The Bratva King's Kidnapped Bride - Page 49

My blood ran cold when I saw it was very close to the building. And not moving. I fumbled for my phone and got my guy back on the line. I was no longer pacing but frozen in place as I waited for him to answer.

“Get around to the back of the building,” I told him. “Search the whole perimeter. Hurry, before the cops end up back there, too.”

As soon as I heard him say he was on it, I sparked back to life and headed toward the garage. I needed to be closer to Katie. In the car, I had it started before the door was even fully closed so I could race toward the woman who had taken over my entire world.

There was no way in hell she was dead. They knew she was worth more to me, alive and well. Surely, they had to know not a single one of them would be left standing if they harmed her. I kept the tracking app open and glanced at it as I swerved through the other cars on the road, ignoring anyone who beeped at me.

Why was she staying in that one spot for so long? Was she that badly hurt that she couldn’t move? Was she so scared after witnessing her guard being killed that she didn’t think it was safe to come out of her hiding spot? Not knowing made me grip the steering wheel until my knuckles were white. The anguish of thinking about her being in pain made me want to tear at my own skin.

I got another call, and the notification sent the tracking app to the background for a second. I answered, neatly swerving someone who thought a yellow light meant to stop. As I skated through the intersection just in time to miss the red light, my man at the building gave me his latest update.

“We found her necklace outside.”

“What do you mean, her necklace?” I demanded. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

But it was all he could offer. “The chain is broken. There’s no other sign of her.”

“I’ll be there shortly,” I said, ending the call and tossing my phone onto the seat beside me. There was no more need for the locator. She’d lost it somehow, maybe had it ripped violently from her neck.

Slamming my hands against the steering wheel and pressing my foot harder on the gas, I let out a primal roar. I was still miles away, but I told my phone to call Lev. It was time to get every last man in our organization out looking for my wife.

Chapter 29 – Katie

I slowly opened my eyes, to see nothing but a grainy blur. Something scratchy rubbed against my cheek as I lay on my side, and there was motion underneath me, like I was being tossed on a stormy sea.

Taking in a big, shuddering breath, I got nothing but stifling, hot air and a mouthful of the burlap sack over my head.

There was a burlap sack over my head.

Panicking, I kicked my legs, hitting something hard and making a metallic thudding sound. Something from above me smacked across the top of my head.

“Shut up and be still,” a voice I already recognized, and wished I didn’t, said.

“I guess she’s awake,” another voice said, sounding disappointed. “Just lay still back there,” he shouted at me, as if the burlap created a sound barrier between us.

Like hell, I would lay still. I raised my hands to yank the bag away, desperate for a full breath of air. There was a clinking sound, and I jerked my hands apart to find they were cuffed in front of me.

It all came rushing back. Sergei’s face as the knife slid across his throat, all of it somehow soundless. The bright gush of red that the killer so deftly kept from spilling all over the elevator. Crushed and broken open lunch boxes had filled the space with the familiar scent of garlic and butter, mixed with the coppery smell of blood.

I stopped thrashing around when my stomach started churning. Oh God, I couldn’t possibly be sick with this bag over my head.

Taking slow, shallow breaths, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was at the beach. The heat from my breath under the bag was really just the sun beating down on me. None of this was happening.

But what exactly was happening?

Was I being kidnapped? Of course, I was. I was handcuffed with a sack over my head in the back of a moving vehicle. This was definitely a kidnapping. And not in the fun way like when Aleks did it. This was real, and terrifying.

Suddenly, Aleks bursting into the sitting room with his gun drawn after I didn’t answer his calls didn’t seem so paranoid after all. He tried to tell me time and again that other organizations would stop at nothing to unseat him from his position, but it had all seemed so out there to me.

It didn’t now. All those little things I had kept pushing to the side raced to the forefront of my mind as I lay there, trying not to puke.

All the guns in that cabinet. The late night “meetings” and all the cagey answers I got from both Aleks and his sister every time I tried to learn more about their family business.

A bump in the road made my head throb, and I remembered that meaty fist slamming towards my face. I carefully moved my jaw back and forth, grateful it didn’t seem broken. I rolled onto my back and got a fresh wave of nausea. Stronger than the last. I needed an unhindered breath, and fast. Trying again to get the bag off, I found it was somehow tied around my neck. I followed the thin rope as best I could to find a knot, but my cuffed hands made it impossible. All the clinking I was making got one of the assholes in front to yell at me again to be still.

“Can you please take the bag off?” I asked meekly. “I feel sick.”

“Shut up,” was the answer. I took it as a no.