Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
I stumbled back and dropped onto the cot. The mattress was thin and smelled like bleach mixed with rot, but I didn’t move. I just sat there and watched as they walked out and closed the door behind them. The lock clicked into place with a finality that settled into my bones.
I leaned back, and the chain rattled against the floor as I tried to get settled. I stared up at the ceiling, and it felt too close, like it was purposefully closing in on me. I didn’t get up and check the door. I didn’t tug at the chain. I didn’t have it in me. All the fight in me was gone.
I’d spent it all when I left Alek. It took every ounce of my strength, but I was clawing my way toward a freedom that was never really mine. A part of me wanted to ask why. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t have some small sliver of happiness. What had I done that was so wrong? What sin had I committed? Why didn’t I deserve peace, or love, or him?
But maybe this was how it was always meant to end.
Maybe some of us just aren’t meant to be saved.
23
SERGEI
It had been two hours since they took her.
Two hours of being out of my mind with anger and panic and everything in between. Lina had only been with me for a couple of months, but in that time, she’d gone from a girl I’d once known to an absolute obsession. She invaded my dreams, my thoughts, and with every breath, I longed for her.
Fuck.
I didn’t ask for this.
I didn’t want this.
But here I was, utterly consumed by a woman and ready to burn the world down to get her back. I didn’t know where they had taken her. I didn’t know if they’d hurt her. I didn’t know if she was scared and calling for me or if she was already gone.
It didn’t help matters that I knew what these men were capable of, and it had my mind reeling with the most horrific things imaginable. I had to stop. Thoughts like these break a man faster than any bullet. I knew how this worked. I lived it, breathed it, and I knew if I let myself feel anything, I would unravel.
I couldn’t let myself think about the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, or the way she bit her bottom lip when she wrote in her journal, or the way her neck and cheeks would blush whenever she was aroused. Thoughts like that would do me in.
I had to keep my focus. It was the only way I was going to find her. It was the only way I was going to bring her home. So, I let my rage seep in. I would come for them. I would find them. I would carve my name into their flesh and take what they love and make it rot.
But to do that, I needed information.
I already knew that Sidorov and Vasiliev were nothing more than a couple of errand boys for a man named Mikhail Korolenko. I didn’t know much about the man. I had no reason to know. He belonged to a world I’d turned my back on and had no desire to ever return to. But now that he’d forced my hand, I was eager to know everything there was to know about him.
So, I made a call to Lev. He was a pain in the ass, but he had a way of getting information when I needed it. And I needed it now more than ever. It had been less than twenty minutes since I’d told him what I needed when he called back and announced, “I got them.”
“Tell me.”
“Mikhail Korolenko. 108 East 27th Street.”
I wrote it down, then waited for the next.
“His lieutenant, Ivan Zadora is 4224 Chicot Road. My guy says he’s out late and gone early, and you need to know this guy is off. He has a thing for torture, and not your run of the mill kind, if there is such a thing. I’m telling ya, he’s a real son-of-a-bitch.”
“Guard detail?”
“I just got the names. The rest is up to you.”
“Understood. I’ll be in touch.”
With that, I ended the call and turned my attention to Jenson. He was sitting at his desk, going through the security footage from my apartment in hopes of finding something on the men who’d taken Lina. Maybe then, we could figure out where they’d taken her.
Jenson was good, but it was going to take him some time to piece it all together. Unfortunately, time was something Lina didn’t have. I had to get to the head of the snake, cut it off, and work my way down. It was my only chance of getting her back.