Page 47 of Fierce Protector

“How long has she beenmissing?” I bark.

“We last had contact with her half an hour ago.”

“You start a sweep of the hospital, call in everyone. I’m going to call Sinclair, see if he still has a backdoor into the hospital security feeds.” I don’t wait for a reply, hanging up and already scrolling for Sinclair’s contact.

He picks up on the seventh ring, and my words are such a garbled mess of fast-paced demands that it takes a few moments for me to register that he’s asking me to slow down.

There’s a pregnant pause before I blurt out. “Doc Em is missing; I need your help.”

Sinclair promisesto call me back, and by the time he does, I’m already halfway to the hospital. “What have you got for me? Tell me you found her?”

“No,”—my heart drops into the pit of my stomach—“but I don’t think she left the hospital,” Sinclair replies. I can tell from his tone that he’s managing me. Trying to keep me calm, but it’s having the opposite effect. Although I can’t honestly say my blood pressure would be any lower either way.

“How can you be sure?” I ask. The lights ahead of me flick to red and I ignore them, putting my foot to the floor and not giving a fuck as I swerve through the junction while tyres screech and horns blare.

“I found footage of her getting on the elevator to the parking garage, but she never made it to her car according to Marcus. They had eyes on her vehicle. When I went back to check the footage, I couldn’t find hergetting off the elevator or going back to the hospital either. However, there was this porter with a wheelchair that exited with a patient a few minutes later.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” I bark.

“The earlier footage showed that the wheelchair was empty when he got on the elevator. Listen, I could be wrong. The patient is under a blanket and wearing a mask, but it could be her.”

“Fuck. Were you able to track them on the security cameras?”

“No, I lost them in the ER, but I’m working on it. I’ve got Marcus and his guys focussing on searching from there.”

“He could have taken her right out the front door,” I shout down the phone.

“No, he didn’t. I’ve checked the feeds. If the patient in that chair is her, she hasn’t left that hospital.”

I try to speak, but nothing comes out.What the fuck is going on? Who the hell has taken her and why? How?And then an even worse thought occurs to me.

“Why didn’t she get out of the chair?” I rasp.

The pause on the other end of the line answers the question, but Sin puts my greatest fear into words. “It looks like the person in the chair is unconscious.”

The noise that erupts from my throat is somewhere between a growl and a desperate yell. It feels alien as it scrapes against my vocal cords and burns when I try to swallow the rising bile back down.

“We’re going to find her. Nico is on his way and I’m going to coordinate you all from here,” Sinclair says, his tone even and clear, trying to reassure me in a way I’veseen him use on occasion. It’s assertive with enough deference not to piss off whoever he’s trying to calm down. “Breathe.”

I’ve been in situations like this before, and I’ve always been able to tamp down my emotions, to think clearly and focus, no matter the risks. But Katerina means more to me than any other person on this earth, and the thought of her being in danger has my heart pounding and my mind racing with endless questions.

Where has he taken her?

What does he want from her?

What if he’s hurting her?

What if I’m too late?

I take a long, slow inhale, and it helps lift the haze of fear-laced rage that’s trying to suffocate me.

“Good,” he says before adding, “We’ll find her Stefano. The doc is made of stronger stuff than half the men we have.”

His words only serve to remind me that my beautiful, fierce Katerina wouldn’t need to be strong if I had protected her like I was supposed to. Guilt hangs heavy like a weight around my neck, but I can’t let it stop me now.

She needs me and I won’t fail her. I can’t. Not again. Never again. I’ll be everything she needs.

Her rescuer, her protector, her wrath.

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