Chapter 27 Roman
ROMAN
Iglanced at the time again and frowned.
Where are they?
I was running late too, and for the last couple of hours I’d been trying to figure out how to get everything done before Amber would get here with the twins for dinner. So many calls went longer than I thought they would. All day long, my schedule was pushed back.
But now, it looked like I’d been worrying for nothing. Amber and the twins weren’t even here yet.
I grabbed my phone while typing a reply to an email and called Lorne.
“Hey, Kid. What’s up?”
“Where are they?”
“They just pulled out of the garage not long ago,” he replied.
He’d been instrumental in arranging my plans tonight. I had him make the reservation and request for another server to help us. Anything we could need as a family of four with two twins, whatever it took to make it so that Amber and I could have a private conversation. A long-overdue conversation.
I knew my uncle and cousin would want to get answers out of Amber as soon as possible, but I preferred that I be the one to question her.
To approach her carefully. I envisioned starting up a conversation about our families.
General background small talk. My hope was that she’d have the ice breaker to take the initiative and share with me.
That’s why I wanted to have this conversation outside of my building.
Away from the others. And not even at an Orlov-run business that we claimed as our criminal organization.
Having her come here to the hotel made more sense, at a legitimate and clean business we owned.
Because she couldn’t be involved in any Mafia matters.
That was the nagging thought that had bugged me all day.
She can’t be involved.
She was too sweet. Too na?ve. Too good.
It didn’t stop me from embracing the foreign idea of keeping her as my woman, not just my nanny. Claiming her, officially, was a surefire way to bring her into my darkness. To mark her as one of the Orlovs.
It would be worth it.
Hell, if she was on the run and hiding from someone or something, then it would be necessary. Because I’d be damned if anything bad happened to her while I could protect her.
I glanced again at the time on the clock and furrowed my brow. “Not long ago?”
Even with shitty traffic, it wouldn’t take them that long to get here. Vinny and Dino knew to alert me as soon as she arrived.
“How long ago?” I asked again.
“Maybe a half hour ago?” he replied. “I’ll check on the driver and track her if you want.”
“Please.”
She would be secure. Our drivers were loyal, and there wouldn’t be any stops on the way here. Amber was the true definition of a homebody, never wanting to go out.
Is that because she was sheltered and never allowed to explore the world? Or because she did and she suffered for it?
“I’ll call you back in a second, Kid.”
We disconnected the call, and I wrapped up my email while he checked on Amber’s location.
I clicked to close and lock my computer and my phone buzzed. It was Lorne, as I expected.
“Yeah?”
“We got a problem.”
My chest tightened. My heart seized. I couldn’t inhale at all, and I swore my brain shut down.
Problem.
Problem. With Amber.
There’s a problem with my son and daughter.
It wasn’t what he’d said. But how he had told me.
So seriously. With absolutely none of his usual humor.
He hadn’t tacked a Kid on there, either.
“What happened?” I stood so fast that my chair skated back across the room. It slammed into the wall and I ignored it.
I left the room, rushing toward, hell, I didn’t know where. To wherever she was. To where my children were. To this problem that would not be allowed.
All I had was my assistant’s reply and the tone of his voice. Those were the only clues I possessed to know that something was wrong. It was all I needed. Because this was one of those rare moments in life where instincts ruled and keyed in a true five-alarm fire.
“Her phone isn’t moving. It was thrown out of the car. One of the men nearby the pinged location found it smashed against the wall of a building down Fifth Avenue.”
I fisted my hand, trying to hold back the tidal wave of anger that thrummed through me at this news.
Imperative questions fueled my rage.
How?
How the fuck did this happen?
When?
Why?
Who the fuck—
I didn’t bother letting that one stick.
I knew. I had too good of a guess of who’d try something like this.
Ever since Ivan Popov showed up unsolicited at my office here in this hotel, when he’d spotted that baby bottle and Amber’s phone, he knew I wasn’t the bachelor playboy anymore.
He figured out that I had a woman and a child in my life, and he’d been trying to get them as leverage to hold over me.
You’re going to die, Popov.
Mark my words.
You are dead.
“We’ve got a crew searching the block where the phone was tossed out. Reports are coming into dispatch that a car was driving on the sidewalk. It sounds like a pedestrian was hit.”
I didn’t care.
I couldn’t find enough in me to care about a civilian right now.
Amber and my children were all I could focus on.
