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More drugs pressed against my nose and mouth. The world started spinning. My limbs grew heavy, like they'd been filled with lead.

My baby. I have to protect my baby.

This thought repeated over and over in my mind. Even as consciousness faded, my hands instinctively protected my stomach.

Just as I was about to lose consciousness, I heard gunshots in the distance.

"Shit! Their people are here!" a voice shouted urgently. "Move!"

I was roughly shoved into the back of a van, the door slamming shut. The engine roared to life, the vehicle lurching forward, tires screeching against pavement.

The gunfire grew more intense but also more distant.

I wanted to fight, wanted to escape, but the drugs made my body completely unresponsive. My eyelids grew impossibly heavy, vision completely blurred.

In my last moments of consciousness, I heard Mom's voice—

"Cassie! Cassie!" She was screaming my name desperately from the upstairs window.

Then darkness swallowed me completely.

Chapter 25

Cassie

When consciousness slowly crept back, the first thing I felt was bone-chilling cold.

Damp air mixed with mold and rust invaded my nostrils. I forced my eyes open, my vision gradually focusing in the dim light. This was an abandoned warehouse—bare concrete walls surrounded me, and overhead hung a single bulb swaying on its wire, casting weak, eerie light.

I tried to move but found my hands tied tightly behind the chair with rope. Fear trickled down my spine like ice water, but I forced myself to stay calm.

"Awake?"

A strange voice emerged from the shadows, dripping with dark pleasure. A man stepped out from the murky corner.

His suit was wrinkled to hell, tie crooked, hair a mess, dark circles under his eyes—looked like he hadn't slept properly in days. But what scared me most were his eyes—they held the kind of madness you see in cornered animals, desperate and wild.

"Cassie Monroe," he walked toward me slowly, lips twisting into a sick smile, "or should I call you the future Mrs. Sokolov?"

My throat was dry as sandpaper. I fought to keep my voice steady, lifting my chin to meet his gaze. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Me?" He let out a sharp, crazy laugh that bounced off the warehouse walls in harsh echoes. "You don't know who I am? Gennady Sokolov hasn't exactly made my life easy these days."

My heart skipped a beat. It was him—Marco Moretti, the man who'd been trying to kill me!

Cold sweat broke out on my back, but anger overtook fear. "If you want revenge on Gennady, I can't help you. I have nothing to do with the Sokolov Family anymore."

Marco laughed mockingly, leaning closer. His rancid breath hit my face, eyes blazing with sick excitement. "You think my guys are blind? Those prenatal vitamins you've been sneaking around buying, your mom rushing here from LA—you're pregnant, aren't you? With Gennady Sokolov's kid! It's like God's own gift to me!"

My heart stopped, then started pounding like a jackhammer against my ribs.

I forced out a steady breath. Had to stay calm.

"You're wrong," I kept my voice cold. "Gennady only has eyes for Ginnie now. Me? Just used goods he tossed aside. I'm worthless to him."

"Worthless?" Marco exploded into hysterical laughter like I'd hit some crazy switch, laughing until tears streamed down his face. "You think I'm a fucking idiot?! Cassie, sweetheart, you have no idea how much that man values you!"

He crouched in front of me, eyes level with mine, that insane pressure almost suffocating. "You know what your Gennady did to protect you? He ripped out my entire operation by the roots!In one night! My empire that I built for fifteen years—he crushed it like it was nothing!"