Page 144 of Bratva and Betrayal: Kirill

Another man, slender and young, stands up from behind a crate. Shaking, he steps into the light. “Pa… Pakhan. W… Wait. Please.”

“You have exactly five seconds to tell me where my family is.” I raise the gun to his head.

“Wait.” The young man’s eyes widened. “He told us this order came from you and⁠—”

“Who the fuck is he?” Drago says, his gun on the man as well.

When the young bratok opens his mouth, his eyes explode from a bullet to the back of his head. The bratok fucking drops dead in front of us. Further back, a figure dressed in black lowers his gun with a faded curl of smoke coming from the barrel. Shoving the gun in a jacket, he disappears out a rear entrance door. Then tires screech over gravel outside.

Drago flies to the window, yelling into his phone. “Stop that car!”

“Where is my wife? Where is my daughter?” I yell.

The air becomes threaded with the unmistakable sound of a child trying not to cry and failing. My heart lurches into my stomach at the sound of Violet. But I can’t see her.

“Find me, Daddy!” Violet’s choked cries shatter the new silence.

Find me. Find me.

“Violet!” I rush that way, not caring if more men are hiding in these crates.

I turn corner after corner.

“Daddy!”

Find me. Find me.

“I’m coming, sunshine.” I reach the middle of the maze.

The dead end. Where there is nowhere else to run. Where my daughter is tied to a fucking metal chair. Her cheeks are wet, and a rag is tied around her head to cover her eyes.

“Solnyshko!” I mutter, keeping it together.

“Daddy,” she cries again, recognizing my voice, and it tears my fucking heart out. “You found me.”

“I’m here.” I kneel, the knife already in my hand, slicing through the ties at her wrists clean and precise.

I tear her blindfold off, and she surges forward the second her arms are free. She wraps them around my neck with a force that pulverizes her nightmare hugs in the dust. It’s so tight with trust. Her small body trembles against mine as I lift her.

My knife falls to the floor, and I’m confident Drago will pick it up.

“I’ve got you,” I growl, holding her head against my shoulder.

She clings tighter to me, her breath hitching against my shoulder. I make my way back out of the maze, Drago covering me. I’m already calculating my next steps. I see the exit sign over the door we came in.

Go. Must leave.

Then it hits me. Sandrine. Holy shit. There was a hole in my vision, my thinking. I…forgot about her. All I heard was my daughter. That’s normal, right? I hadn’t had to divide my loyalty, my love?

I whisper to Violet, “Where’s Mommy?”

“I don’t know,” she whines.

My legs go weak, and I make eye contact with Drago, who starts tearing this warehouse apart. He’s kicking in doors and yelling her name.

“Pakan,” he says outside a room, in front of a door.

A door to what? Hands shaking, I don’t want to let go of my daughter, but I don’t know what I’ll find. What we’ll find. We lost her once. Both of us.