Page 74 of Hostage of the Russian
The flowers scattered across the elevator floor as he pulled up the tracking app on his phone, the one he’d installed on her device months ago when the threats first started. Her location showed as moving, indicating that whoever had her was also on the move.
His fingers flew over his phone, sending rapid-fire texts to his brothers, his security chief, every contact who could mobilize fast enough to matter. The elevator couldn’t move fast enough. Nothing could move fast enough.
The tracking dot on his screen jerked erratically through downtown Chicago, heading toward the warehouse district. Kostya’s jaw clenched as recognition hit him; he knew that area, knew exactly who controlled those streets.
“Son of a bitch.” The words came out as a growl as he burst through the security office doors. “Fuel up the cars. Now.”
His head of security, Marcus, looked up from his desk with sharp attention. “Sir?”
“They have my wife.” Kostya was already moving toward the weapons cabinet, muscle memory guiding him as he selected his preferred Glock and shoulder holster. “Warehouse district, probably the old textile buildings. Get me six men and meet me in the garage in two minutes.”
“Who’s ‘they,’ sir?”
Kostya paused in his preparations, his mind cycling through possibilities. Danny’s allies, maybe, looking for revenge? The rivals his family had just finished cleaning up? Or something new entirely, some fresh enemy drawn by the scent of blood in the water?
It didn’t matter. Whoever had taken her had just signed their own death warrant.
“I don’t know yet,” he said, checking his clip with practiced efficiency. “But they’re about to find out what happens when you touch a Nikolai’s family.”
His phone buzzed with a text from Viktor:On our way. Don’t do anything stupid.
Too late for that. The moment someone laid hands on Azriel, stupid became inevitable. Kostya had spent weeks learning to love her independence, her fierce determination to build her own life on her own terms. But that didn’t mean he’d stand by and let anyone hurt her.
The tracking dot had stopped moving, settling in an area he recognized as a cluster of abandoned buildings that changed hands between criminal organizations like a game of violent musical chairs. Whoever had her was either very confident or very stupid to hole up there.
Either way, they’d chosen the wrong woman to mess with.
Kostya holstered his weapon and headed for the garage, his mind already shifting into the cold, calculating space he occupied during Bratva business. The man who’d been nervously arranging flowers and planning romantic dinners was gone, replaced by the predator who’d earned his reputation in blood and fear.
They wanted to play games with his wife? Fine. He’d show them exactly what kind of games the Nikolai family played, and why nobody walked away from them unchanged.
But first, he had to get to her. Everything else could wait.
Chapter 24 - Azriel
The world tilted sideways as rough hands dragged Azriel from the coffee shop’s back alley, her scream cut short by the filthy rag shoved between her teeth. The metallic taste of fear flooded her mouth as zip ties bit into her wrists, plastic cutting deep enough to draw blood.
“Got her. Moving to location two.” The voice was gravelly, unfamiliar, but the accent carried the same Eastern European inflection she’d grown accustomed to hearing around Kostya’s associates.
Rivals. Had to be the same group that had tried to kill them on campus, the ones Kostya and his brothers had been hunting. Her heart hammered against her ribs as they threw her into the back of a van, the impact knocking the air from her lungs.
The ride felt endless, every bump and turn sending fresh spikes of panic through her system. She tried to memorize the route, counting seconds and turns the way she’d seen in movies, but terror made her thoughts scatter like leaves in a hurricane. The zip ties were getting tighter, cutting off circulation to her fingers, and the gag made every breath a struggle.
When the van finally stopped, they hauled her out into the gray afternoon light. Abandoned warehouses stretched in every direction, their broken windows like dead eyes staring down at her. The smell of rust and decay filled her nostrils as they dragged her through a loading dock door, her feet barely touching the ground.
The warehouse interior was worse than the outside. Graffiti covered the walls in layers, gang tags and obscenities painted over each other in a chaotic mix of colors. Broken glasscrunched under their feet, and somewhere in the darkness, water dripped steadily from a leaking pipe.
They shoved her against a concrete pillar, the impact sending shockwaves through her shoulder blades. One of them, a thick man with gold teeth, began securing her wrists behind the pillar with more zip ties while another kept a gun trained on her head.
“She’s awake. Good.” The voice came from the shadows, smooth and familiar in a way that made her blood freeze. “I was hoping she’d be conscious for this.”
Danny Hartford stepped into the light, and Azriel’s world tilted again. Her father looked older, thinner, with the hollow-eyed desperation of a man who’d been running too long. His clothes were expensive, but wrinkled; his usually perfect hair was unkempt. But his eyes held the same cold calculation she remembered from childhood, the look that had always preceded his worst moments.
Azriel tried to speak around the gag, the sound coming out as a muffled grunt. Danny nodded to one of his men, who ripped the cloth from her mouth, taking skin with it.
“What are you doing?” The words came out as a rasp, her throat raw from screaming.
Danny smiled, and she recognized the expression. It was the same one he’d worn when he’d locked her in the basement for crying too loud, when he’d sold her bicycle to pay for his poker games, when he’d told her she was worthless and would never amount to anything.
