Chapter Eight
Roarke
I wake with a start, but not from a nightmare, I realize with surprise. I don’t recall the last time I simply fell asleep. It’s been ages since I went to sleep without staring at the ceiling for hours or downing pills before I found sleep. And I know who to thank for that.
I reach out to touch the spot next to me, and my eyes shoot open when I find it empty. She’s not in bed with me, but I don’t panic. At least not yet. A gut feeling tells me she’s not anywhere in the room, but I figure she’s probably in the bathroom.
I’m not a deep sleeper. Fuck, normally, I would have heard the mattress shift or even the door open, but I slept through that.
Knowing she’s not in the room, I still get up and go to check the bathroom, unsurprised to find it empty.
One look at the living room area tells me that she’s not there either. “Elena?”
Now, I start to panic.
Fuck, she probably went out for some air, which is definitely not the smartest thing for a genius girl like her to do. There are people out there who want nothing but to harm her. A single glance at the bedside clock tells me that it’s only eleven, which means she couldn’t have been gone for long.
I slide into my pants and shirt, not bothering to button them as I grab the gun I had Conor bring me after the wedding.
I slide it into my waistband and grab my phone, set to activate the tracker I had planted on her phone when I started out as her bodyguard.
Then, I remember she left it behind at her parents’ house.
“Goddamnit!” I curse, dialing my sister’s number. It rings three times before she picks up.
“Shouldn’t you be celebrating your nuptials with your wife? It’s the middle of the night,” she whines. I hear rustling, as if she’s shoved covers over her head. “Not everyone is a night owl, Roarke.”
“Elena is missing.”
“What?” That seems to snap her out of wanting to go back to sleep.
“I woke up, and she’s gone.” It probably sounds dumb saying it out loud, and if it were anyone else, I wouldn’t be as worried. But Elena is currently hiding from her family and the man they want to sell her off to. I don’t care if I’m overreacting.
“I bet she just went out for a walk,” Fiona offers calmly, but I hear her climb out of bed. “You’re probably worried over nothing.”
“Perhaps,” I say with a nod, pacing helplessly in my room. “But I still need you to hack into our hotel’s security and tell me where she is.”
“On it,” she chirps. I hear the clicks as her fingers fly across the keyboard. “Just give me a few minutes. It’s not easy to crack into the security of such a secure hotel, but…got it!”
My heart jerks in my heart. “Tell me, Fiona.”
“Searching,” she hums, the sound of her fingers tapping the keyboard breaking into the call. “Okay, let’s see here… Yes, there she is getting into the elevator. Aw, she’s wearing your jacket, how sweet.”
“Focus, Fiona.”
“Right,” she mutters, clicking frantically. “Okay, she’s going down to the lobby. She steps out, and…”
“What? Fiona?”
“Someone grabbed her from behind… A thiarna!” she exclaims. “He took her, Roarke.” Fiona’s voice turns shaky and distressed. “He dragged her through a marked door on the left. It’s the basement… Roarke, you have to hurry!”
“Who took her, Fiona?”
“Yuri Balshov!”
Goddamnit!
I’m out of the room before she can say another word, her voice echoing in the call as I rush down the hall. I consider taking the stairs, but I’m on the tenth floor, and I’m afraid that the fucker will hurt her before I can get to her.
“What’s happening, Fiona? Can you see into the room where he’s taken her?”
“There are no cameras past the hallway.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Hurry, Roarke. You have to get to her fast. I’m messaging Da and Conor in case you need backup, but I don’t think you have time to wait.”
Damnit!
I glare at the indicator, willing for the numbers to move faster. I grab my gun and check for bullets. I can already picture where I’m going to plant them. I’m going to kill him. Yuri Balshov is dead for taking what belongs to me.
I’m practically vibrating with rage when the elevator door finally opens, and I rush for the door Fiona indicated. I have my gun aimed ready to shoot when I open the door, groaning when I realize it’s not a closet but a bloody labyrinth of doors that lead to God knows where.
I hang up on Fiona and slide my phone into my back pocket before slowly stepping in, straining my ears as I used to do back when I was in the military.
