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“No!” I roared, shoving a chair aside and scanning the room, storming through the smoke and debris, weaving around bodies of enemies and allies alike, a violent tremor starting in my hands. Was she—did they kill—?
“Where is she? Where is my wife?”
Jonathan grabbed me, squeezed my shoulders, and the shot of pain from the bullet graze made me grasp at sudden clarity. My senses sharpened. I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered.
I’d lost her. I’d lost my wife.
“She’s not here, Saint,” Jonathan said, squeezing me harder, his eyes flinty and furious. “She’s not here. I searched all the bodies.”
We’d had less casualties than the black-clad bastards who turned my wedding reception into a shootout; it would have been quick enough to search the dead dressed in their finery.
“She’s not here?” I rasped, my voice so sore I realised I’d been screaming.
Reality hit a moment later, and I vibrated with an uncontrollable shudder of rage.
“Artur took her.”
CHAPTER 12
VASILISA
Iwrapped my fingers around the necklace at my throat, the claws on each sapphire and diamond biting into my skin as I was thrown from side to side. My brain rattled inside my skull, the impact of being jostled vibrating all the way to my teeth. I was in a car, shoved ingloriously into the boot with a blindfold over my eyes, but at least the bastard who grabbed me didn’t tie my hands.
I saw his face, but Damien had kept me behind a wall of family all night, so I didn’t have a name to put to the over-tanned man with jet-black hair slicked back from his high forehead and small, unsettling eyes. He’d wore a fancy suit like everyone else; I’d managed to rip off the crest he wore on his lapel and let the pin fall to the ground outside the reception venue, like Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.
But would Damien find it? Would he even know who it belonged to? The crest could be from an anime for all I knew.
I held onto the necklace, terrified to break the heirloom the day I’d been given it. My whole body rocked up off the hard floor of the boot when the car went over a speed bump or pothole, and I pressed my lips together to trap a cry. I wouldn’t break. I had no idea who took me, but I could guess who he was taking meto,and even though cold spread through me like hypothermia, I had to keep it together. I couldn’t fall apart like I did when Lionel was shot. This time I would be the one getting shot—or worse if Armand Finch really was waiting for me.
So I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth, swallowing another cry when the car rocked. Tears streaked my face but I couldn’t do anything about that. I crept a hand towards my thigh, my heart thumping hard, panic clouding me until I felt the hard outline of my gun beneath the jumpsuit. I exhaled a rough breath, my eyes falling shut and hot tears falling faster. I’d been so convinced it fell when the slimy, orange man dragged me out of my reception and into the black SUV waiting for him.
I forced myself to move my hand away, but just knowing my gun was there gave me enough strength to stop my cries becoming shattered, uncontrollable sobs when the car swerved at such a high speed the tyres squealed—and then stopped.
Oh, god we were here. But I was armed. I didn’t know how I would draw my gun when it was beneath a damn jumpsuit, but the zip ran down the side and I could get it if I had enough time. If.
You’re Vasilisa Marshall,I reminded myself.You’re Vasilisa Marshall.
I uncurled my fingers from the necklace, not wanting my slimy abductor to know how important it was to me, and encouraged the tremble in my bones into a full-on quake. I let the tears fall freely, repeating my mantra when a car door slammed—just one. Voices came from outside but my heartwas whooshing so loud in my ears they were garbled and undecipherable. Two people? No more than three. I wanted to touch my gun again but forced my hands flat against my sides, sucking down air.
The boot opened in a rush. No warning, no crunch of gravel or rise in voices. Instead, there was only silence and then wind cutting at my bare arms, and my brother’s hard brown eyes staring down at me with nothing but murder and malice.
“Please,” I begged in Russian, the hitch in my voice natural but the tremble in my hands exaggerated when I tried to reach for my brother. He stepped back, his mouth thinning. “Please, Artur, you have to help me. Th-this man—he grabbed me and—”
“I know,” he said coolly, a sneer twisting his upper lip. “I paid him to.”
I flinched back, blinking a fresh wave of tears down my cheeks. “What…?”
“Stupid fucking girl.”
He reached into the boot and grabbed my arm, wrestling me out of the car before I could even process the rough hand on my arm. I dropped to the rough gravel in a mess of glittery fabric and numb limbs. Shit, I wasweakafter being cramped in the boot. I needed to be strong, needed to keep myself alive until Damien got here. Because he would. I wanted to spit in Artur’s face and taunt him with the truth that my husband would murder him for this, but I was still alive for a reason.
Artur could have paid his slimy friend to kill me, but instead he’d driven me to… a grey-brick cottage surrounded by marshland and dark trees, the swaying grasses lit only by moonlight and a single glowing yellow window.
“Where are we?”
“Where no one will find you,” Artur replied, whatever mask he’d worn to conceal his evil nowhere in sight. I’d always known he was corrupt, had always seen the dark glint in his eyes andrecognised it was the sibling to our dad’s evil, even if it wasn’t its twin. I knew Artur wanted to use me the same way everyone in that ballroom wanted to, but it went deeper, darker. He wanted tohurtme and I didn’t know why. Artur was five years older than me, but normal siblings didn’t look at each other like they wanted to break them apart.
“Come on,” he muttered, wrenching me up from the floor with the same cruel hand. I didn’t have to fake my flinch, too many memories painfully close to the surface. I’d always thought Artur looked the most like Dad, and for a moment their faces merged. For a moment, it was the man who hurt me over and over who grabbed my arm, who squeezed until bruises would form.
