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In his eyes, I might be less of a man. In mine, he’s barely human.
She’s penniless, he said. Worthless.
Penniless she may be, but Sadie is anything but worthless. And she’s mine.
I’ll raze the city until I find her. I’ll kill anyone who lays hands on her.
Fuck Dimitri and the brotherhood that forged who I am. I will not live a lonely life of violence and retribution any longer. I’ve seen the good in Sadie. As I’ve fallen in love with her, I learned to long for the simple, honest life.
But I have to find her.
I grip my hair and howl in helpless rage at whoever took her. My Sadie.
I have to keep my wits.
I look around the room and see a box of tea, still in its packaging, lying on the floor. I frown and pick it up. How unusual. I know it’s the tea Nikita brings Sadie, and Sadie was just saying the other day how she was out and needed Nikita to fetch her more. I pick it up, mulling over the possibilities.
I look about the room once more.
There really are no signs of a struggle. No broken furniture, items that could be used as weapons lying about. No signs of blood or broken glass.
Instead, the blankets are askew. And Sadie’s shoes are gone.
Where could she have gone to?
The library.
But why is the tea on the floor?
Nikita.
Did Nikita go downstairs to get something and overhear our conversation?
I groan as the elevator door closes. If Nikita overheard anything Dimitri or I said… if she repeated any of it to Sadie… I get off the elevator, only to find the exit door swinging crazily open and the alarm we have on this door blaring like mad. I slam the door shut.
No one’s come. Is that because they already have her?
“Sadie!” I shout. I need to find her. I run into the street, shouting her name. Screaming for her. Pleading.
But no one knows who she is, and my search ends in vain.Chapter Twenty-FourEight months laterKazimirI stand in the square, dressed in simple civilian clothing. I’ve spent months searching for Sadie. I can’t go back to my brothers. At first my life was forfeit, but since then circumstances have changed. Still, I have no wish to go back.
I’ve managed to discover that the day Sadie left, Nikita went missing as well.
That gives me hope.
Dimitri’s fury at finding she was gone confirmed my suspicion that she escaped instead of being taken by one of his men. I’ve interrogated everyone I know until I found Nikita’s mother. She swears she doesn’t know her whereabouts, but that she always comes to visit on her birthday.
And today is Nikita’s birthday.
I’ve plied her mother with money to keep quiet and wait for Nikita to arrive, while I lay in wait in the small barn that stands near the simple family abode. I wait until the sun sets low on the horizon, my stomach churning with hunger but hope rising in my chest. If I can find Nikita…
It’s been eight months since I left the Bratva. Eight months since I betrayed Dimitri and left our ring of brotherhood in pursuit of the woman I love. Eight months since I lost Sadie.
Has she had the baby? Do I have a son or daughter in this world?
I couldn’t sleep last night and haven’t eaten. I’m putting everything I have into the hope of finding Sadie through Nikita.
When the sun sinks even lower, I wonder if today will be the day Nikita doesn’t show. Maybe she knows if any member of the Bratva knows where she is, they’ll kill her. I have almost given up on finding her, when I hear the pad of footsteps. I hide in the shadows and observe, when a young woman walks briskly past me, her head covered. I creep closer to the doorway, careful not to make a sound, until a sliver of moonlight shows her face.
Nikita.
She’s come.
I look about me wildly, as if somehow Sadie followed her here, but of course she’s alone, dressed all in black, as unassuming as possible. After all, she’s on the run.
I wait for her visit with her mother to end, and for her to come back outside, when I see the light go off inside the house. I get to my feet. Has she left and I didn’t realize it? Her mother said she never stayed the night, so I’ve been prepared to ambush her when she left. But no. The house is asleep, and Nikita never emerged.
I sneak up to the house, cursing myself mentally for not simply taking her by surprise when I first saw her, when something cracks me on the back of the head and I fall to the ground, crying out in pain.
I fall onto my back, and above me in the moonlight stands Nikita’s shadow. In her hand she wields a large shovel above her head, prepared to bring it down in self-defense.
