Page 74 of Wicked Embers

They want my wife.

I dress quickly, pulling on dark jeans and a black shirt. The familiar weight of my shoulder holster settles against me as I buckle it in place. My movements are smooth and automatic as I pull my leather jacket on.

I turn toward the door glancing back one last time. I have to stop the urge to go back and kiss her again as a bad feeling knots in my stomach. She doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s at the center of all of this.

The journals, the burnt cabin, the shadow circling us—it’s all connected to her. To her past and locked up tight in the shadows of her memories.

I clench my fists, steel settling into my bones. Whoever breached my security, whoever slit Olive’s throat—they just signed their death warrant. I step out of the bedroom, my mind already calculating my next move.

No one fucks with what’s mine and lives to tell the story.

I turn to Olive’s lifeless body sprawled on the dungeon bed, her blood soaking the sheets. On her cheek, smeared in her own blood, is a mark—a symbol I know too well.

My breath stalls. My hand instinctively rises to my ring—the signet my mother had made for me after my father’s death. The original was cut from his finger and taken the day he was killed.

The mark on Olive’s face is the same pattern.

A chill slashes through me. The person who did this isn’t just back—they’re here to finish what they started ten years ago. I glance at the small table beside the bed. Scrawled in Olive’s blood are three words:

Gold Key. Journals. Leigh.

And beneath them, in a deliberate, jagged scrawl:

I’m taking them all. Then coming for the rest of what’s mine.

Ice floods my veins as dread coils in my gut.

Leigh!

Suddenly realizing this was all a distraction. I whirl around, shouting to Temur and Gunner. “Lock down the hotel. No one in or out.”

The two move instantly, radios crackling. Viktor and Dolph fall in behind me as I storm toward the elevators, my heart hammering a violent rhythm in my chest.

The elevator doors are halfway closed when a familiar voice shouts, “Get your fucking hands off me, you brute!”

I turn to see Sabrina—disheveled, wearing a long coat, pajamas peeking out, and fluffy slippers, like she’s just rolled out of bed. Her blonde hair is a mess, her arms flailing as Fredrik hauls her forward.

“What the hell is this?” I bark.

“Radomir!” Sabrina glares at me as Fredrik lets her go. “What the goddam fuck man! I get a call that Leigh’s in trouble. She needs me at the Diamond Hotel. I rush here and then yourgoon here—“ she flails her hand at Fredrik ”—tries to manhandle me. What the fuck did you do to Leigh?”

I don’t have time for this. “Get in the elevator.”

“What? No—“

I grab her arm, ignoring her protests as we pile into the lift. Dolph, Viktor, and Fredrik exchange skeptical glances, eyeing her like she’s lost her mind. To be fair, she looks insane—a tiny, crazy woman in slippers.

“What the hell is going on?” she hisses, her eyes darting between us. "Where the fuck is Leigh? Is she okay?"

“Leigh was safe and okay when I left her,” I snap, the impatience clawing at me. “She was sleeping.”

The ride feels excruciatingly slow. I know it’s in my head, but every second that ticks by gnaws at me like a blade to the gut.

The doors open, and we barrel out into the penthouse, Sabrina nearly tripping over Dolph in her haste.

“Watch it, you galoot!” she hisses as Dolph mutters an apology.

I push the bedroom door open and stop cold.

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