Chapter 69
Anastasia wasn’t kidding about ensuring Vanessa and me work through our issues because the moment I step outside, I spot her standing guard by the door. She pushes off the building to approach, but I wave her away and head for my rental car. If she wants details, she can talk to her boss.
As I speed through the streets of Moscow and toward the airport, I call my lawyer. He doesn’t hide his surprise over my change of heart. The call is a quick stab and I’m more than happy to end it as soon as I finish giving the order to draw up the paperwork.
Vanessa will be happy to receive it sooner than later, I’m sure.
Thoughts of her consume me until I’m driving the car at a dangerous speed, my foot growing heavier on the pedal. For a brief moment, it felt like she was willing to reach for more. There was longing in her gaze, one surpassing a physical need, but it’s also one that if she realized she was feeling, she blocked it until the very end.
Getting dressed and walking away from her is officially the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Harder than holding my father’s deceased body.
Harder than witnessing my mother’s numerous breakdowns.
I haven’t thought the words. Haven’t admitted to myself what I know to be true. At this point, it’s probably best I don’t.
By the time I hand over my rental car, getting out of Russia is my entire focus. Apparently there’s nothing here for me, and I need to return to my life, my job, and forget anything—anyone—else.
As I settle onto the couch at the very back, the same one Vanessa and I begrudgingly shared at one point, my phone chimes with an incoming call from Nero. I debate ignoring him until getting home to avoid any kind of conversation since I’m not in the mood, but a tense nagging in the back of my head urges me to answer.
“Ciao.”
“Did you not get my other calls? Have you left Moscow yet?”
Pulling the phone away from my ear, I check through the recent missed calls, noting some from him today. Clearly, I was too preoccupied to hear them. “No and no. Something wrong?”
“Serafina. We have a huge motherfucking issue. She’s missing.”
Missing. The fact shreds me as my one nightmare comes true. My sister shouldn’t be missing . She has people on her. She goes to one of four places. She’s hidden and protected. Missing isn’t at all the way to describe what she should be.
“What the fuck do you mean missing? She has bodyguards for this exact reason.”
“I don’t know. She gave them the slip when she was walking downtown. Z, something’s?—”
“Gave them the slip?” My voice rises to a near-yell. “She shouldn’t even know they’re there!” This is why I didn’t want them. Why no one is good enough for this task.
“Z,” his voice jumps a few levels, “something’s wrong, man. I feel it. And, uh, you might need stay there.”
There. Here. “You think she’s coming to Russia?”
“Check your texts. I’m sending you something.”
Following his instructions, I tap on the message as it comes through, finding a picture of a piece of paper—a note.
Going to Russia to see my sister. Don’t look for me.
“Dannazione!”
Fuck. If only I gave her Vanessa’s number, maybe she wouldn’t be randomly taking off for another country.
“Here’s the weird part,” Nero continues, his bad news ongoing. “Gabriella called me a short while ago when she found that but?—”
“So she left the note and slipped away from her guards. She planned it.”
“Stop interrupting me! No, listen, this is the weird part. Your mother was home when Sera last was. It was only after she went, your mother left to get groceries. When she came home, she found the note. I talked to the guys. She never went back home to leave it.”
Weight drops in my stomach as I slowly piece it together, my throat impossibly tight as I try to summarize what’s happening. What I allowed to happen.
“She’s kidnapped.”
Restlessness shoots me to my feet, my hands dragging through my strands and catching on the tips. If someone’s taken her, she could be anywhere. Is this the work of Vitale? I’ll fucking destroy him.
“I have units scouring the entire country. Elio’s with your mom, keeping her calm.”
Good. That’s good. Words I want to say out loud. Madre can’t be breaking down through this.
“Report back as soon as they find anything.”
“I will. Do you think this was Volkov? That the note was half correct?”
“Vanessa wouldn’t do this,” I state with certainty. Serafina’s become the neutral ground for us. The person who can stop the fighting, whose safety is greater than war. “I’m thinking Vitale.”
“But would he risk?—”
His question is cut off as a shower of bullets suddenly pellet the side of my plane. Instinctually, I drop to my hands and knees as glass sprays down around me, decorating the floor with deadly rocks between me and the exit. My phone slips from my hand, landing somewhere out of view.
The gunshots stop and the air is prickling with a lethal silence. Slowly, I inch off my knees but remain in a crouch as I slip a spare gun from a storage box. Just because the shooting has stopped, whoever’s behind it is still outside and I don’t know how many of them there are, which means playing this slow and steady.
The question of who quickly rolls through my mind. Not the Bratva. Not after Vanessa spent an entire day trying to push me out of her country.
My feet crinkle over the shattered glass as steps ascend the plane’s staircase. I position my gun in front of me, intending to shoot the second a person appears.
They do but correctly assume I’m armed, as the large form runs toward me. I push to my feet figuring this fight is more prevalent than possibly being shot by a sniper from outside, and pull the trigger.
It narrowly grazes his shoulder earning a grunt, but he slams me to the ground before I can manage another one. My fist goes his face, my legs bending to land a kick anywhere I can reach.
My kick does nothing and he punches me in the stomach, momentarily knocking breath from me. I cough, trying to remain focused, and he rips the gun away before tripping me, his hands twisting me around as I fall so I’m forced to catch myself.
I land on the floor, shards of glass embedding into my palms but nothing feels too deep. Glass is the least of my worries and I scan the area for my lost weapon, but the moment I glance up, something pricks the back of my neck and my vision quickly is overwhelmed by black, taking me under.
Elio taught me that if I was ever jumped or taken, the most important thing when waking up is to figure out my exact situation, and then get an idea of where I am.
As the blackness falls like a curtain being lifted, my senses immediately kick in. I’m seated on something hard, presumably a chair, with rope tying my legs to the base and my hands behind my back, my shoulders stretched tight. Which means, whoever’s behind this wants to ensure I can’t move.
It requires a few blinks for my vision to begin clearing and note the mass amount of stone encasing the building around me. Stone walls, ceiling, and floor with a metal balcony running the upper length. The lights aren’t exactly bright, dimmed with age and lack of care, so if something’s up there, it’s hard to make out. That, or my eyes haven’t adjusted enough.
I’m in a warehouse, tied to a chair.
A small whimper takes my attention to what I hadn’t initially noticed. Another person, this one owning so much of me. Demanding that I need to fight my way out of this, not only for me but for her too.
Serafina’s bound in an identical position as me to a chair a few feet away. Her eyes are wide, brimming with tears and fear, and yelling into the cloth tied around her head.
Fuck. I should have seen this coming. Getting jumped on the same day Serafina was presumably kidnapped. It’s all a giant premeditated plan.
“Sera—” My tongue feels thick, my throat dry, and I wonder how long it’s been since the attack. “Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head, but regardless, I check for cuts, bruises, or worse, blood.
“I promise to get us out of here.”
A deep voice chuckles from the warehouse’s corners, immediately garnering my attention. I jerk on the rope, checking its strength and the possibility of me getting free.
From the shadows, the deep laughter forms into a person. A person I should have killed my first time in Russia, like Elio suggested.
Ivan Volkov treads closer, his polished shoes scraping along the ground’s dirt as though the fuck’s too lazy to lift his feet. Considering he so often has others do his dirty work, his laziness wouldn’t be a surprise.
“If you wanted to broker another deal, you could have asked. You’re much better at conducting business than your niece.”
Ivan glances at Serafina before his eyes crawl back to me, and his responding smile drips with cockiness. “It’s interesting you phrase it like that, since an offer is why you’re here.” From his back pocket, he pulls out his cell. “Let’s call my niece, why don’t we, and get this matter dealt with.”