Page 38 of The Bratva King's Auctioned Bride

“Take me to my place,” I said. “That will be the safest spot to set up a base. Have you heard anything from my uncle lately?”

It was impossible not to be somewhat paranoid about who was on my side. I knew this man since we were in our twenties, and he wasn’t just a driver, but a highly skilled assassin and someone who’d come through for me many times before. The lure of big payouts had never seemed to interest him, but there was always the chance the war in LA and being back in Moscow had somehow changed his loyalties.

He made a sour face. “Not since you said he was persona non grata, boss.”

The disgust on his face made me breathe a bit easier. Despite my ruthless reputation, I didn’t actually enjoy killing people. Especially not ones I considered friends. And right now I don’t have time for weeding out my enemies.

Once we were on the road, I started arranging a search team. As soon as that was underway, I had my most trusted inner circle start quietly tailing the people who had led me to believe Eldar had returned to Moscow when he was still in Milan. Was that a misunderstanding, a simple mistake of misplaced loyalty, or malice?

I tried to let the fact that I was back on my home turf keep me from going out of my mind with fear for Mila’s safety. It was bad enough that she was gone, but not knowing who she was with was worse. Not even the familiar sights of the city I grew up in could calm me down. It didn’t feel like I was doing enough, and sitting idly in the car while my woman might have been in trouble made me want to punch through the window.

There was no choice in the matter. As pissed off at Eldar as I was, I pulled out my phone to call him. I had to let it ring through to voicemail three times before he finally answered, the spineless coward. Or maybe he was just dead drunk in the middle of the afternoon.

“What is it? I heard through the grapevine that I wasn’t your uncle anymore. And for what good reason?” He finally answered, slurring his words.

Just as I suspected, but perhaps that was a good thing. If he was sloshed, he probably wasn’t getting up to much trouble.

“Never mind that. I need the names of every last man who was at your auction last week,” I told him.

“Oh, is that all?” he asked. “I’ll find those and get them to you just as soon as I get home from Olechka’s place.”

I knew damn well he wasn’t at his favorite Moscow dive bar. “Cut the shit, Eldar. You can stop pretending you aren’t still in Milan. I need those names, and that means right now.”

There was a moment of silence, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded much clearer. “You’re a fool,” he grumbled. “And you’ll get the names when you get them.”

He ended the call, and I didn’t bother calling back. Despite his belligerence, he’d get me what I wanted, but it didn’t help improve my mood. And why was I a fool? For marrying Mila? For trying to keep her safe?

Once I got back to my house outside of town, the intelligence team was already set up and starting to search the airport and city cameras for any sign of her. I had men out scouring the streets, bashing heads if necessary, to gain any information that might have been helpful.

Hours passed, and there wasn’t a sign of her, not a peep from whoever might have taken her. It hit me all of a sudden, a thought that had my heart turning over. Could her family have gotten her back? As much as it hurt, it was almost a welcome thought. At least it meant she’d be safe.

Her phone was packed away with the luggage since I was sick of seeing all the alerts from her family and friends. Scouring through my own phone, I found an old number of one of her brothers, and with a sigh, ended up sending a message on one of the burner phones I kept laying around the house for emergencies like this one. If the number was wrong, I’d have to take the time to unpack.

Where the hell is Mila?

Lev answered me back almost immediately.Who is this? What the fuck do you mean about my sister?

Okay, good number, but damn it, that meant they didn’t have her. Now I’d gone and dug myself in deeper with the Fokins because they’d suspect it was me once they ran out of other options. Once they discovered Mila was actually missing, they’d triple down on hunting me. What was worse than that was the fact that she wasn’t with her family, which meant she was still in danger.

Eldar finally sent me the list of names I wanted, some of which I suspected were fakes. Who would use their real name if they didn’t have to for a depraved activity like that? Some of them weren’t fake, though, and I immediately recognized them. Dangerous men who cared little about anyone but themselves. That might have been a way to describe me not so long ago, but now I was worried about Mila in a way that was so deep I couldn’t quite comprehend it.

She might have been in the hands of my longtime enemies, who’d be more than glad to take something of mine and destroy it more so now that they felt wronged. All I could do was start contacting them one by one, and send teams out to find them to prove they didn’t have my wife.

Or hope that one of them made their demands known soon. The more time that passed without hearing anything led me to believe that whoever took her didn’t actually want something from me.

They wanted Mila.

But she was mine, and I’d be damned if I let anyone keep her from me.

Chapter 28 - Mila

The moment that my guard went down, I was overpowered, in total darkness, and struggling to breathe. It all happened in such a blur that there was no chance to fight, not that I could have won against the three burly men. They carried me away somewhere, the slamming of the door ringing out with finality behind me. Only a few moments later, I was stuffed into a tight space, cramped and airless.

Was this my karma for smirking at Arkadi when he learned he was going through customs in a crate? Oh God, what about Arkadi? Was he all right, or was this a coordinated attack, and someone had him too?

There was no time to think about that for too long. The box I was in was on the move, bumping along to the grunts of the men who were carrying it. Terror threatened to consume me when the crate slid onto a hard surface, another door slammed, and soon the sound of an engine fired up. The movement was smoother now and much faster. They were taking me somewhere by truck.

Screaming did nothing except wear me out and use up precious air. Even after I got the bag off my head and confirmed I was in a wooden box, there were no cracks or air holes anywhere, and it was a struggle to breathe. If this weren’t a short journey, there was a serious chance I wouldn’t make it to see the end.

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