Chapter 17
Dmitri
The car is upside down in a ditch, its roof crushed in like a kicked skull.
“Do you think she survived?”
The question echoes in my mind as I stare at the wreckage of my S-Class on the side of the road. The same car that Cara took to escape to who knows where.
“Dmitri?”
I tear my eyes away from the dented metal and shattered glass to look at Andrei, a pit forming deep in my stomach.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” Andrei tells me, sounding genuinely apologetic.
“There’s no body,” Isaak speaks up from behind me as he gives me space to look at what I can only call a fucking disaster.
After it became clear that Cara was nowhere to be found, I said fuck it and launched a full-scale investigation into finding her. Over the past week, I’ve scoured the city for information on her whereabouts, not caring who I pissed off and what enemies I made.
The Council has stopped returning my calls. They say I’ve lost perspective. That I’ve let a woman make me reckless.
Some of my men won’t even assist me. Some will. Andrei immediately offered to help once I explained everything to him. I’ll remember who stuck with me and who didn’t.
When all of this is over and I find Cara, there will be consequences. But for now, my efforts are strictly on locating her.
It seems like she didn’t get too far before she crashed my car.
“Have you touched anything? Moved anything?” I question Isaak as I turn to face him.
He shakes his head. “I was just driving by and surveying the area when I found it. All I did was look inside to see if she was in there or not.”
I breathe in deeply through my nose before approaching the car. What’s left of it. My feet feel like they’re made of lead as I trudge forward, my eyes sweeping over the battered, upside-down body of my car.
I crouch down near the driver’s side window, broken glass crunching under my shoes as I peer inside. My stomach churns.
“There’s blood on the ceiling,” I say aloud, my words clipped.
“How much?” Andrei asks, staying behind me.
“Not enough to be lethal. Enough to hurt,” I reply as I stare down at the small, dried-up puddles of blood on the interior of the roof.
“She’s probably alive then,” Andrei tells me, hope seeping into his voice.
So, where the hell is she? She vanished like a goddamn ghost!
“There are tire tracks over here!” Isaak calls out from a little way down the road.
They can’t belong to her. The car didn’t make it that far, but someone else did. Someone else was here.
“Maybe someone stopped to help her and took her to the hospital,” Andrei suggests.
“We already checked all the hospitals in the area,” I remind him with a shake of my head, ice cold dread trickling down the back of my neck.
Something doesn’t feel right. Nothing has felt right since she left.
I walk around the entire car, searching for evidence of impact. The body is dented and messed up from rolling, but the back of the car catches my eye.
“Fuck,” I breathe out as I stare at the smashed up rear end.
Andrei hurries over to me before freezing. “Shit.”
The impact isn’t from the roll. It’s from behind, clean and intentional.
I take a step closer, my fingertips brushing over the crushed metal. “They must’ve driven her off the road, caused the crash.”
“So, they took her. Whoever it was,” Isaak comments as he strides toward us. “If she was dead, they would’ve left her body here.”
“Or already dropped it off at my doorstep or her father’s,” I grit out as I rip my eyes away from the damage, my pulse thundering hard and fast in my chest.
I walk away from Andrei and Isaak as they continue inspecting the car, my chest feeling crushed. A shaky breath barely fills my lungs, making the pressure that much harder to deal with.
I trudge back to my other car, unable to look at the wreckage any longer. “I’m going back to my place. Isaak, get this cleaned up and taken to storage.”
“Yes, sir,” Isaak replies before pulling out his phone to call over some of the men who are still willing to work for me.
“What do you want to do now?” Andrei asks as he approaches me. “This doesn’t look good, Dmitri.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I snap at him before exhaling slowly and pinching the bridge of my nose. I feel like I’m about to explode. All the uncertainty is killing me, and I’m fucking scared of what’s happened to her.
Why didn’t I let her stay? Why didn’t I try harder to figure out a way for us to be together sooner?
“I’m sorry. I just need to talk to her father about this,” I tell him as I lower my hand.
“You don’t actually trust a word that comes out of O’Malley’s mouth, do you?” Andrei asks with a frown.
“I’ll never trust Sean, but I only have so many people willing to help me right now,” I say as I pull open the door to my Lexus. “I’ll reach out with an update if there is one.”
Andrei nods and takes a step back from the car as I shut my door.
I don’t even look at the wreckage again before driving off and heading back to my place, numbness spreading throughout my body. Every single day has been a failure, and it’s impossible to sleep at night knowing that I’m failing her.
Knowing that Cara’s out there somewhere. Probably hurt. Probably scared.
Possibly dead.
My fingers tighten around my steering wheel as I press down on the gas to tear through traffic. Everything is a blur until I arrive at my building and see Sean waiting outside next to Leo.
