Page 114 of Fractured Ties

A damn mess welcomed him.

The hotel room had been entirely trashed. Blankets torn off the bed, and the curtains ripped down from the windows. Crystal from the glasses on the wet bar had been shattered across the floor. A chair at the table had been overturned, and what was left of the sandwich on the plate was flipped down the table.

She did not go without a fight. That much was fucking obvious. Kolya wanted to take comfort in that fact. In knowing that his girl, who had been so quiet and seemed far too fragile for her own good when he’d first taken her, had decided to shed that bit of meekness.

A huge part of him hoped she kept that up until he could get her back. Because he was going to get her back—there was no doubt about that. And then the asshole who took her was going to wish he had never heard the name Kolya Boykov. But until that point … Kolya needed Maya to keep fighting.

Taking a step into the hotel room, his gaze scanned the place and the mess again. It was everything he knew he was going to see, but not what he wanted to face. Those were two entirely different things.

Maybe a part of him was like Konstantin and had been hoping for something different. Maybe because it was Maya … he just hoped.

Jesus Christ.

He hated when he was right.

Hope was for the goddamn weak. Hope did nothing but fucking wreck a man when it was ripped right out of his bleeding hands.

“Fuck,” Konstantin cursed under his breath. He stepped in behind Kolya, and then walked farther in. Kolya said nothing as he watched his brother tip the chair back onto four legs. Konstantin scanned the room with a wary eye before his gaze drifted back to Kolya hesitantly. “It’s bad, no?”

“Da.”

Konstantin’s mouth tipped down into a frown at the quiet darkness that edged along with Kolya’s tone. He was barely keeping himself contained. He had more self-control than he realized.

“Beyond bad,” Kolya muttered.

Konstantin cleared his throat and shifted on his feet. “We have to call—”

Whimpering interrupted his brother from saying more. That sound was quick to make Kolya move to find where it was coming from. Kolya was down on the messy floor in a blink as a back ball of fur peeked out from beneath the bed.

Sumerki’s big yellow eyes reflected terror, even at the sight of Kolya stretched out on the floor and reaching for him. The pup crouched lower and scurried back a few inches just out of Kolya’s reach.

And then whimpered again.

Kolya didn’t miss how Sumerki refused to put weight down on one paw, and how his panting seemed heavier than normal. Had whoever come into the hotel room to get Maya hurt the pup? He was little. An animal.

Practically defenseless.

“Come here,” Kolya demanded low. “Let me look at you now.”

The dog refused.

Fine, then.

“Priyekhat’. Right now.”

Sumerki hesitated, but not for long. He’d test an English command if he thought he could get away with it, but never when Kolya spoke in Russian. Even if he had said exactly the same thing he’d told him in English, for fuck’s sake.

Far too slowly for Kolya’s liking, Sumerki worked his way out from beneath the bed. Even being small, the bed was low to the floor, and Sumerki was a tight fit under there. He must have been terrified to smoosh his body under the bed like that.

The second Kolya had the pup in his hands, he stood up and checked the dog out. Just touching the side of his furry body had the dog whimpering again before he let out an even bigger yelp.

That meant one thing …

Kolya’s jaw ticked from how fiercely he was clenching his jaw. “Someone kicked him.”

And he needed to see a vet. Make sure he didn’t have any broken ribs, or worse, internal damage. He would have to get a man to take Sumerki into the emergency vet because he couldn’t afford the time that was going to take for him to personally do it.

Already, he was far too many minutes behind Maya’s brother. Who knew where in the fuck the man planned on taking her? Never mind what he planned to do with her once he got her there. The thought was enough to make Kolya—