Chapter 21 Sergei
SERGEI
Natalie was supposed to be a random stranger. Just an ordinary woman I encountered in that crappy bar. There wasn’t supposed to be a link between us.
I never could have anticipated that I was connected to her. That I was linked to her husband’s death.
Death was something I delivered all the time. But the coincidence that I was involved in her husband’s was too hard of a detail to dismiss.
Or deny.
I narrowed my eyes at George as he stood there waiting for my reaction.
“How the fuck didn’t this come up in your initial research about her?
” I asked again. That stood out the most to me, but I knew I was latching on to anything to dispel this dread.
It was my fault. He’d produced the intel report and handed it over, like he had done for so many requests I’d made of him.
It was on me to fucking read it all. I couldn’t shoot the messenger.
Not knowing that I had been in charge of the situation that got Fitz Hayes killed was a mistake I couldn’t afford.
Knowing everything about everyone we let into our inner circle was imperative.
My uncle was impatient to dive deeper into her past and probably formally interview her too before granting her the privilege of protection she would need if the Popovs were to call war.
Or to use her to attack me—which would always be an attack against the whole family.
“It did. It did come up in that research,” George replied. “But it was overlooked.”
By me.
I overlooked it. Skimming the report for just the basic details was wrong. I hadn’t wanted to delve into her past because I’d been hanging on to this stupid idea that she’d tell me about it on her own eventually.
I ran my hand over my face. “Does anyone else know?” My uncle could’ve been privy to those reports.
If any of the guards had been briefed, they wouldn’t have told her.
The guards and house staff didn’t speak to her unless she addressed them first—my rule because I didn’t want her to be scared or intimidated.
But if any mention of the intel had gotten out to my brother, or my cousin—hell, even Anya or Claire, I didn’t want to worry about them revealing this connection.
“Others in the security detail received the same condensed intel report,” George said.
“Fuck.” Any of them could’ve read far enough to see the full disclosure and realized who her late husband was. This was too much of a ticking time bomb, not knowing if she could be in the dark about this link.
She had to hear this from me. This truth could eradicate all the progress we’d made in her trusting me, and ensuring she’d hear this from me was crucial.
“Handle this,” I ordered George. I gestured at the warehouse to take over. No matter what, I could count on him to question and kill the Popovs we’d found, the ones who’d been targeting her.
He dipped his chin in acknowledgement.
“I need to tell her.” Avoiding it would backfire. I knew it would. Coming clean about my connection to her husband’s death and letting her understand how surprised I was about this would help my case. The case of never wanting to hurt her.
I would never.
I strode away, furious with myself that this incident would be the one main obstacle to any kind of a future between us.
But then again, it wasn’t one-sided. She didn’t talk about her late spouse. I didn’t ask, either, but I refrained from asking her out of respect. Out of the need to not push her and overwhelm her as I let her adjust to being with me and not so scared or tired.
Hell, if I’d ever asked, maybe I could’ve connected the dots sooner.
I got into the car and told the driver to hurry to my building.
It still wouldn’t change anything. If I knew and talked to her about before or now, it wouldn’t rewind time itself and make the situation any different. She would still be mad at me and hate me for this.
As I rode across town, I gritted my teeth and damned this new turn of events.
She wasn’t going to use this as an exit ticket out of my life.
I’d be damned if she tried to twist this complication into a reason for why she would leave me or end what we had so far.
She can’t.
The fine line of balance between pushing her too far or too much with needing to have some semblance of commitment with her wasn’t an easy one to walk, but my hand was forced now.
I had to make her understand that I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—let her go.
Not even if I was the cause for why she was single, lonely, and struggling to begin with.
Confronting her immediately was the only thing I could do. Instead of staying back there with the men and personally killing those who’d threatened her, I sped home to talk to her.
The ride dragged on too slowly. That was how impatient I was to reach her. The ride also blurred by too quickly. That was how anxious I was to speak with her and yield to her reaction.
