Page 46 of Forced By the Bratva Beast

“Now you’re thinking, Cousin. He is—”

“How?” Fuming, I want all the details.

“His sister is a doctor there, and she was working with Sophia.”

“Fuck! The prison.” Slamming a hand on the desk, I shake my head.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, fuck, I’m fine. Sophia came to the prison when I was in there and to kill time, I answered some research questions she was asking. There was supposed to be a differentwoman there.” Snapping my fingers, my brain fires, attempting to remember her name.

“Let me help you. Dr. Perri.”

“Yes! That’s her. She wasn’t there that day for some reason.”

Before we can get into the details and strategize a plan, Makar busts through the door.

“I’ve got bad news.”

On high alert, I switch on, thinking it’s time to load up my gun for some reason. “Which is?”

“Sophia left the house this morning and she hasn’t come back since. She normally runs short errands and returns, even if she is shopping. I wanted to touch base with you.”

Fearing the worst, Dimitri and I glance at one another as I ring her phone. With every ring, I grow more antsy. “Come on, Sophia, pick up!” But all it does is go to her voicemail. Fear sets in as I put the jagged pieces of the puzzle together.

“She’s not picking up?” Dimitri asks, checking inside his jacket for his gun.

“No. Makar she’s got a location sharing on her phone. Track her.”

“Done, Boss. Leave it to me.”

“Damn it!” Frustrated that I’ve only just found out the information about Ryan and slotted the pieces together, I swat papers off my desk, quickly regaining my composure and directing my energy back to Dimitri.

“What do you wanna do? I’m ready.” A dagger of pain slices through my heart when I think about anything happening to Sophia or my child.

“Do you have intel on Christopher and Bruno’s location?”

“Yeah, I’m confident I can get it, I’ll tail them. Let me get on with it. What are you going to do?”

Grim faced, I let the thick pounding in my heart recede. “What I do best,” I tell him, but this time it’s different. I should have finished Chris off at the hotel. In my gut I knew it was a bad decision to let him live.

I’m not one for leaving loose ends unraveled, but Sophia is my weakness, and if something happens to her, I’ll never be able to live with myself. Bratva take care of their family, and Sophia is my family.

Chapter Twenty-Three – Sophia

The absence of light and being in the same room with my assailant has me in a permanent state of terror, but this time Andrei’s not here to rescue me. Both my feet and my hands are bound to a wooden chair in a small room I can barely breathe. Sucking in as much oxygen as I can, I try to gather enough clues from the drive to figure out where we might be.

The road was smooth, and I could hear cars. Hanging my head forward, my hair falls in my face, my arms aching from being pinned behind my back in the same position for a long time.Cars. Focus. You heard cars, didn’t you?

Fuck. There’s tracking on my phone.Andrei find me. Use the tracking device,I say to myself in my head, thinking he can hear me. The Bratva are my only hope. Nobody else would even know where to start. My mind starts to wander, drifting into a bad, bad place. You’ve only got yourself, nobody else.Your parents are dead. Maybe you’re set to meet them sooner than you want to.

Sweat begins to drip between my breasts, trickling down my temple as I think about my unborn baby.Please. Please. Please. Don’t hurt my baby.

The only light source is from a tiny glass window behind my head. There’s no other light I can see in the room, but I’m not in the best shape to see everything. The floor is concrete with grease stain patches everywhere, giving me the impression it’s a garage, or was one. The drive to the place didn’t take long, so we aren’t far from Mount Greenwood. Give or take an hour,but time was skewed for me. Every second in this hot sauna of a basement is longer than it should be.

I wasn’t knocked out, only my head covered during the journey. “Where we’re going is a secret. I’ve taken a couple of people here before,”Chris confessed as I sat tied up in the back of van.

Details, Sophia.I’m good at those. It’s why I had such high marks in law school, but my mind is playing tricks, and I can’t recall the color of the van before they shoved me inside.

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