Page 68 of Savage Surrender

We reached my office just as my phone rang. I grabbed it, excited and nervous when I saw the caller ID. “It’s Lev.”

Irina took my free hand and squeezed it between both of hers. She’d been waiting with bated breath, stuck in suspense for a word on finding her brother. I’d spare her the wait for me to relay what my friend could tell us.

“Lev,” I greeted on speaker.

“He was taken. The Ilyins came and took him from the last place we followed him to.”

“Fuck!”

Irina squeezed my hand tighter as she stared at my phone.

“They got word that Igor reneged on this arranged marriage of Irina marrying one of theirs?—”

“He never actually arranged it. It was all a rumor,” she rushed to say, frantic. “There was no agreement. He was just messing with them and playing a game, conning them to think an alliance could form when he never intended to see one through.”

Lev huffed. “That’s not the way they see it. They’re pissed, and they’ve taken your brother.”

30

IRINA

“Iwasn’t promised to them,” I told them. Volleying my gaze from the phone to Viktor, I tried to stop the panic from eating away at me. My stomach was a knotted mess, and I grew lightheaded again as my pulse pounded so fast.

“But they think you were,” Lev said again.

“It doesn’t matter what they think. It matters what they did,” Vik said, taking charge. He hurried me out of the office, looking around as we left. Keeping his arm around my shoulders, he guided me to hustle out of there.

Where I was seemed insignificant. I could freak out here just as well as I could at his apartment again. I wouldn’t feel rightanywhere. My brother had been my responsibility for so long, and my failure to keep him safe would follow me everywhere. It was a stain on my soul, a crack on my heart that couldn’t be repaired.

“This is all my fault.” I tried to take comfort from Vik’s presence. I tried to remind myself that it wasn’t just me looking out forMax now. I heard all the Baranov men starting an operation to get him out from under my father’s reach.

“If I’d just done what he asked. If I just listened and?—”

“No,” Vik said firmly. “No. You will not be trapped and be Igor’s slave anymore.”

“But if?—”

“We will find him, Irina,” Lev added. “Oleg is aware of the situation and he’s not going to abandon you to Igor. Not after you helped to save my life.”

I swallowed hard, touched that he could care.

“Iwon’t give up on your brother either, Irina. I owe it to you for helping Eva.”

I opened and closed my mouth, unable to reply.

“You arenotalone anymore, sweetheart,” Viktor told me once we stepped out into another damn snowy night. I was so sick of this weather, but even my loathing for the snow couldn’t stop me from feeling so distraught.

“Go to the house,” Lev said. “Take her to be with Eva. Oleg wants to speak to her anyway,” Lev said.

Anger solidified in my heart. These men could try to coax me into trusting them, then turn around in the next instant and suggest that I surrender first? They hadn’t delivered on getting Max to safety yet, but they expected me to spill all I knew to their Boss?

“I’m not?—”

Viktor plowed past whatever I could’ve said through the anger. “We’re heading there now.”

He hung up, and I glared up at him. “Vik, I’m not talking before I know Maxim is all right.”

“I heard you. Loud and clear. But I think Oleg wants information about him, whether there is another way he can figure out a solution to getting Maxim out of anyone else’s control.”

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