When I arrived, I hurried out of the car and approached the elevator to get to the penthouse. The presence of multiple men running through the lobby area and into the garage prevented me from doing that.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
Andre was with them, his face serious like something bad had gone down.
My stomach knotted. All my muscles tensed, bracing for a blow.
Worst-case scenario ideas flitted through my head, each one worse than the previous.
Someone had gotten in? An attack? Was someone dead? Shot? Wounded?
Too many people filled the role of my responsibilities. From my uncle to my brother, to Claire and Anya, I had to stress about my family’s well-being. Then all the people who worked for us, every guard and soldier who’d swear their lives to our success.
But most of all at this moment, I feared that something had happened to the two people who had become the center of my world, the source of all my happiness.
Natalie and Maisie.
“She’s gone,” Andre answered. Matter-of-fact and gravely, he replied without hesitation. He gave me that reply with the clarity he knew I’d need and respect. No dancing around it. No hiding or hedging. “Natalie and Maisie are gone.”
I held my breath, willing myself to push through the panic that set in.
“Gone?” I didn’t need to ask him to repeat himself, but I had to hear the word through my lips to fully believe it.
As if moving my mouth to form that one terrible word was physical proof that it wasn’t a speculation but a fact. A stone-cold fact that would ruin me.
“They were taken?” I was on the precipice of exploding, rushing to the door.
It wouldn’t help. Going up there to confirm that Natalie and her daughter were absent wouldn’t do anything.
Andre wouldn’t lie about this. My cousin wouldn’t ever lie about something like this.
The seriousness on his face wasn’t false, either.
But I had to take charge. To react. To solve.
And seeing the scene would give me more clues to work with.
So long as I focused on moving and doing something to find them and have them back again, I could shove aside the growing panic and horror that built in my chest.
Andre followed me, seeming to realize I needed his backup. While he joined me, he barked out orders to the men to continue the search. To fan out. To go out as teams. All his orders fell on my deaf ears as I got in the elevator and pressed the button to go up.
“They weren’t taken,” Andre said once the doors slid shut. “The surveillance footage at the side exit shows her bundling Maisie up and walking out. Running out.”
I blinked, stunned all over again. “She left?”
He nodded. “No one was with her. No one was chasing her. Nothing like that. It looked like she had just wanted to take off with Maisie.”
“She wouldn’t have. Not without… Not like…” I exhaled a harsh breath, shoving aside the ache of panic that throbbed in my head.
“She had a tote bag and just went.” He shook his head, almost sympathetically.
“Why the fuck didn’t anyone stop her?”
“The guards were patrolling as usual. It seems that she waited until they’d passed that door.”
Because she knew they would.
She’d never lost that sense of always wanting to know how to escape. That survivalist instinct hadn’t died out even when she was here and safe and protected. It had been a case of her having one foot in and one foot out in terms of trusting me and this place.
“Why wasn’t I fucking told?” I demanded, rubbing my face again.
“I was about to call you as soon as I dispatched the men. She left only a half hour ago, per the timestamp on the surveillance feed. Once the guards realized that she had slipped out when they weren’t looking, I had the security teams backtrack who was where and when.”
“And?” The doors opened, and I hurried through the penthouse. No signs of a struggle showed. No evidence that she could’ve been forced to flee or fight to survive. The penthouse looked just like it always did, neatly messy and like a family with a child lived here.
Andre didn’t stay back, sticking with me as I scanned the living room.
“And it showed her waiting near the ballroom while Anya taught Maisie how to play the piano. Natalie went out on the balcony, just to kind of look out. The angle of the camera there wasn’t clear, but it seemed she got upset about something.”
“She was on the balcony alone? No one was talking to her?” I asked. Something had to have happened, dammit. Something had to have motivated her to go.
