Chapter 17 Vaughn
VAUGHN
“So wait.” Aiden looked to Sebastian, though that wasn’t much help. He was just as confused after my confession, looking at me with blank surprise. “She’s been staying with you all this time?”
“It hasn’t been that long,” I explained, savoring my scotch.
Aside from the promise of spending time with Nova, this was what I’d looked forward to all day—the possibility of relaxing after the hassle of endless time-wasting bullshit.
“I couldn’t tell you, no offense. Not that I don’t trust you.
I had to pull a plan together at the last second.
” There were no details involved. They knew only that Nova was in trouble and needed a place to lay low for a while.
Sebastian didn’t bother hiding a grin. “You would be the one who jumps at the opportunity to help the damsel in distress.”
“I’ve always had a weakness,” I admitted, recalling a certain pivotal night when I’d rearranged a rapist’s face and loved every moment. I never could stand watching a defenseless person being taken advantage of.
“It sounds like quite a sweet little domestic arrangement you’ve got going on,” he observed. “What does this mean for the annulment?”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to stay married,” Aiden begged, crestfallen.
With a laugh loud enough to draw the attention of a few fellow drinkers seated nearby, I asked, “Could you not make it sound like we’re discussing a terminal disease?”
His expression didn’t shift. “Isn’t that what marriage is?”
“Really, you’re a poet,” Sebastian told him. “The pearls of wisdom drip from your lips with no effort.”
“We’re still going through with it,” I explained, rolling my eyes at his heavy, relieved sigh. “Though, who knows? There’s no rush. I like having her around.”
What I didn’t like was the look they exchanged. They didn’t need words to express their thoughts, which were everything but approving. “Why bother getting annulled at all, then?” Sebastian asked. “If you’re going to keep her around anyway.”
Not a bad idea, but a step much bigger than any I was willing to take.
Living together was one thing. Sharing my home, talking about business over dinner, fucking at every opportunity that I could get used to.
But marriage? Actual marriage? “It’s not that simple. There are complications,” I insisted.
Aiden tipped his head to the side. “Such as?”
I should’ve known better than to bring this up with them.
I should have known they would push and challenge the way they always did—the way we’d always done to each other.
I didn’t know until now there were times that didn’t work.
Topics that shouldn’t be pushed. I didn’t understand until now how shallow so much of my life had been up to this point, living in service of my desires, my appetites.
Now that I had come up against something real and complicated, they had no idea how to process it—the same as me.
I was never so glad for an interruption. Grayson’s appearance at the entrance to the lounge couldn’t have come at a better time. I raised a hand, signaling him to join us.
Yet his feet remained planted. His eyes narrowed.
Oh shit! Something was wrong.
Without saying a word to the others, I stood, my drink forgotten, weaving my way through the small, candlelit tables dotting the space. All of them were in use, the pleasant, overlapping conversations going soft in my ears once the pounding of my heart drowned them out.
When I reached him, he led me out into the wide hall opposite one of my banquet rooms. It had been a long, almost comically busy day, so I had asked the guys to meet me here rather than going through the hassle of fighting traffic to meet elsewhere.
Considering I was on familiar ground, it seemed I should have felt stronger, more sure of myself by the time my old friend turned to me, his gaze darting back and forth almost furtively.
“What is it?” I demanded, ready to scream as the tension in my head threatened to tear it apart.
“We have a problem.” He held up his phone for me to read messages he’d exchanged with members of his team. “Was Max on duty when you left this morning?”
“Yeah, he was outside the house. It looked like he’d just arrived.” Meanwhile, I skimmed the contents of the messages Grayson had received.
Truck missing. House empty. No answer.
“When his replacement showed up an hour ago, the truck was gone,” he explained, his voice hushed and strained. “Pete assumed Max had taken her somewhere until he confirmed that neither of them was answering calls. I asked around. Max hasn’t checked in with anyone since early this afternoon.”
When my mouth opened, prepared to ask the most obvious question, he added, “I already sent someone over to her apartment to check it out.”
