Chapter 23
SAMUIL
Iknow something is wrong before I even reach the penthouse. I can’t explain it, just an instinct deep in my bones. The kind of dread that wakes men up in the middle of the night. First, I realize there are no security guards waiting when I step off the elevator. That isn’t right.
Then I realize Molly isn’t in the apartment. I feel her absence before I confirm she’s actually missing. I walk through the living room slowly, looking for her telltale signs, like a rumpled blanket she forgot to fold, or a half-finished mug of tea. There’s nothing.
I call her name and get no answer. My pulse quickens. I methodically search every room, looking for her, but she’s nowhere to be found. This isn’t good.
When I reach the kitchen, I look for signs she was here at all. I find an unwashed plate in the sink and, in the fridge, a sandwich in the spot where she usually leaves me leftovers. It definitely wasn’t there this morning. At least it gives me the start of a timeline.
I take out my phone and call her. It rings three times before going to voicemail. What the fuck is this?
She didn’t leave me. She couldn’t have. Where the hell is my security team? I call Tomàs, the head of my private security firm.
“Change your mind, boss?” he asks cheerfully.
“Change my mind about what?” I ask, confused.
“You told me to pull back the security detail on your penthouse,” he says slowly, as if I’m the stupid one.
“I did no such thing,” I growl. “Why would you think that?”
“You sent the message this morning,” he says, though now his slow tone sounds hesitant. “It was a text from your private line. I had Rafe confirm the number. You said you were going on a trip and wouldn’t need the penthouse covered.”
“Tomàs, I’m going to say this one time, so listen very carefully,” I say through clenched teeth, my anger simmering under the surface. “I did not send that message. Now my girlfriend is missing.”
I flinch at the word “girlfriend.” It’s not really true anymore, is it? There’s no better way to describe her, though, and I’m far too worried to get into semantics with the fucking idiot who didn’t call me to confirm my wishes.
“If you want to keep your job,” I start, but it doesn’t feel threatening enough. “Hell, if you want to keep your life, you’ll find footage of her right now and send it to me in the next ten minutes.”
“I…” He falters. “Give me twenty minutes. I’ll find her.”
True to his word, the video comes in within eighteen minutes, a full five minutes of her walking from various angles. She’s all alone, with no security, not a single bodyguard. I hold my breath as I watch, hoping that I’m just overreacting, that she’s just out on a walk and hasn’t returned yet.
I know in my gut that isn’t true, though, and sure enough, ten minutes later, I watch as she stops in front of a coffee shop a few blocks away.
I know that shop. I pass it every day on the way to the office.
She stops for a moment, and it’s not entirely clear why.
Then I see her pull out a few bills and bend down.
I can just make out another person in the frame.
She must have stopped to give a homeless person money.
Then, in the blink of an eye, a man is behind her. I can’t see his face. He’s in all black with a hood on, and he covers her face, pulling her backward. There’s a small struggle, and then he throws her into a van.
The van is also black, and the angle doesn’t give me the plates. I call Tomàs right away to see if he can get me a better angle on it. Then I call Davyd. My voice is calm, but he can tell something’s off.
“I’ll be there right away. Just sit tight,” he says calmly.
It’s an impossible ask. Molly’s been taken by someone, and it’s my fault. Just like Lena’s death was my fault. She was right. It’s barely been twenty-four hours since our fight, and she was so fucking right. How could I have missed this?
I pace up and down the length of the kitchen, unable to form any rational thought. All I see is red. I can hardly breathe through the panic, can hardly stay still through the anger.
Images of her flash in my head. I think of her with her hands on her stomach when she told me she was pregnant. I remember the feeling of her face pressed into my shoulder as she cried. I hear her laugh as I twirled her around this kitchen.
She’s gone, and it’s all my fault. It’s because of the life I chose over her. The life I have always justified as necessary. The life I chose over our child.
I sink onto the couch and press my hands over my face. My entire body feels too heavy to move and too electric to rest. A low, brutal sound escapes me, something between a scream and a sob.
I’ve always believed I could outmaneuver any threat.
That I could see every angle, every betrayal, every shifting piece on the board.
I have ruled like that for more than two decades with precision and dominance.
None of that matters now. Not when she’s out there somewhere, terrified, alone, and carrying our child. Not when her life could be in danger.
That’s how Davyd finds me several minutes later. I’m frozen in place, too overwhelmed to make a damn move.
