80. -79-
Dorian
The first sign that something was wrong was the sudden commotion behind the glass.
I glanced toward the observation gallery above the operating theater while the resident continued suctioning blood from the patient’s abdomen.
Two security guards stood in the doorway, attempting to block someone from entering. Then Zyon shoved past them.
He appeared behind the glass in his black suit, his expression so dark that my hands stopped moving before my brain registered the reaction. He slammed his palm against the intercom button.
“Dorian.” His voice boomed through the operating theater, freezing everyone on the spot.
“What?” I stared at him over my mask.
“Nina and Aryna disappeared.”
The words didn’t make sense. My mind rejected them completely, as if they belonged to another language.
“What do you mean?” I blinked in confusion. “Disappeared?”
“They’re gone,” he stated firmly.
“Kidnapped?” one of the nurses whispered.
“No,” Zyon snapped through the speaker, his lethal gaze sweeping over the room. “They disappeared. And no one in this hospital heard anything different.”
I looked down at the open abdomen in front of me, my brain refusing to understand what my brother just said. They couldn’t be gone. Aryna was at school. Nina was at work. It had to be a mistake.
“Dorian!” Zyon’s voice made me flinch. “Your girls. We need to move.”
Still, my body refused to follow through. Instead, a memory exploded behind my eyes. Twisted metal, blood covering my hands, a train disappearing down the tracks.
“Doctor?” the resident asked carefully, disturbing my thoughts. I forced air into my lungs, blinking rapidly to push the painful image away.
“The perforation is repaired,” I said, though my voice sounded distant. “Complete the washout. Check the bowel once more before closing.”
“Dr. Zhumagulov—” His eyes widened in surprise.
“You know what to do.”
I stepped away from the table. The attending surgeon nodded in confirmation.
I tore off my gloves before reaching the doors. One snapped against my wrist, but I barely felt it. My surgical gown landed somewhere behind me as I ran into the scrub room. Zyon met me in the corridor.
“What the fuck!” I yelled as we ran outside. “I need—”
“You only need a gun,” he cut me off, and a minute later, I sat in the back of our company SUV, checking the magazine of my Desert Eagle.
Zyon drove like a fucking lunatic, turning every traffic light into a suggestion. My phone rested in my hand while Malin’s voice came through the speakers.
“The tracker is still,” he said, keyboard clicks filling the background. “She barely moved for the past few minutes.”
“She has a tracker?” I asked, surprise lacing my words.
“Yes,” Malin confirmed. “She knows how to play this game.”
Relief washed over me.
“How long ago did she leave the Valentino building?” I asked, my fingers tightening around the cell.
“Thirty-six minutes,” came Malin’s reply. “Twelve since the signal stopped moving.”
Twelve minutes. Bloody hell! Anything could happen in twelve minutes.
“Why didn’t you call me immediately?” My tone was more accusatory than I intended, but I barely controlled myself.
“Nina ordered me not to.” I could almost see the nonchalant expression on his face.
“Since when do you listen to her commands?” I hollered, my palm clenching into a fist.
“Since the command had a point,” he retorted.
“You’re a hothead,” Zyon interjected from behind the steering wheel. “You’d storm the location before we could confirm if Aryna is there.”
“Seriously?” I slammed my hand against the dashboard. “If I did that to you—”
“Dorian.” Zyon interrupted my growing outburst. “Focus.” I inhaled sharply as his gaze drifted to the phone in my hand. “Malin, how many people?”
“Not sure,” Malin answered. “There are two vehicles plus Nina’s car.”
“Could it be Carlile?” I snarled, fear making my chest tighten with every inhale.
“No visual confirmation.”
It was him. I knew it with the same certainty with which I knew the structure of the human heart.
He lost Nina. Lost the marriage. Lost access to the Valentino family.
And people like him, cowards without an ounce of dignity, always became most dangerous when humiliation stripped away their last illusion of power.
“Karen is approaching from the east,” Malin continued. “And Matteo and Lucas are close, too.”
“Tell everyone to wait,” I ordered, forcing myself to stay calm despite the storm inside me. “They might kill them if…”
My voice broke. The image struck the air from my lungs. Nina, bloodied on the floor. Aryna calling for me. My hands began to tremble.
“Malin,” I said, keeping my mind away from its worst fear. “How long until we reach them?”
“Six minutes.”
“An eternity,” I mumbled, glancing outside. Raw fear clouded my brain, pushing away every rational thought. My feet bounced against the car floor, my pulse hammered in my ears, but I only saw Nina and Aryna injured, and I wasn’t there to protect them.
