Page 106 of The Mistake

Today was our anniversary.

We’dwoken up, like on our other anniversaries, but this time, I’d made love to her. I’d watched her sleep all night, unable to take my eyes off the woman. Today I’d planned to tell her.

Michael and I had already organizeda delicious meal tonight, and I’d tell her I was in love with her. That she wasn’t a mistake. I loved her more than anything.

She had gotten to the confession first.

This morning, after we had sex, she’d come to me, wrapped her arms around me, and told me that she loved me so very much. I knew she spoke the truth. And I’d not said anything. I stared at her, without saying a single word.

Then my cell phone went off. She gave me this smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. The smile she’d given me when we were first married. She wasn’t happy, but she didn’t want to be questioned.

Now the cartel had my wife.

Ivan was nowhere to be fuckingfound, and I was pissed off.

Rage had been the one to call me away. He’d beenapproached last night, while I was balls-deep into my wife, loving the sounds of her pleasured moans.

“What do you want?” I asked into the cell phone.

“It’s simple, I want you. I want this territory. Is your wife worth giving up everything for?”

I didn’t like the humor coming back at me.

Three years. Charlotte and I had threeyears.

I don’t know why I didn’t tell her that I loved her before now. She didn’t know how I felt. That I was a man who’d never known what love was, but being with her, I knew it. I knew I woke up every single morning, looking over at her, and feeling this sense of peace I’d never known. Charlotte was Volkov.

After our first year together, Ivan had arranged the tattoo on her wrist, which consisted of ivy surrounding a V. She’d earned her place in the Volkov Bratva. She was my wife, loyal to me. Mine. All freaking mine.

This man didn’t know what he’d done. I was going to kill him.

“Where?” I asked.

He gave me the location. It was in the middle of nowhere. There would be no civilians. It was the perfect spot to take either side out.

“I’ll be there.”

Howdid they know to take my wife? I protected her. She and Hubert had been out, walking Rose at the time she’d been taken. I had already seen the footage.

“We’ve got to go,” Rage said.

His anger was as strong as mine. I knew Charlotte hadn’t spoken to him much over the past few years. Cassie had never returned to the MC either. She stayed in the building I owned, working hard at the clothing store. From what I’d been told, she loved the job, clients loved her, the staff loved her. She blended in well.

I putmy phone down on my desk. Vlad was looking at me, waiting for instructions.

“Goddamn it, Ive, this is no time to second guess. They’re going to kill her. They’re already torturing her.”

Swiping my arm across my desk, I sent the whole contents but the phone flying to the floor.

“Do you think I don’t fucking know that?” I asked.

“I made a vow to my wife. I promised her.I told her she was Volkov. I told her nothing bad would ever happen again. I was going to protect her.”

“You’re Volkov now, Charlotte. That means nothing will ever happen to you again.”

I’d told her those very words after she got the ink.But now she’d been taken. The love of my life.

Turning to Vlad, I told him to get the car ready.