“Yes. But I checked all that was going on then, and a couple of guards were patrolling on the first floor. I spoke with them, and it sounds like they were talking about…” He lowered his gaze, looking stressed and hesitant.
“They were talking about her husband and how he was killed as a bystander at an operation you’d set up. ”
“Fuck!” I roared it, shaking with the need to throttle something. It was just like what George said. Just like what I fucking feared could happen. For two months, the truth about my connection to Fitz Hayes was hiding and festering. Now the rotten news was ruining it all.
The elevator doors slowly rolled open, and I turned in unison with Andre to face who was coming up.
Only one person could enter my penthouse without any heads up texted to me. No alerts were necessary for the boss of this entire block, of our empire.
Mikhail strode in, head held high and eyes sharp with concern. “I was just informed.”
Andre nodded. “I’ve got a crew looking for them.”
My uncle acknowledged his son’s report, but he focused his gaze on me. “Were you aware of the fact that you are responsible for her husband’s death?”
I shook my head. “No. I wasn’t. I only found out tonight.
” Honest and trying not to panic or get consumed with rage, I told them about capturing the Popovs who’d been threatening her and how they’d talked smack in the ride to the warehouse.
Then I explained how George confirmed that fact about Fitz Hayes was in the intel report he’d gotten for me when I first brought Natalie into my life.
And how I hadn’t read it all, only skimming for the simplest details.
“She never talked about him?” Mikhail asked.
I shook my head. “I was giving her time to adjust and to open up to me on her own. For when she’d want to share about her past.” It was my mistake to wait for her to want to talk about her past, thinking she’d do so when she wanted to talk about how she imagined what her future could look like with me.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, calm but calculating. He didn’t rule with emotions, but pragmatically. “Perhaps she never would have reached that point.”
I gritted my teeth, hating the negativity and pessimism in his words.
Like his son, he’d give it to me cold. Bluntly.
“There’s no doubt she heard those guards,” Andre said. “And the news had to have shocked her into leaving.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t know that you were trying to make the widow of one of your kills your woman?” Mikhail asked. “Because from the way I see it, you might’ve known and wanted to avoid bringing up that topic out of fear it would scare her off.”
I shook my head. “No. I didn’t know.”
“Now you do,” he replied coolly. “Now she knows too. Now, it seems like the whole fucking world knows.”
“Father—”
Mikhail lifted his hand to cut off his son.
“She’s been here as our guest for two months.
She’s already associated with us to the degree she’ll be perceived as ours, Sergei.
Regardless of how romantic or considerate you wanted to be with her, nothing changes that reality.
She’s gone. She escaped our protection. Popovs, and now the fucking Giovannis, are preying on any way to hit us.
If they circle her like vultures, she’s a liability. ”
Avoiding the terror of her being wounded or harmed at all, I shook my head. “She can’t be. She doesn’t know anything. She isn’t privy to secrets and she’s been under supervision while here.”
“But she’s already been here with us,” he argued. “She’s already in this far. And with her on her own out there, pissed that you killed her husband, I can only question your commitment to her and how far we are supposed to go when this could result in more war.”
“I’m committed!” I yelled it, needing to vent this bottling pressure somehow. “I am committed to having her in my life. I am committed to finding her and getting her back here so we can discuss the unfortunate connection between me and her husband.”
He arched one brow. “Are you?”
“Stop,” Andre said, shaking his head. “Stop doubting him. It’s obvious he fucking cares about her. So stop giving him the third degree and let him focus on finding her.”
My uncle gave him a glowering stare. Only Andre could ever talk back to his father like that and get away with it. They were too close, more like best friends than father-and-son or boss-and-employee.
“Even if he’s taking it slow with her—or trying to—and even if he’s not hurrying to designate her as his future wife like you did with Claire, it’s fucking obvious he cares.”
I didn’t merely care about Natalie and Maisie. I was obsessed and driven to find them now.
Before any of the enemies out there could dare to harm a single hair on her heads.