“There you are,” Sean says, his piercing eyes tracking my every move as I head closer. “I was just about to have your doorman call you.”
Leo tenses his jaw, but he doesn’t say anything.
I motion for Sean to follow me inside before briefly flashing a look at Leo. I’m still suspicious of Sean, so he needs to be on high alert.
We take the elevator up in silence. When Sean heads into my penthouse, he shrugs off his black jacket, draping it over his arm as he follows me to the kitchen. “Where have you been?”
I pour us both a glass of vodka, ignoring the way his lip turns up. He can drink what I offer or not at all. “I found my car that Cara took.”
Sean’s sturdy expression shifts. “Where?”
“Flipped over on the side of the highway outside of town,” I say before downing half of my vodka, letting it sear its way down my throat.
Sean’s eyes widen. “Well? What do you think happened? Was there…any sign of her there?”
I shake my head as I set my glass down on the kitchen island, the liquor burning my chest. “The back of the car was smashed. Someone slammed into her. They wrecked her on purpose. There were tire marks leading away from the scene.”
“Someone went after her,” Sean murmurs as he lowers his eyes to his drink. He finally takes a long sip before looking back up at me.
“And they found her,” I say, my throat tightening so much that it’s hard to get the words out.
A few tense, quiet moments pass as we stand there in my kitchen, dread and uncertainty weighing me down. I don’t even know if Sean really cares about Cara. I don’t even know for certain that he isn’t involved in all of this.
But unless I have proof he’s lying to me, I’ll take all the help that I can get.
“When I find whoever did this to her, they’ll lose their hands before their life,” I grit out, then finish off my vodka and reach for the bottle again.
“Well, we need to figure out who it was first,” Sean replies after a sharp exhale, frustration plaguing his words. “I’d bet money it was the Russians.”
I scoff at him as I pour more vodka into my glass. “Of course, you’re going to assume it’s us. How can I be so sure that you’re not pulling some strings? You were willing to sacrifice her for your plan to fuck me and my family over!”
“I wanted her to try to prove herself, yeah, but I didn’t expect this to happen!!” Sean hisses at me.
“It wasn’t my family or my men. I’ve already checked them all out,” I assure him as I push the bottle away from me. I’ve drained enough of it over the past week.
“Well, it wasn’t any of mine either. They listen to what they’re told, and I didn’t order any of this shit to happen,” Sean tells me.
“Who do you think is behind this, then? If you had to make one solid, unbiased, guess,” I question him.
“The Bratva Council,” Sean replies with hesitation. He then shrugs. “Or the Albanians. They’ve been interested in my territory for a while now, and what better time to make a big move than when the Russians are fighting among each other and with the Irish, as far as they know.”
I grind my teeth as I stare at him, uneasiness and frustration battling it out within me. His guesses are decent ones, and they’re both possible.
The Albanians are not yet an enemy of ours, but they’re not on good terms with the Irish.
Now would be a good time for them to advance on their territory and ours, when we’re weak.
They could’ve found out about Cara being Sean’s daughter or my…
whatever she is to me through their connections and taken her.
The Bratva Council is unfortunately also another good guess. They hate my connection with Cara, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they decided to take matters into their own hands and kill her so that she isn’t a problem any longer.
“You think it could be one of them too, yeah?” Sean says as he narrows his eyes in interest.
“I can’t rule anyone out a hundred percent,” I tell him as I cross my arms over my chest. “We should check both out.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going within ten miles of the Bratva Council. I’ll find out more about the Albanians and what they’re up to,” Sean replies before finishing off his drink with a slight grimace and sliding the empty glass over to me. “Can you handle the Council?”
I don’t want to deal with the Council either, but I suppose it makes more sense for me to face them than him. They won’t be happy to see me, but I need to make sure that they’re not behind this.
They’ll pay for it if they are.
I don’t give a shit how important and powerful they are to the other families.
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” I tell him.
Sean pats the top of the kitchen island. “Then, let’s get to work.”
“We might already be too late,” I say, my eyes locking with his.
Sean frowns. “I know. But if she’s still alive, then we’re wasting time she doesn’t have.”
I watch him walk out of my kitchen, soon hearing the front door open and shut. Silence rings throughout my penthouse, but all I can hear is the rapid thumping of my restless heart.
There’s a real possibility that the Bratva Council tracked Cara down and killed her to take her out of the picture. They’re not above doing something so cruel.
It’s my fault that she was in a vulnerable enough position for that to happen. I forced her out into the world, despite knowing that there are people out there that want her dead.
If she was killed, then her blood is on my hands, and there will be no way to wipe them clean.