Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kirill
“Where is she?” I demand, slamming my fist into the table.
It’s been six hours since the blackout at the gallery. Six hours since my wife was taken from me. Edik, Yana, and the small army of bodyguards I’ve sent out to find her all look back at me as the echo of my fist resounds through the room.
“Answer me, damn it!” I snarl.
“We don’t know, Pakhan,” Edik answers first. “We’ve scoured the security footage for clues but all we got is footage of Annika being carried out the back of the gallery by a masked man. He put her in a blacked out sedan with no plates that headed west, that’s all we got.”
My mind is in a frenzy of panic and need. I had my back turned for a second. A second, and that was all it took for those bastards to kidnap my wife.
“Tolya and Eve are with our tech team, trying to pull any calls or radio frequencies that might be useful,” Yana answers. “But it’s New York City, Pakhan. There’s millions to sort through.”
“There’s got to be something more,” I say, looking over my people. “Something we missed. Where’s Valya? Yulian? They were right there. I’ll question them myself.”
“They’re gone too,” Edik replies, his voice curt.
“I don’t have to tell you how this looks,” he goes on when I focus my gaze on him. “All three of them, just them, vanish?”
I grit my teeth, knowing what he’s actually trying to say.
I told you so. But I can’t accept it. Call me naive or downright stupid, but I can’t.
Annika cared- cares for me. More than anyone ever has, and I feel it in my bones.
If Annika is with her father, it isn’t by choice. At least…I pray isn’t. If it is…
“Go back out,” I demand, “Search Yulian’s house again. The Four Seasons. Any of his business holdings.”
My men and Yana turn to leave at once.
I pull out my phone, trying yet again to call my brother. Pyotr wasn’t at the opening, but I needed everyone on this. It rings over and over again until his lazy voicemail instructs me to ‘say what you need to and fuck off’ for the fifteenth time.
“And for fucks sake,” I yell into the hall, “Find my brother and tell him to get his head out of his ass!”