“If anything happens to her, I’ll lose my mind,” I tell him quietly. “And I put you through this. Lena died because of me, Davyd. You should hate me.”
He lets out a deep sigh and sits next to me, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“Probably.” He shrugs. “But I was just as much a part of that attack as you were. I gave you the okay. This is the life we live, Samuil. These are the risks we take.”
I shake my head. “I’m the pakhan,” I remind him. “You couldn’t have gone over my head even if you’d wanted to.”
My decisions killed a mother.
My decisions put Molly in this exact danger.
“No,” he says firmly. “I wouldn’t have wanted to. It was the right call at the time. Neither of us knew what was going to happen. Regretting our actions can’t bring Lena back. I had to make my peace with that. Molly could still be alive. Let’s focus on that.”
I press my fists into my eyes and breathe through the guilt clawing up my throat.
If I had been a different kind of man she might not be gone right now.
I think of her curled up on the couch, pale and shaking after reading those articles.
I remember the horror in her voice when she realized Anya’s mother died because of the hits I ordered.
“I can’t do this,” I admit weakly. “I can’t lose her.”
My voice breaks, and I realize I’m crying. I don’t think I’ve ever cried. Not when my mother walked out without a backward glance. Not when my father drank himself into the grave while I begged him to stay alive long enough to teach me anything. Not when my brother was senselessly killed.
I have buried more men than I can count. I have seen betrayal from people I trusted with my life. Nothing has ever gutted me like this. I’ve never cared about anyone like this before. I’ve never loved anyone before.
It doesn’t matter what Molly said last night.
It doesn’t matter that I chose the Bratva over her.
None of that changes the fact that she’s mine to protect.
The child she carries is mine. The future I envisioned so clearly for the first time in my miserable life is real.
I’ll tear the entire city apart to get her back.
My phone buzzes in my hand. I stare at the screen.
“Who has her?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know,” I tell him honestly. “I’m waiting for Tomàs to get me the plates. It was a smooth operation. They took her in seconds.”
“It sounds like Lebedev.” He sighs. “Come on, let’s think.”
“All I’ve been doing is thinking, and what I keep coming up with is that I deserve this,” I admit.
He looks at me sharply. “No.”
“Yes,” I say flatly. “I deserve it because of who I am. Because of what I’ve done.
I deserve it because of Lena, because Anya is left without a mother.
For every other wife and child who’s lost a father or a brother because of me.
I deserve it because she asked me to leave this world behind and I picked it over her. ”
His jaw clenches, grief flickering across his features.
“Don’t put that on yourself, Samuil. You were never given a choice. You inherited this life, and you’ve done the best with the hand you were dealt.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But the choices I made shaped this. And now she’s somewhere terrified and alone.”
He sits across from me, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Samuil. Look at me.”
I force myself to.
“You need to stay upright,” he says. “She needs the pakhan right now, not a man drowning in guilt.”
Ironic, since the pakhan is the part of me she hates. I sit back and stare at the ceiling, considering her words.
“If I move too fast, I put her life at risk. If I move too slow, I lose her and the baby.”
Davyd sighs again. “It’s a tough call, but it’s yours to make.”
I turn my head. “Then I’ll make the calls,” I say slowly, an idea forming. “But I need you to handle the logistics. I need you to coordinate everything.”
“Of course, brat,” he says, sounding more confident in me than I feel. “We’re going to get her back.”
A long breath escapes me. It’s the first one that actually eases anything since I watched that footage.
“I need you to get me a list of all of Lebedev’s safe houses and warehouses. We need to send our men to each one and find out where they’re holding her.”
I stand suddenly and go to my office. When I get there, I spread out the map of our territory, and Davyd marks all the spots we know of.
He doesn’t need instructions. He anticipates my thoughts as if he’s in my head.
He takes notes, coordinates, and is on the phone with several of my soldiers within half an hour.
“This one,” I say, pointing to a warehouse on the river. “Lebedev used it for trafficking years ago. They never fully shut it down.”
Davyd nods. “And it’s isolated. It’s good for holding someone.”
“Bring the men,” I tell him. “Only the best. Keep them quiet until I give the order.”
He nods, typing instructions into his phone.
“I just need you to promise me one thing, brat,” he says earnestly. “When you find her, don’t let her out of your sight. Do whatever you have to do to keep her safe.”
We share a look, and I know he’s giving me the advice he wishes someone had given him. I have the second chance he didn’t get when Lena was killed. I have an opportunity to make different decisions.