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“I’ll kill you, bitch, for digging into my past. Everything was perfect until Belyaev came around. I was going to marry Maddalena. She was supposed to be mine.” He knees me in the face against the car, and again, I cry out.
Costa stops and reaches down. He searches my pockets and finds the phone. His grin is worse than the Joker’s. It’s so sinister it makes my skin crawl.
“Hello, Belyaev, good luck finding us. She’ll be dead, like your father. I’ll teach her and others what happens when you go snooping.”
He throws the phone hard enough at the driveway pavement that shards of it fly at me. I cry harder, realizing Aleksei won’t ever find me. I’ll never see him again. I’ll never be able to tell him I love him. I’ll never know if he cares for me more than just someone to protect.
Alek
Iknew I shouldn’t have let her go. Now she’s in the hands of the same man who ordered the hit on my father. How she found him doesn’t surprise me.
“Bring me Ainsley,” I order into my phone when I dial Mikhail’s number.
“We are at the office. I have her here,” he says, and I storm out of my office.
I don’t bother with valet bringing my car around. Instead, I grab a taxi to Andrei’s offices over at Yelena’s and the Russian Cardroom. As soon as I get there, I walk around and enter through the back entrance, where I take the stairs up to the second-floor offices.
“I didn’t know he was going to take her there.” I hear Ainsley and kick open the door. It’s not completely latched, or I couldn’t do that. The guys have these doors set up as safe rooms.
“Where is my wife?” I yell into the room and take in the scene.
Mikhail has Ainsley on her back on the desk with his hand wrapped around her throat. Both of them turn to me. He has anger in his eyes, his jaw locked tight, and his body is coiled ready to pounce. Ainsley has tears in her eyes, and when Mikhail helps her sit up, she drops her head.
“Ainsley, I’m not playing around. Where is my wife?” I bark, and her body recoils.
“I swear, I didn’t know. He was supposed to take her out of town to a friend of mine’s place. They were going to hide her away.”
“Why would my wife want to get away from me? We just got married.”
“And you went to work. You also just married her because you had to. You’re taking one for the team,” she spits at me.
“I never said that.”
“You all pretty much did. You only married or are involved with us to protect us.” She pushes away from Mikhail. “You too.” She stands up and moves across the room. “Where is my sister?”
“Your friend took her to Giovanni Costa.”
“Damn son of a bitch. He was always a bit of a flake. How did Costa know Ric was researching him? She just found out about the hit and your family.”
“My family?”
Mikhail grabs Ainsley and sits at his desk. He pulls her down onto his lap and wraps his arms around her while he types away on his keyboard.
“Did you put the necklace on her?” he asks me, and I think over everything Ainsley said.
My wife thinks I married her just to protect her. I need to fix that as soon as I get her back. Because I will get her back. She also found a family I didn’t know I had. Lena?
“Aleksei?” Mikhail calls my name.
“What?”
“I have her.” He stands and looks over my shoulder to the men behind me. “Watch her. She isn’t to leave this building. Take her to my condo,” he orders his soldiers.
“No, I want to go. I caused this. Please, Mikhail.” She turns to him and begs.
“Fine.” He takes her hand, and we step out of the room.
“Let’s go.” Andrei stands there with more soldiers. “Dmitri isn’t coming. I’ve ordered him to stay with his wife.”
