Chapter 24
Kirill
“What’s wrong?” Kazimir asked.
“Maybe nothing, but Vivian went upstairs almost twenty minutes ago to change.”
“And it can take a woman twenty minutes to get out of a wedding dress. I assume she has guards.”
“Three.”
He nodded and we both scoured the ballroom. “Enzo has been surprisingly calm during the festivities.” As the only member of the Italian Cosa Nostra family attending the wedding, his appearance had been on the down low, the last-minute notification having the exact effect we’d hoped.
Unrest.
“Don’t look now,” Kazimir said as he took a swallow of his drink. “Trouble in paradise.”
Enzo had pulled Sean McCarthy to the side, trying and failing to have a calm conversation with the man. While I didn’t trust Sean in the least to maintain the act he’d sworn to do with the Italians, I could tell there was genuine discord between them by their hand gestures.
“This is going as planned. So far,” I offered while scanning the ballroom in hopes of seeing my lovely bride.
“Stop worrying. I’ll send one of my men to the suite to check on Vivian. Keep mingling. You are the groom and we need to keep up appearances.”
“Yes, sir.” I grinned as he walked away. I’d thought of little else but how life-altering the wedding would be to both Vivian and me. We’d talked very little about making changes or even where we’d live. There’d been no discussion. It would all depend on what happened tonight.
This was why I wasn’t a gambling man. I hated not having every aspect of my life in my control.
From where I stood, I had an excellent vantage point with the remaining guests. It was late and even I was tired from the festivities, although I had a feeling they were just beginning.
Would we have fireworks to go along with our nuptials?
After a few minutes, I moved through the ballroom, doing nothing more than paying attention to the guests.
A brief loud voice caught my attention. Enzo’s voice.
As he walked away, his phone to his ear, a couple of Sean’s men were obviously concerned enough to ask their boss what they should do.
Sean waved them off, but I had a sense he was more than just unhappy.
At first, Enzo moved toward one of the doors, finishing up his phone call. Maybe telling his father things hadn’t gone as well as expected. My hackles were beginning to rise.
Especially in seeing him move through the crowd, finding Nikki talking with her cousin.
The moment he tried to jerk her away to come with him, I headed in their direction.
Nikki was adamant, pushing him away with Kathleen even stepping between them.
Whatever was said between the two, Enzo left in a huff.
Nikki was clearly upset, but before I could get to her, Kazimir moved with intent toward me before I could ask Nikki what had been said.
“She’s gone,” he said with no emotion, no waver of sound.
“What do you mean gone?” I froze, every muscle in my body tensing. “Who? Vivian?”
“Yes. The soldiers were shot and there are minimal signs of a struggle. I’ve instructed men to surround the property and stop every vehicle.”
“What about the tracker?” Instantly, I pulled out my phone. He stopped me, placing his hand over the screen. She couldn’t be gone. She was supposed to be protected.
“As of a couple minutes ago, she hasn’t had time to initiate the system.”
“Fuck. Fuck!” I turned in a circle, noticing Sean was watching. When Dante noticed my level of stress, he approached.
“What’s wrong, boss?” he asked.
“Everything. Take Sean and Gerald to the small conference room. Whatever happens, do not allow them to leave.”
Dante looked toward Kazimir who nodded. “Do it. And have my wife take Nikki somewhere comfortable.” Kazimir’s voice was strained.
“There are too many damn exits. How the fuck did this happen?” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“It appears room service was the reason she opened the door.”
Room service that she likely thought I ordered. Which meant someone had been keeping a close eye on what we were doing.
“Goddamn it. She taunted me to send up champagne. Dimitri has a leak in the staff,” I yelled at him absently as I reacted to the news, unbuttoning my jacket and yanking my weapon into my hand.
“What is going on?” Dimitri appeared, trying to keep his voice down.
“As anticipated, our bride was taken. We need to act quickly. Someone in your catering staff is working for our Ghost.” Kazimir swung a look toward his cousin.
Dimitri exhaled. “Then I’ll have it plugged. I’ll get everything into position.”
“Meet us in the private conference room in ten minutes. We’ll know soon enough of our new alliance partners are already a problem. Have Stash search the security monitors.” Kazimir was doing his best to keep his voice even.
“I’ll handle it,” Dimitri said through gritted teeth, giving me a nod.
