Chapter 29 #2
On screen, in the dark, rainy night, the small vent window on the storage room's exterior wall suddenly exploded outward. Glass shards flew everywhere. Then a bloodied hand reached out from inside, gripping the window frame desperately.
Then came Nadia's face—pale as death, covered in blood and dirt.
She bit down hard, like a dying animal, and forced herself through that impossibly narrow opening, falling hard onto the muddy grass below.
She lay there motionless. Like a corpse.
Rain and blood mixed together, pooling beneath her in a shocking crimson puddle.
After what felt like forever, she finally dragged herself up, stumbling toward the manor's perimeter, disappearing beyond the camera's range.
The footage froze.
The entire study fell silent enough to hear a pin drop.
I stared at that staggering silhouette on the screen, my chest gripped by an invisible hand, the pain so intense I could barely breathe.
"Keep looking. Pull footage from every intersection outside the manor. I need to know where she went." My voice came out hoarse and broken.
"Pakhan, there's something else..." Danny's voice was dry, rough.
He swallowed hard and pointed to another report on the console.
"I had someone check the manor's network logs.
Five minutes after Nadia was locked in the basement and the power was cut, an internal network call was placed to her phone. "
My heart lurched, a powerful sense of dread flooding through me. "Who made the call?"
Danny closed his eyes, as if he couldn't bear to say it. "It... it came from your personal phone."
"My phone?" I froze, my mind racing.
This afternoon at the hospital, after Vera woke up crying and clutching my jacket, I'd sat by her bedside for a while to keep her calm, to extract information about the FBI's movements.
My jacket and personal phone... they'd been on the cabinet beside her bed!
Then I'd gone to the bathroom to wash blood off my hands. I'd been gone nearly ten minutes.
"It was Vera." My whole body shook violently, like ice water had been poured over me from head to toe, chilling me to the bone. "She took my phone while I was gone and called Nadia?"
"Not just that..." Danny took a deep breath and pulled up an audio file. "This is a communication record backup we intercepted from the cloud. You should... listen for yourself."
Danny hit play.
In the quiet security room, Vera's sickening, fake moans immediately filled the air.
"Ah... Roman... be gentle..."
"Mmm... but your phone's ringing... looks like... Nadia's calling. Aren't you going to answer?"
On the other end, a synthesized male groans. The sound of clothes being torn.
Finally, Vera's voice, dripping with the most venomous mockery: "See that, Nadia? This is what you get. To him, you're worth nothing..."
"FUCK!"
Before it finished playing, I lunged forward and smashed the speaker with my fist. Electrical feedback shrieked through the air, the security room in shambles.
I braced myself against the wrecked console, gasping for air, eyes blood-red. My stomach churned violently. An unprecedented wave of self-loathing and regret—like a tsunami—completely drowned me.
She heard it.
While the woman I loved was trapped in her worst nightmare, suffocating and trembling from claustrophobia, desperately praying I'd come save her—when she'd clutched that phone call like her last lifeline—what she heard was me with another woman. The cruelest betrayal. The most vicious mockery.
What have I done... what the fuck have I done?
I bit down hard, the taste of blood flooding my mouth.
I thought I was protecting her. I thought if I just ignored her, if I played along with Vera's charade, I could take down the FBI and Morozov's faction in one sweep and give her an absolutely safe future.
I arrogantly assumed she'd understand my position.
That she'd wait for me to fix everything and explain.
But my repeated, self-righteous coldness emboldened Vera. Let her strike at Nadia viciously.
I threw the person I should have protected most into the fire pit myself. With my indifference. With my arrogance. I pushed her into the abyss.
She must think I don't love her. She must think she really was just a throwaway transaction to me, something disposable once its use expired.
That's why she gave up hope. Why she smashed through that window with everything she had. She bled so much—how much pain was she in? Where could she go, alone, in this freezing rain, covered in wounds?
"Danny!" I straightened abruptly, my voice lethal. "Find her! Turn this entire city upside down if you have to!"
"Pakhan, the men are already out there combing through every surveillance camera within ten kilometers of the manor." Danny's expression was grave. "But... there's one more thing. We searched the entire manor. We can't find Vera... Vera's missing."
"Missing?" I whipped my head around, eyes cold as knives.
"Yes. The guards at the manor gate were knocked out.
Surveillance was destroyed. She must have timed it perfectly—after staging this whole thing, after completely driving Nadia away, someone helped her escape.
" Danny's jaw clenched. "She definitely knows where Nadia went.
Or... she's got another trap set for Nadia out there! "
That realization froze every drop of blood in my body again.
That psycho Vera. She didn't just want to destroy Nadia's mind. She wanted Nadia dead. Now Nadia was badly injured, mentally shattered—if she fell into Vera's hands or Morozov's people out there... I couldn't even let myself think about it.
"Deploy every asset. Every mole we have in the feds—pull them all out and use them!" I yanked the gun from my waistband. "Track Vera's location! Check Morozov's holdings! Every hospital, clinic, black market in Chicago! Even if we have to burn this city to ash, bring her back to me!"
I stormed out of the security room and back into the pouring rain.
The freezing downpour hammered against my face, but it couldn't extinguish the fire inside me—the one threatening to burn me alive.
I'm sorry, Kitten.
I was too arrogant. I lost you.
As long as you come back to me alive, you can cut me into a thousand pieces. I won't say a word.
"Wait for me."
I yanked the car door open and dove into Chicago's pitch-black, rain-soaked night.