Page 30 of Beautiful Enemy

“Watch it,” Erik snaps back.

“I want him dead,” Viktor says simply. No anger in his voice. Just a pure coldness that speaks to how unhappy he is. Nadia was promised to Viktor and now Dante just stole her first kiss from him. And to think I was unhappy with Nadia marrying Viktor at one point. Now, I would make that happen if it saved Nadia from Dante.

Viktor would never force himself on her but Dante is already showing that he’s not afraid to do just that.

“We all want him dead,” Ivan says while wringing his hands together. “But the question is: how? We don’t know where he is. We don’t know where Nadia is.”

“We know she’s in a basement,” I offer. “She told us so.”

Erik nods once. “We’ll search for houses that have basements, which rules out the majority of New York City itself. Dante probably has her somewhere outside of the city.”

“That could be anywhere,” Viktor says.

A sinking dread fills my stomach. Viktor is right. It’s too much space.

Then I have an idea.

“Let me look at the video again.”

My father scoffs. “Why do that to yourself? It’s the same thing we all just watched. Dante has Nadia. He’s made a fool out of me. Did you hear him threaten me?”

Viktor crosses his arms. “I’m curious about that. Dante asked you about karma. He said that you kidnapped some girl. I was never told about this.”

Erik and Ivan share a look before Erik responds. “I was on the outs with Sergei by then. I didn’t bring it up because I didn’t want it to ruin the chances of us working together. But Sergei did kidnap a girl, named Aria Romano. She’s the daughter of Elio Romano, a friend of Dante’s. He wanted to draw Dante out and Aria was his way. I disapproved though. I don’t think we should kidnap girls. It never leads to anything good. Case in point.” He nods at the video.

“I don’t like to be lied to,” Viktor warns.

“It won’t happen again,” Erik promises.

My father paces back and forth across the room like a madman. “Maybe we should consider kidnapping Aria again. He went after Nadia. All is fair in war.”

“Kidnapping Aria is partly the reason he kidnapped Nadia,” I say like it’s obvious. And it is to me. Clearly, it’s not obvious to my idiotic father. “So no. We’re not going to kidnap her.”

He storms over to me, sticking his bony finger in my face. “You don’t have a say in what I do, girl.”

“I am married to Erik Koslov. I have more power than you do.”

“Enough,” Erik says. “Fighting between each other is not going to get us anywhere. Anya, you wanted to watch the video again.”

“Yes. I thought of something.” I point towards something in the background. “There. A window. Zoom in. See if you can make out anything on the outside.”

“Smart,” Erik says with pride in his voice. I smile down at him.

We all take a moment to look at the video. Even my father has stopped bitching and moaning.

“I can’t see much,” Erik admits. “But what I can see is part of a house next door. I can partially see the address but not all of it. I’ll have to send it to one of my men. A hacker. He might be able to help us with this.”

“So, there’s a chance we might be able to find Nadia?”

Erik squeezes my hand. “There’s a chance.”

When I look over at my father, all I see is him frowning. He doesn’t look happy at the idea of Nadia being found. That’s not surprising. She just admitted on camera that he abused both her and me. My father hates when his secrets come to light.

All I care about is getting my sister back and now, for the first time in twenty-four hours, I feel hope.

Nadia

The blanket helps ward off the chill in the basement that night but only by so much. I still find myself shivering; it’s just more manageable now.

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