“She hasn’t been gone long,” Zyon said, glancing at me worriedly. “She’s armed. Trained. Malin knows where she is.”
“We were right beside you when you were shot, remember?” I snapped, regretting the words the moment they left my mouth. My teeth sank into my lower lip, expecting a sharp retort, but Zyon didn’t say anything, just pushed the gas pedal down harder.
The next few minutes were the longest of my life, and I had to battle my own brain every fucking second. The buildings blurred behind the window. Cars honked. But all my terrified mind concentrated on was the blend of Caroline’s accident with Nina’s kidnapping.
I couldn’t lose them. Fuck! I couldn’t.
“There,” Malin stirred the fog that clouded my brain, and I blinked to clear my vision. “Third warehouse on the left. Northern entrance.”
A rusted building appeared beyond a broken fence.
I looked outside, noticing two vehicles near the loading bay.
Matteo stood beside one, an assault rifle hanging from his hands, looking impatient enough to start the war alone.
Lucas stood on his left, shifting his weight from one leg to another, squeezing a semi-automatic gun in his right hand.
My heart thundered against my ribcage, and every instinct in my body screamed to run to Nina and Aryna. So I did. Zyon had barely stopped the SUV before I opened the door and jumped out.
“Dorian!” he shouted, but I ignored him. However, Matteo stepped into my path, blocking me from entering the building.
“There were gunshots,” he announced, pointing at the old door. “About a minute ago. We were about to storm in, but Lucas noticed you coming.”
Everything inside me went cold.
“How many?” I asked, my mouth dry.
“Several.” He shrugged. “Then nothing. And we’re going in blind.”
“Karen is backup.” Zyon caught up beside me and drew his weapon. “Jamal and the others are on their way. We’re good to go.”
I didn’t need more. In a few quick strides, I reached the door and grabbed the rusty handle. Locked.
“Move,” Matteo ordered, and fired twice into the mechanism. It fell apart instantly.
The smell struck me first. Gunpowder. Mold. Blood. My stomach twisted as my sight adjusted to the darkness. My boots crushed broken glass with every careful step, fingers clutching a raised weapon.
Then my eyes detected the first body. He lay near a pile of wooden pallets with a gunshot wound in his chest. Another body rested several yards away, his skull destroyed beside a bloodied shovel.
“Keep moving,” Zyon urged, as if anything could have stopped me. We rounded a stack of rusted machinery and entered a wide loading area.
I noticed another shovel first. It lay on the concrete, its metal blade covered in blood.
“Is that…” Zyon lowered his gun.
“I think so,” I whispered.
Sonny Carlile was barely recognizable. His limbs rested at unnatural angles. Blood pooled beneath his head, spreading into the cracks in the floor. The realization struck with brutal clarity, stunning me.
We were too late.
My gaze moved past him, finding Nina standing several feet away. Her clothes were torn and stained with dirt. A dark bruise surrounded one eye, blood ran from a cut near her brow, and angry marks circled her throat. One arm hung stiffly beside her body while the other remained curled into a fist.
Blood covered her hands, face, and clothes. She was literally bathing in it.
The gun slipped from my fingers and clattered onto the floor.
“Nina!” I yelled, running to her.
Before she could fully register me, my arms wrapped around her so tightly she gasped, but I couldn’t loosen them. I buried my face against her hair, breathing her in, searching for the warmth of her skin and the rise of her chest.
“You’re alive,” I mumbled. “Fuck, you’re alive.”
“Mostly,” she wheezed. “You’re squashing me.”
I released her so quickly my hands flew into the air.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” My voice caught up in my throat.
“I’m fine.” She smiled, wiping the blood from her mouth. “Surely better than him.” She nodded toward the corpse of her ex-fiancé.
A sound broke from my throat, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. I cupped her face, avoiding every bruise, and pressed my forehead against hers.
“You couldn’t wait five fucking minutes?” I brushed the hair from her eyes.
“They touched our girl,” she whispered, suddenly deadly serious.
“What?” I pulled away from her, startled by the insanity glowing in her gorgeous eyes.
“No one touches my baby girl.” She clutched my forearm, her long fingernails burying into my flesh. “No one.”
“Okay,” was all I could muster. I was shocked, truly shocked by the violence she was capable of, by the brutality with which she erased danger. But most of all, I was proud and so fucking grateful I could barely breathe.
“Daddy?” A small cry came from behind the loading platform.
“Angel,” I whispered, turning on my heels. Golden hair appeared between the wooden crates. Aryna crawled from her hiding place, her hands still bound in front of her and tears covering her face.
“Daddy!”