Page 140 of Kingmakers, Graduation

It already feels like a nightmare, surreal and exaggerated, nothing that actually could have happened.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!

I can’t believe I let my temper spiral like that. It’s fucking Sabrina. She amplifies every emotion—when we’re good, I’m on top of the world, happier than I’ve ever been. But when she turns that aggression on me, she unleashes the animal and I become this fucking monster, completely out of control.

I roar back up the driveway to the house. Jasper is still standing in the yard, looking guilty as hell.

“Did you find her?”

“Does it look like I found her?”

Jasper flinches, a little kid getting screamed at by his abusive stepdad. That’s me, I’m the piece-of-shit stepdad.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah it is. I went behind your back.”

My teeth grind together so hard they make a creaking sound.

“Well we were in a shitty fucking position, weren’t we? And now it’s worse.”

I stalk into the house, Jasper at my heels, stumbling under the weight of the bag of cash he and Sabrina planned to exchange for raw materials.

Chief, Vlad, Hakim, and Andrei are all lurking in the living room, pretending like they weren’t watching out the windows as Sabrina and I screamed at each other in the yard.

“What are we gonna do?” Hakim asks.

“We’re going to find her. Check the airport, the train station, the bus depot, every place she might go. Call Ilsa Markov, go to her house—her and Sabrina are friends, that’s who she’d call here in Moscow.”

If she had a phone, that is …

“On it,” Jasper says, heading for the door at once.

“Wait,” I say. “Stay in pairs. Zakharov’s still in Moscow and he’s still got Cujo on the payroll last I heard.”

A sick chill runs through my guts, like I just drank a gallon of ice-water. I hope to god Sabrina is smart enough to stay the fuck away from those two.

We split up, Vlad with Jasper, Andrei with Hakim, and Chief staying at the house in case Sabrina returns.

“Call me the second you see her,” I say to Chief. “That goes for all of you.”

I’m expecting to find her within a couple of hours.

But by nightfall, there’s no sign of her at all.

I’m coming unglued, shouting at everyone.

“How are we supposed to find one girl out of twelve million people?” Andrei complains.

“She’s a gorgeous American, how hard can it be? Fucking FIND HER!” I yell.

We don’t find her.

My phone remains dark and silent—no messages, and no missed calls.

37

SABRINA

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