working. “None of us is in love with her. We formed a support group. That’s all.”
“A support group?”
“Yeah, we call it the Cronus Club.”
On that note, I leave him. His face is puzzled as I close the door. He’ll get it, sooner or later, the fucker. Cronus was the Greek god who ate his own children so they wouldn’t usurp him.
A support group for kids with evil fathers.
I laugh to myself as I stride down the corridor. I quickly sober, though. It is eventually going to come out about us and our Duchess. We can’t let only one of us have her, so eventually the world will know. Until then, I’d rather my father not hide her away in his apartment with her mother, keeping her from us.
The thought keeps nagging at me that Kirill might have betrayed us somehow. What if he’s not gone after Mackenzie to save her but to take her for himself? Even though we’ve said it is the four of us in this together, what if Kirill has relented to his father?
I want to see if his gun is gone. It will give me a clue as to his state of mind. If he’s taken his gun, then he will be thinking he’s going to have to use it. It means he’s going there to fight, but if it’s still here, then maybe not. Maybe he’s gone there to give his father what he wants.
When I reach his room, I push open the door, which has been left half ajar, probably by Tino, and take a look around. There are clothes half spilling out of the closet like Kirill dressed in a rush. I kneel and search for his gun. It’s gone.
So, he’s armed, which makes me think he’s going in there as an enemy to his father. It means he and Mackenzie are alone and up against Grigori Stepanov and his henchmen.
“Where the fuck did you go, Kirill, and why didn’t you tell us?” I’m speaking to an empty room, but I still long for an answer.
If he’s being a noble fuck and trying to protect us from harm, he’s an idiot, and he’s putting Duchess in even greater danger. We could have helped him get her back.
I idly wander to his desk and stare at a half-finished essay, but then my gaze catches on something else.
A notepad, with a half torn-off page, flutters in the breeze from the open window.
I lean over and stare at the piece of paper underneath the ripped top piece. There’s a series of indentations on the paper. Writing, or rather, the impression of it.
I’ve seen the old pencil rubbing trick on ancient crime shows like Columbo, but I also know that doesn’t work well and can ruin what you’re trying to read.
The best bet is light and the correct angle to be able to see the message.
Kirill definitely wrote something on the paper on top of his notepad, ripped it off, and left this room. I need to see what’s on it. I hold it up against the light, but that doesn’t help. I turn on the desk lamp and angle it a ton of different ways, but I still can’t read it.
Inspiration hits, and I grab my phone. With the flash on, I take a series of pictures at various angles, the flash of the light hitting the paper in diverse ways. I finally see it. A set of numbers.
I grab a pencil and paper on Kirill’s desk and write them down. There’s also a name, Glenwood Drive .
I know that. It’s a long road that leads through the forest to a lake.
There are cabins near that lake.
I bet these coordinates lead to one of them.
With the information, I sit on Kirill’s bed and plug the coordinates into maps on my phone. Sure enough, he’s headed down that road because it leads to those coordinates. I bet that’s where Grigoriy has Mackenzie. And Kirill now, too.
What the fuck is Grigoriy doing with them both?
I’m sure as psychotic as he is, Grigoriy won’t kill his only son and heir. Kirill was never sure of that, but what better way to control him than make him think at any point he could be murdered? I’ve always thought Grigoriy was evil, but not as insane as he appears.
So, if we take murder out of the equation, why else would he take Mackenzie and demand Kirill come to him in the middle of nowhere?
What will he do out there that he couldn’t do in a motel or nearer civilization?
Fuck. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
If he takes them away, and they’re trapped in Russia, we’ll never get them back.
Shit. I glance at my watch, then I message Tino.
How long?
The reply takes a moment but then flashes onto my phone. Be with you in an hour.
Thank fuck.
We will need weapons when they get here. Plenty of them.
We’re going to war.