There was no holding back, no sense of protocol or politics that would be played. I flew from the room, rushing toward the bank of elevators, Kazimir right behind me. I slammed my hand on the buttons, pacing the floor. After ten seconds, I was ready to take the stairs when the doors finally opened.
“We need to check the cameras. We need to find Enzo. We will fucking find her.” When he didn’t say anything, I slammed my hand on the elevator wall.
“We will find her, brother. You know everything is in place.”
“What if the asshole figured out about the tracker?”
“My guess is he scanned her. Dimitri’s people know what they are doing. Have faith.”
Faith. At this point, my faith was in the toilet.
I closed my eyes, my jaw tightly clenched. There were a half dozen scenarios running through my mind, but all of them came back to the fact that her life was in danger. “How could we have missed this?”
“We didn’t miss anything. Our security was too tight. This was a single chance and he took it. If we’re right about Enzo, he heard something he didn’t like from McCarthy.”
With a strangled hiss, I threw my fist into the air. If anything happened to her, I would burn the fucking city down block by block.
The doors were barely open by a few inches when I took off running. The three soldiers had been shot at close range, all lured a few feet away from the door.
So when she looked through the peephole, she wouldn’t notice a disturbance.
The door was wide open, the soldier Kazimir had sent guarding the entrance. He nodded as I passed, noticing a chair had been knocked over. I stormed through the suite, stopping short when I noticed the wedding dress on the bed.
Fuck. Why in the hell had I placed her in harm’s way? After brushing my fingers across the lace, I fought the rage simmering, doing what I could to control my emotions. Falling into them wasn’t going to help find her.
It didn’t take me ten seconds to notice something shimmering on the floor in the main room. Crouching down, I grabbed the necklace, holding it out for Kazimir to see.
“The game worked. Enzo was involved,” Kazimir offered.
Fuck. This was real and I was barely functioning like normal.
Nikki had mentioned her sister’s fear about the Ghost. That meant at minimum, the Savoy family had proven they were eager to claim the Marichetti territory.
Kazimir would never allow that to occur.
In my mind, Enzo’s involvement didn’t mean the McCarthys weren’t also a party to the abduction, double crossing us. Although the anger I’d witnessed in the two parties hadn’t been staged. I would bet on it.
“We shall see.” Any assassin worth his title would scan for a tracking system, especially when faced with three different crime syndicates in one location. With the necklace used as a prop and a lure then discovered, the assassin or the Ghost would ensure there were no other trackers.
A watch wasn’t typical and given the bastard was in a hurry, he could have left the remaining jewelry on after scanning her. And in the case of the tracker on her watch, she needed to turn it on after she’d been kidnapped.
With the tracker being silent, that indicated…
No, they wouldn’t kill her yet.
I refused to think about the alternatives. The bastard wanted to inflict pain.
“Anything yet?” I snarked when I noticed Kazimir searching the tracking application.
“No. We need to have a chat with our guests.”
I trailed behind him as we left the suite, lingering long enough inside the room to catch a whiff of her perfume.
Another silent promise was made to her.
The person responsible would suffer by my hands.
We were no sooner downstairs than I stormed toward Rafaela, sliding the weapon into my pocket. We still had guests.
“Careful,” Kazimir cautioned.
“Where is Nikki?”
Rafaela threw her hand out. “She’s in the smaller ballroom but she’s already determined something is going on. Go easy on her.”
“I need confirmation from her. That’s it.”
“It’s okay, baby. We need to know.” Kazimir squeezed her arm.
“I don’t like these games,” she insisted. “You’re playing with fire.”
I glanced into her eyes, nodding as I did. After tonight, I was finished with them as well. However, there’d been no way of locating all the parties involved.
Nikki jerked to her feet as soon as I entered the room. “What is happening?” She inched closer. “That tracking device. Something happened to my sister. Didn’t it?”
“She was taken, Nikki. I need to know if you mentioned the device to your husband.”
“Why?” She darted her eyes back and forth between us.
“Because we need to know the level is Enzo is involved with a man determined to destroy my family at all costs.”
“Oh, my God. I’m responsible. I’m…” She slumped, her body swaying.
“That’s alright. We were hoping you’d tell him. What we need to know is if he said anything to you.” I tried to keep my voice even.