Page 68 of Wicked Vow

I’m not getting free this time.

He’ll never let me go again.

Mikhail

If there’s one person whose number I didn’t expect to see on my phone in the early afternoon, it’s Maximilian Agosti’s.

I’m vaguely aware of the man, since he’s married to Sasha. He’s not someone I’d ever thought I’d speak to, barring there being a day when Natalia decided to let me back into her life. A former priest and I have nothing in common, to say the least.

I don’t know what to think when I answer the phone. I don’t know what he’s going to say or why he’s calling. I certainly don’t expect to hear him tell me that they need me to come to the McGregor estate, immediately.

That it has to do with Natalia.

That’s all he had to say, of course. I’ve spent too long in the kind of life I lived before not to be able to recognize the thread of fear in someone’s voice, to not feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I can sense danger. Except this time, the danger isn’t to me.

“Levin told me that you were in Boston,” Max says coolly, his voice barely betraying that there’s something wrong. “I wanted to call Viktor and have you removed from the whole damn city, but Levin convinced me there was no harm in it. He gave me this number in case I ever needed to reach you on account of an emergency. And, well–it’s an emergency.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“I’ll explain when you get here. Hurry.”

The phone goes dead on the other end, and I’m left holding it, a wild panic filling me at the thought of Natalia being in danger.

Of her and ourchildin danger.

I get a ride to the McGregor estate. I’m let in the minute I arrive at the gates, which is surprising enough in and of itself, and just underlines the fact that there must be something very wrong. I can feel the cold knot in the pit of my stomach as I approach the front door, and it swings open, with Connor McGregor standing there.

“For what it’s worth,” he says flatly. “I thought it was a mistake bringing you here. But I was overridden. So come in.”

The house is palatial. I walk through the marble-floored foyer, following Connor, my gut clenched in a knot as we walk all the way to an office, where Liam, Max, and Sasha are all gathered around a desk, looking as if every one of them has been punched in the gut.

“What the fuck is going on?” I look at them, my jaw clenched as my mind runs through every scenario of what could have happened to Natalia that’s bad enough to have them bring me here. “What happened to Natalia?”

Sasha looks very pale. She glances at Max, who looks at me, his face drawn.

“She’s been kidnapped,” he says in that same voice I’d heard on the phone–calm, but with a tremor of fear running through it. “We’re not sure by who. It was after she and Sasha left her doctor’s appointment–she got jumped. But Sasha saw the plates of the car,” he adds, his arm going around his wife’s waist as he pulls her closer. “So one of Liam’s contacts is working on tracking those right now.”

“Beth Wan,” Liam says, glancing up briefly from where he’s looking down at a laptop. “She’s a hacker. She’ll get us something soon. Just hold tight.”

“Why am I here?” I ask tightly, looking at the three of them, and at Connor, who has circled around to join them. “I know none of you want me here. So what’s going on?”

“You’re right about that,” Connor says sharply, but Max cuts him off.

“Levin told me that if Natalia were ever in danger, you were the one to call. That you’d move heaven and earth to get her back again, to safety. That there’s no man in existence more willing to do violence–sometimes only because he’s been asked to.”

Max takes a deep breath, his gaze fixed on mine, and I can tell that what he’s asking of me is difficult for him–that every word he says is because he feels he has no other choice. “Liam and Connor will give you backup. When we have the location, we need you to go and get her. Bring her back here safely.”

I can feel Liam and Connor looking at me–Sasha, too. I know they’re expecting me to ask for something, some reward, some privilege that I don’t currently have. Safety in Boston, or money, or for them to let me take Natalia afterward. But I just nod, feeling the weight of knowing she’s in danger settle over me until it’s all I can think about.

“Tell me where she is,” I say quietly, my voice low and rough. “And I’ll kill whoever it is who has her and bring her back. You have my word.”

The rage that fills me as I stand there, listening to Liam talk to his hacker, is cold and slow and violent, spreading through my blood and my bones until I’m almost trembling with it. I don’t know who has Natalia now, but all I can think, over and over again, isshe’s mine.

Even if she chooses to leave me again, she’s mine. Even if she says she never wants to see me again–even if I never seeheragain. She’s mine, and she has been from the night I saw her dance, when something about her sank into me and captivated me in a way that no other woman ever has or will.

She’ll always be mine.

I might not be able to have her, but neither will anyone else. Not like this, anyway.

---