“She’s not there anymore. It’s been ages since Max called to check if it was safe to take her,” I muttered with sick certainty gripping my guts. Running my hands through my hair, I laced my fingers on top of my head.
This wasn’t happening.
Not now.
Not after I sat with that man and laid out the terms he agreed to. Riccardo told me she was safe. He told me, goddammit.
And I was the stupid son of a bitch who had believed him because I wanted to. I wanted to win.
“You don’t know that.” He was trying to comfort me while tapping frantic messages on his phone. I heard the disbelief in his voice, too potent to ignore. Neither of us were children. It was time to let go of the illusion.
“I’m going over there.” I was already on my way down the hall, my mind made up, my goal in sight. The guys would wonder where I went, but let them wonder. Someday, I would explain it all. Right now, it was Nova who drove my every step, every beat of my heart. It was all her.
“Goddammit,” Grayson muttered beside me as he fell in step with my quick, long strides. He placed a call to one of his men, his words delivered through clenched teeth. “We’re on our way. Eyes open. Report anything you find before we arrive.”
Meanwhile, I called Nova, my heart pounding harder with every ring of the phone.
Pick up, pick up. My only reward was the sound of her sunny, cheerful voicemail greeting.
Her voice wrapped something sharp around my heart like razor wire meant to slice through.
“Hi, you’ve reached Nova,” she chirped. “Please leave a message.”
I didn’t bother, choosing instead to call again.
Why hadn’t I checked up on her before now?
Because I’d let myself become complacent.
I’d handed the task of protecting her over to strangers—trusted strangers, sure, but there was no one I trusted more than myself.
I lost sight of what mattered in favor of believing a fairy tale of winning without losing anything in exchange.
I was too old for that, too smart. Or so I’d told myself.
Grayson drove, using the key fob to unlock his Bugatti without bothering to ask if I would rather take my car. It was for the best that I stay in the passenger seat, calling Nova repeatedly as if it would make a difference.
“What if you called Mancini?” Grayson suggested, taking a left turn out of the garage fast enough to make the car tip slightly to the side before righting itself. Horns blared around us, adding to the chaos of light and sound wreaking havoc on my already overloaded senses.
The idea was unthinkable. “Why would I?” I asked. “He’s behind this. He has to be.”
“It could be the Russians.” The theory was presented in a flat voice. “They might have—”
I snapped, shaking my head. “No. They wouldn’t kidnap her. If they’d found her and wanted to make an example of her as a message, they would make a spectacle of it.”
“Are you sure?” His voice was low, tight. “Or is that what you need to believe? In a situation like this, you cannot afford to go off of what you need to believe. We have to think the way they think. All of them.”
I hated him for that, no matter how right he was, telling me what I needed to hear no matter how little I wanted to hear it.
Still, there was no forcing myself to believe the Russians would be brought into something so easily cleaned up in-house.
“It’s Nico. Any whiff of trouble could mean much bigger trouble for the entire organization.
He’s desperate. Threatening Nova, hinting at having murdered her mother. ”
He muttered something ugly under his breath. “You didn’t tell me that. The fucker.”
The idea of Nico doing the same now sent fire racing through my veins, burning away everything but the certainty of what needed to be done. I would kill him. He would suffer to his last breath.
By the time we reached Nova’s apartment building—a short drive that only felt like it took an eternity—a pair of black-clad men stood beside a truck I recognized as Max’s.
One of them shook his head at Grayson as we pulled into the spot beside it.
Rather than wait for a briefing, I went straight to the stairwell leading up to her floor. There was no time to waste.
“Wait,” Grayson called out behind me, his voice filling the concrete space.
I barely noticed, taking the stairs two at a time.
She lived on the fifth floor, if memory served.
I might not have personally guarded her, but I’d made it my business to know things like that.
Not that it made a fucking bit of difference.
She was gone. She needed me, and she was gone.
Grayson caught up to me in the moments between opening the metal door on the fifth floor and throwing myself through it. “Goddammit, I said wait. Don’t go in there.” He touched a hand on my chest, blocking me with his body. “Let me get an idea of what’s inside before you go in.”