“Where’s the driver?” I demanded. I would insist on getting answers right now.
“I just got a text from Andre. Someone called in that Maxim is unconscious on the side of the road. Someone on a bike almost ran over him, not seeing him in the snow pile plowed over.”
Fuck!
“Dead? Or unconscious?” If the Popovs killed one of ours, they could count on us paying them back in kind. I never wanted an Orlov soldier to be killed, but I needed this driver to be alive to be able to tell me what the fuck happened, if Amber or the twins were harmed.
Insanity swept closer, nearly taking me out and rendering me helpless.
I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to them.
Amber with her sweetness and submission each night as she embraced me.
Emily’s adorable laughter and Henry’s precious smiles.
I couldn’t lose them.
“I’m on my way,” Lorne said. “I’m coming to pick you up and we’ll get them. We’ll get them back, Roman.”
Roman. Not Kid.
His seriousness was a bad indicator of how he thought this would go.
I reached the lobby, seeking out Vinny and Dino.
“Mr. Orlov,” Vinny said with a nod. “Is there anything I can—” He reared back, likely scared of the thunderous expression on my face. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head and headed outside. I’d meet Lorne on the street, save him the time to pull up close to the hotel.
I hadn’t had a driver stay here because Maxim was going to wait while Amber and I had our dinner.
A date, almost, if it wasn’t supposed to be a setting where I could question her at last.
My phone rang again, and I didn’t hesitate to answer it, rushing out into the wintery night. All around me, the seasonal holiday cheer was glowing and glittering. Carolers passed me by. Trees sparkled from windows.
All I felt was the dark crimson rage.
This time, it was Sergei.
“Lorne just left,” he reported.
I didn’t question how he knew. This situation was clearly unfolding in live time, right here and now, and I didn’t doubt it would be all hands on deck.
“I tracked the car,” he said.
“Where’s it going?”
“Toward the Popov territory.”
I gritted my teeth, rushing toward where Lorne would be coming in another car. “That fucker is dead.”
“But it seems that they are not. Amber was spotted carrying both of the twins into a building. One of the specialists in the control room is following them, and it looks like they are ditching the car and making her carry them somewhere. She’s alive.”
I refused to think of what he didn’t say. That they’re alive for now.
“I’m not waiting. I’m not stopping to see what her connection is to them, if any.
He took my—” I stopped short, unable to label Amber in the rush of the moment.
She wasn’t my nanny. She wasn’t my lover with some no-strings-attached affair.
She was the woman I wanted to call the mother of my children—the twins and more in the future.
She was the sweet woman I wanted to protect until the end of our days.
The only woman I wanted to come home to.
Because she chose me. She wasn’t all the way there with opening up to me about her past, but I could exercise patience.
I had to get her back, first.
“He took them,” I growled.
“And you’ll get them back.” Sergei cleared his throat. “Uncle Mikhail is fully in with a retrieval operation.”
“For the twins and Amber?”
He didn’t reply immediately.
“So help me God, Brother. I will burn this fucking world down and unleash a hell like no one’s ever seen before to save her.”
“And you have my help, my word that I will help you get her back. All of us.”
Even if it means meddling in the Popovs’ bullshit they want to keep going with us?
Even if it means killing all who get in the way of reaching her, regardless of whatever her past holds?
“We are with you on this, Roman,” he said solemnly. “I’ve got a crew coming to join you on the way. Lorne’s got a few with him. Andre is on standby as well.”
Teaming up like this wasn’t anything new. This was how we worked. This was how we ruled. Not as one, but duty-bound and sworn in loyalty as brothers. If one of us was hit or taken, then it was an attack or theft on us all.
“Thank you,” I replied, seeing the car down the road.
I disconnected the call and ran down the sidewalk to get into the SUV. They’d already pulled to the curb. With every step I slammed to the sidewalk, sending snow and slush splattering, I vowed to get her with or without any help I could find.
With or without my uncle’s explicit approval, I was risking my life to get Amber back.
At this rate, I wasn’t sure if I could go on without her.
With every passing second, she was captive.
She was with the enemy, and I grew nervous to the point of my muscles locking up at the thought of her being so scared and helpless, protecting the twins with all her might—like she had at the church.
She’d be struggling, suffering with the triggers to whatever brand of PTSD she had as a nemesis.
I’m coming, Amber. Believe me. Have faith. I am coming for you, and I swear on my life that no one will ever harm you or scare you like this ever fucking again.