It’s tempting to use my flashlight to navigate, but I don’t want to alert Yuri of my presence.
Instead, I use my senses to move, careful not to bump into the stacks of boxes stacked along the wall.
I have helped carry out dozens of rescue missions, so this should be no different.
Except…it is.
This is nothing like any rescue mission I’ve carried out before. The person waiting to be rescued is a woman I love. The one I intend to spend the rest of my life with and someone is threatening to steal that from me.
I’ll fucking kill him.
“Tonight, I will teach you a fucking lesson for thinking you could cross me!”
My eyes target the second door to the right. The door is open slightly, so I move steadily toward it and peek in, my heart dropping to my feet when I see Elena tied to a chair with a gun pointed at her head.
“Get the fuck away from her!” I roar, aiming my gun at the man’s head when he whips around to face me, surprise written on his face. He turns his gun from Elena to point it at me. Good. “I’m faster, and I have never missed a shot in my life.”
I sense a presence behind me and curse at myself for being a fool. Fuck, I should have anticipated Yuri bringing company even though Fiona didn’t see it.
“I’m afraid he means it, Batya. Drop the gun!” a voice calls from behind me as a gun appears to my right, but the barrel is not aimed at me but at the other man in the room. I don’t dare take my eyes off Yuri to glance at the man standing next to me.
“Alexei!” Yuri curses, and I immediately recognize the name. Yuri’s oldest son. Well, the second oldest, seeing that the first died young. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I followed you,” the man says with a sigh. “I had a feeling that you were up to no good, so I followed you to the hotel. Don’t you realize what you’re doing could put our family at risk? Messing with the O’Sheas and the Rossis. Are you trying to start a war?”
Yuri’s eyes darken. “Stay out of this, Alexei. I am your pakhan. How dare you challenge me!”
“What?” the younger Balshov challenges. “Are you going to kill me like you killed Ivan when he was sixteen? Or murder me in cold blood like you did my mother?” Silence, tense and deep, follows his words.
“Shut up!” Yuri roars, waving his gun erratically. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Shut the fuck up and leave now!”
Fuck this!
This man is clearly insane, and the gun he’s waving around could end up taking us all out. I’ll be damned if I risk Elena’s life while the two Balshovs air their grievances. Without missing a beat, I aim my gun at the older Balshov’s shoulder, enough to injure but not be fatal. I fire.
Yuri screams before dropping to the floor, but I don’t give him time to recover as I step forward and kick his gun away. I turn to the son and study him, weighing the pros and cons of trusting a Balshov. But I decide I don’t have time for this. I need to get Elena out of here.
I make quick work of untying her hands before crouching to untie her legs. I quickly check for other injuries but only see a cut on her cheek. Rage courses through my body at the thought of that man harming my wife, and I reach up to wipe the blood away. That’s when Elena screams.
I turn around just in time to spot Yuri grabbing a gun from a holster on his ankle and raise it to shoot me. I throw myself over Elena, covering her with my body as a shot rings out, deafening in the small room.
I wait for the pain, that sharp, blinding pain that follows a bullet piercing through the flesh. I’ve felt it before, a couple of times in fact, and you never get used to the feeling. To the pain.
“Roarke,” her hands cup my jaw, and it’s Elena’s sobs that yank me from the past. “Look at me, please. Are you okay?”
There’s no pain. Usually, the adrenaline-induced euphoria doesn’t last this long. Why is there no pain?
My head whips around, and lying a few feet from me is Yuri, with a neat bullet hole between his eyes.
I quickly grab my gun and point it at the man still standing in the doorway, staring at the fatal wound he just inflicted on his father.
It’s unbelievable. He doesn’t seem a bit fazed by the gun pointed at him.
Instead, he stands there like a statue, watching his father with a blank expression. “I gave him so many chances,” he mutters. “But sometimes, the dog is just too sick, and as much as you wish it wasn’t the case, the best thing to do is put the animal down.”
Without another word, Alexei Balshov turns around and walks out, leaving Yuri where he lies. Taken out by his own son—the same son whose brother and mother he murdered. Now, isn’t that justice?