Page 55 of The Bratva Stalker and His Pregnant Bride

“I wanted to do this the gentle way,” Daniel whispers, his face a blur of disappointment as he steps back, discarding the syringe onto the desk. “I wanted you to choose me. But you’re too sick, Ashley. Samuel Rusnak has poisoned your mind, and I have to cure you. I have to make you clean again.”

The room begins to tilt violently. The dark mahogany paneling stretches and warps, turning into a dizzying vortex of shadows. My head grows impossibly heavy, my chin dropping to my chest as the strength drains out of my limbs like water.

I try to hold onto the anger, onto the image of Samuel’s face, of Ethan’s laugh, but the chemical tide is too strong. It washes over me, heavy and suffocating.

Through the gathering dark, the cold truth finally settles in with absolute, terrifying clarity. He is never going to let me go. There’s no negotiating with him, no appealing to his humanity, because the Daniel I knew is completely gone. This man will keep me in this room, or he’ll kill us both trying.

My eyelids flutter, the weight of the drug dragging me under. The last thing I see is the outline of his silhouette standing over me, waiting for the dark to claim me once again.

And then, there’s nothing.

Chapter 28 – Samuel

The air in the secure monitoring room is thick with the scent of stale coffee, smoke, and the quiet, vibrating energy of a hunt in full swing.

My eyes don’t leave the main screen. The image of the black sedan leaving the garage is frozen on the left monitor, while the right is a blur of cascading data, flashing red indicators, and scanning algorithms. Kaplan’s fingers move across his keyboard with mechanical speed, his face illuminated by the harsh blue glow.

“I need a name, Kaplan,” I say, my voice a flat, dangerous quiet that cuts through the hum of the servers. “I don’t care what firewalls you have to burn. Give me a name.”

“Working, Boss. The facial recognition is cross-referencing the municipal traffic cameras, social media archives, and international modeling registries,” Kaplan mutters, not looking up. “The resolution from the garage feed was low, but we’re enhancing the facial landmarks now.”

My phone vibrates on the metal table. I snatch it up before the first ring ends.

“Talk to me,” I command.

“Samuel,” my lead field agent reports, his voice crackling over the encrypted line. “We found the sedan. Abandoned in an alleyway three miles east of the office, near the old industrial district. Plates are cold, registered to a stolen vehicle out of the mainland. No signs of struggle inside, but the back seat smells faintly of chemical anesthetics. He swapped cars, Samuel. He planned this transition.”

A muscle in my jaw twitches. My grip on the phone tightens until the casing groans. “He knew we’d track the plate. He’s running a tight timeline. Sweep the area around the vehicle. Look for secondary traffic cameras, dashcams, transit buses—anything that passed that alleyway between 4:45 and 5:15 p.m. I want to know what vehicle they got into next.”

“Understood. We are on it.”

I disconnect the call and toss the phone back onto the table. I pace the length of the room, my mind working like a chess grandmaster trying to anticipate a madman’s next move.

He isn’t a professional operator; if he were, he wouldn’t have walked directly into her office where his face would be captured on high-definition interior cameras. He’s driven by obsession, which makes him incredibly dangerous, but also prone to leaving a trail.

“Got him,” Kaplan suddenly barks, sitting upright.

I’m at his shoulder in a single, silent stride.

On the screen, the grainy image of the man from the garage is replaced by a crisp, professional headshot. He’s smiling, his eyes bright, his posture relaxed. It’s the face of a man who makes his living in front of a camera.

“Daniel Hwang,” Kaplan reads aloud, pulling up a rapid stream of personal files, medical records, and travel history. “Thirty-two years old. Former high-end fashion model. He worked closely with Ashley’s previous creative agency about three years ago. There are dozens of shared campaign credits between them.”

I stare at the smiling face on the screen. The anger inside me solidifies into a block of black ice. “What else?”

“He’s been off the grid for the last eighteen months,” Kaplan says, pulling up financial records. “No credit card activity under his real name, no active leases, no social media presence since he abruptly walked away from a contract in Milan. But look at this—six months ago, a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands purchased a secluded, private estate just outside the city limits. The primary contact on the encrypted purchase agreement matches an alias Daniel used during his early European tours.”

“He’s been planning this,” I whisper, the realization clicking into place. “He didn’t just snap. He built a cage for her, and he’s been waiting for the right moment to lock the door.”

“I’m pulling up the coordinates of that estate now,” Kaplan says, his voice rising with anticipation. “It’s an old colonial-style compound, heavily forested, completely isolated.”

I turn away from the monitors, the cold weight of the hunt settling deep into my bones. The pieces are finally on the board. He has my wife, but he has also just handed me his location.

“Assemble the team,” I order, my voice dropping into a register of absolute, lethal certainty. “We move now.”

I reach for my vest, my mind already executing the breach, when my phone buzzes again. I snatch it up, expecting my lead field agent with another lead.

“Mr. Rusnak?”