Page 36 of The Bratva Stalker and His Pregnant Bride

“Boss, the federal attention—”

“I don’t give a fuck about the feds!” I roar, slamming my fist onto the mahogany desk, the wood splintering under the force of my blow. “Someone took my son, Kaplan! My boy is missing. Mobilize the entire network. If anyone stands in our way, run them over. Find the vehicle, find the driver, and find who is holding my son.”

“On it,” Kaplan says, his face turning pale as he immediately pulls out his secure radio and begins barking orders.

I don’t wait. I grab my keys, slide a heavy Glock into the holster at my lower back, and sprint out of the building.

I drive through the city like a man possessed, tearing through red lights and weaving through traffic with a ruthless, calculated desperation. Within fifteen minutes, my tires shriek to a halt in Ashley’s driveway.

I burst through her front door.

“Ashley!”

She’s in the living room, curled into a ball on the floor by the couch, clutching one of Ethan’s small stuffed dinosaurs to her chest. She’s rocking back and forth, sobbing so hard her entire frame is violently shuddering. The sight of her completely destroyed, broken by the sheer agony of a mother’s worst nightmare, cuts me deeper than any blade ever could.

I cross the room in two strides and drop to my knees, wrapping my massive arms around her.

“No, no, no,” she shrieks, trying to fight me off at first, her small fists weakly beating against my chest. “How did this happen? Where is he, Samuel? Where is my baby? I let my guard down…and now he’s gone—”

“Ashley, look at me,” I growl, grabbing her face in both of my hands, forcing her to look into my eyes. She is trembling, her eyes wild and bloodshot with panic. “Look at me. I’m here. I’m not leaving. I have my entire network crawling over this city. We’re going to find him. Do you hear me? I’ll tear this city apart brick by brick until he is back in your arms.”

I pull her forehead against mine, anchoring her, letting her feel the solid, unyielding weight of my presence. I ground her, absorbing her terror, channeling it into the cold, sharp focus I need to run this hunt.

“I need you with me, Ashley,” I whisper fiercely against her skin. “I need you strong. We’re going to get him back.”

She lets out a shaky, broken breath, her fingers clutching desperately at the fabric of my shirt as she tries to nod, trying to find her footing in the middle of the storm.

And then, the quiet of the room is pierced by a sharp, digital chime.

Ashley’s phone, lying on the rug beside us, vibrates violently as a new message lights up the screen.

My hand shoots out before Ashley can even reach for it, but she’s already staring at the glowing screen. Her eyes widen, the pupils contracting with a fresh, paralyzing wave of horror as she reads the words out loud in a breathless, trembling whisper:

“I told you to get rid of that man who is with you. I’m possessive and jealous. I won’t share you, my darling. I have your son. Let me know when you’re ready to do as I say.”

The words hang in the heavy air of the room, suffocating us.

It is the ultimate, brutal confirmation of our worst nightmare. The shadow who has been lingering in the dark doesn’t just want to unnerve Ashley anymore. He has Ethan. The sick, twisted obsession has mutated from threatening messages into a physical abduction. He is using our four-year-old boy as a pawn, a bargaining chip to force Ashley into submission, fueled by a deeply erratic, possessive jealousy of my presence in her life.

Ashley lets out a choked, horrified sound, her hands flying to her mouth as she stares at the screen. “He has him… Samuel, he has our baby…”

The raw, bleeding panic in her voice is the final straw.

Inside me, the last remaining thread of civilized restraint snaps. A terrifying, absolute coldness washes over me, replacing the frantic adrenaline with the sharp, clinical precision of a man who has decided exactly how his enemy is going to die.

This is no longer a situation I intend to handle with caution. I don’t care about leaving a trail. I don’t care about the local police, the federal agencies, or the delicate balance of power in this city. They laid their hands on my son to get to her.

I snatch her phone from the rug, my thumb hovering over the screen as I immediately forward the message and the routing data to Kaplan.

“Trace it,” I command the second Kaplan answers the line, my voice dropping to a low, deathly calm that makes the speaker rattle. “I don’t care if they spoofed the routing again. Whichever tower received this ping, I want every single device operating within a three-mile radius of that tower cross-referenced. Find the physical location of that signal. Now.”

“On it, Boss,” Kaplan barks, the sound of keyboard keys clattering furiously in the background. “We’re bypassing the firewalls. We’ll have a location range soon.”

I tuck the phone into my pocket and look down at Ashley. I pull her up from the floor, wrapping my hands firmly around her upper arms, anchoring her to the spot.

“He made a mistake,” I tell her, my blue eyes locked onto hers with a lethal, unshakeable promise. “He thinks he’s playing a game of leverage. But he has no idea what he’s just unleashed. I’m going to tear this city apart block by block, and when I find him, there will be nothing left of him.”

The hunt is no longer a quiet investigation. It is a full-scale war.