Page 91 of Her Silver Fox Mountain Men

The sheriff gets all the information he can out of his deputies while Lev starts making frantic phone calls.

“What a shit show,” Van Pelt says as he joins us. He keeps going over his notes with a deep frown and a grim look on his face.

“What?” James asks.

“The bank manager says Kara and Elise came in here accompanied by two men, one of them being the dead guy sitting right over there,” the sheriff replies, pointing at the man in the hallway. “The other one helped Igor and his two guards take the bank manager hostage, forcing him to bring them down here. He then left with Igor, the guards, and Elise.”

“They were fast and discreet,” I conclude. “I’m guessing nobody upstairs had any idea about what was going on down here.”

“That’s right.”

“Dmitri and Piotr,” Lev says, getting off the phone. “That’s Dmitri, dead. Piotr must’ve been working with Igor thewhole time. My own family, right under my damn nose. It’s unbelievable.”

“But it’s reality,” Roman coldly reminds him. “Igor has Elise and the evidence she kept against him. The clock is ticking, and we need to find her before he…” His voice trails off.

I know what he was about to say. We’re all thinking it. We just can’t bring ourselves to say it out loud.

“The twins and Janice are in the safe house. Kirby’s with them,” James confirms upon checking his phone. “We need absolutely everybody’s help to find Elise.” He looks at Lev. “What can you tell us about Igor?”

Lev gives us a startled look, the realization gradually sinking in. “It seems I don’t know my own son as well as I thought—”

I cut him off. “Lev, I need you to fucking focus. Elise is pregnant. We have to find her.”

“Elise is what?” He’s stunned. Horrified. He now understands what’s at stake.

“What would be his next move? He’s got a ten-minute head start on us here.”

It takes Lev another handful of seconds, but I can almost see the clarity return to his cool, albeit tired, blue eyes. “Igor is a proud yet vindictive man. Same as I was when I was his age. He’s worse, though. Andrei often warned me about it, but I guess it’s the price I must pay for everything I did to keep my family in power.”

“Okay, he’s proud and vindictive. He could’ve killed Elise right here. He had the ledger; he had the evidence. But he took her with him instead. Why?”

“He wants to either convince her to stay with him or hurt her for betraying him. Or both. She is his wife after all,” Lev says with a heavy heart. “Either way, he needs someplace private to… gloat, I suppose.”

“Gloat?” James questions. “Why, because Elise has been, what, exactly, laughing in his face the whole time?”

“It may seem that way to Igor, yes,” Lev explains. “He’d take her away from here for sure, but he wouldn’t risk driving her out of town, not when he knows the cops and your people are looking for her and him. He’d keep Elise hidden somewhere in Rustic.”

“An abandoned warehouse or building, something like that,” Roman suggests.

Lev gives him a brief nod. “Yes.”

A click in my ear has my spine stiffening. “Shit, the earpiece,” I mutter and press one of the tiny buttons on its side. Elise’s voice comes through, and I freeze on the spot.

“Where are you taking me, Igor?” she asks. She sounds scared. Drowsy, confused.

“Guys, she’s online, main channel,” I whisper.

Immediately, a new sense of urgency comes over Roman and James as they patch into the main channel. Lev sweats bullets while the sheriff alerts his deputies to join the same frequency from their radios.

“Pay close attention to every goddamn sound and word,” Van Pelt barks through his radio. “We need to figure out where he’s taking her.”

“You betrayed me,” Igor tells Elise. An engine roars in the background. Voices murmuring. Men speaking in Russian. “You’ll pay for what you did, my love.”

“Where are you taking me?” she cries out.

“Relax,” he chuckles, but his voice sounds strained. “We’re going someplace private. You know you don’t double-cross a Konstantinov and get off easy.”

“They’re in a car,” I tell Lev. “His guards are with him. I can hear them in the background.”

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