Page 81 of Bound in Possession

Sixty agonizing minutes since her hand slipped out of mine in the pitch-black chaos of that hallway. I haven’t taken a single full breath since.

My lungs feel crushed, my throat raw with a dark, suffocating fury that threatens to burn through my ribcage. I am pacing the floor of our temporary command hub like a caged predator, my heavy steps vibrating against the floorboards as Dmitri and a team of six tech operatives work frantically behind a row of glowing laptops. The clicking of their keyboards is the only sound cutting through the thick, terrifying silence of the room.

I hate myself right now. Fuck, I hate myself with every fiber of my being.

I was supposed to protect her. I swore to shield her from the filth of my world, yet the moment the lights went out, I let her go. It all happened so fast—one second her fingers were locked around mine, warm and soft, and the next, a rushing wall of bodies jammed between us. The very instant her touch left my hand, a cold, violent dread settled in my gut. I knew. I knew right then that she was gone.

"Find her!" I roar, slamming my fist down onto the heavy oak conference table with enough force to splinter the wood. The men flinch, but their fingers fly across the keys even faster. "Dmitri! Tell me you have a location!"

"We are running the signal trace now," Dmitri says, his voice clipped, though sweat glimmers on his forehead. "The distress beacon on her bracelet pulsed once right before she was cleared from the building. It’s faint, but the encrypted frequency is still trying to ping."

I turn back to the window, staring out into the dark city, my entire body shaking with a volatile mixture of lethal rage and paralyzing fear.

After I lost track of Camilla, I had my men tear through every inch of that opera house. We locked down the exits, held the crowd at gunpoint, and searched every dressing room, service corridor, and back alley. Nothing. By the time the security systems and backup generators were restored, the rat who took her had already slipped through the sewers or a side exit.

I dragged Matteo Rossini and his entire inner circle into a private room, shoving the barrel of my gun straight into Matteo's teeth, demanding answers. They swore on their lives they knew nothing about the blackout, their eyes wide with genuine terror as I threatened to execute them on the spot. I let them live only because killing them would waste precious minutes I didn't have.

I didn't need their confession anyway. I didn't need to see the obscured faces on the restored security footage. I knew who did this.

Viktor.

He knew I brought her tonight. He knew she was my vulnerability.

I run both hands through my hair as a tremor wracks my frame. I am shaking. The Pakhan of the syndicate, a man who has ordered executions without blinking, is standing here trembling because the thought of Viktor putting his filthy hands on Camilla is driving me into utter insanity.

She is my wife. My light. My peace. The only beautiful, untainted thing in my miserable, blood-soaked life.

"I will tear this entire fucking city down brick by brick," I whisper, my voice dropping into a raspy, terrifying promise. "I will skin him alive."

"Pakhan!" one of the tech operatives suddenly yells, leaning into his screen. "We have it! The bracelet's signal just bounced off a rural repeater tower north of the city! We have coordinates!"

I stop pacing instantly. The frantic fear inside me freezes, turning into pure, unadulterated ice.

"Get the weapons," I command, drawing my firearm and checking the chamber. "We’re going to get my wife."

The coordinates lead us straight to a secluded, heavily fortified estate nestled deep in the wooded countryside north of the city. I recognize the property immediately from intelligence files: it's one of the auction network's off-the-grid strongholds. A high-value staging site that Viktor uses to move women, illicit money, and underworld favors through the exact same sick, black-market system that brought Camilla into my life in the first place.

The thought of her back in a place like this—bound, threatened, treated like inventory—burns away every last trace of hesitation in my blood.

By the time I arrive, I am beyond restraint. I want to inflict blood and pain.

The assault is fast, violent, and absolute. Three of our armored vehicles smash through the wrought-iron perimeter gates at full speed, heavy steel tearing apart in a shower of sparks. Before the estate's outer security can even raise their rifles, my men pour out into the night, suppressors coughing hot lead into the shadows. Gunfire erupts across the manicured lawns, the dark night shattered by flashing muzzles and heavy boots crushing gravel.

Dmitri moves with lethal efficiency beside me, taking down two guards at the grand entrance before kicking open the reinforced front doors.

"Clear the lower level! Leave no one standing!" I roar over the thunder of submachine gun fire, stepping over a fallen body as blood spreads across the white marble foyer.

"Go, Maksim! Upstairs!" Dmitri yells back, laying down suppressing fire into the hallway as three more of Viktor's men charge out of a side parlor.

I don't look back. I storm up the sweeping grand staircase two steps at a time, my hand gripping my weapon so tight my knuckles turn white. Bullets chip away the plaster along the upper landing, spraying white dust into the air, but I press forward through the chaos, an unstoppable force driven by sheer, terrifying purpose.

I kick the first heavy door open—empty.

I charge down the long corridor, slamming another door off its hinges with my shoulder—just a room filled with filing cabinets and safe boxes.

"Camilla!" I roar into the smoke-filled hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped beast.

My voice echoes off the high ceilings as gunfire continues to rattle from the floor below. I kick open a third door, my eyes scanning every corner through the haze, desperate for the sight of emerald silk, desperate to see her safe.