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She’s slumped against the wall near the corner, one hand pressed against her abdomen. Her face is pale, and blood has soaked through her clothes.

I rush toward her and drop to my knees. “Sofía, what happened? Where’s Aurora?”

She struggles to draw breath. “Roman…”

I apply pressure on her wound to help control the bleeding. “Easy, easy, do you know where Aurora is?”

Her eyes flutter as she tries to focus on me. “They took her.”

Everything inside me goes still. “Who?”

“Aurora…” She coughs again, wincing. “We were going to meet Luca. He messaged her. They were supposed to meet… I was going with her.”

My eyes flick toward Aurora’s phone still clutched in my hand.

“Then what happened?”

“We were about to leave when they attacked.” Her voice grows weaker. “There were so many of them. They came through the gates…They took her. Luca and Katerina, they hit Aurora on the head. She fell… and they carried her away. You have to get her, before they harm her and the baby.”

My pulse pounds in my ears. “Baby? What baby?”

Sofía tries to answer, but her eyes roll back.

“Sofía!”

Her body goes limp.

“Sergei!”

He rushes toward me.

“Call the doctor. Now. Get Sofía and every wounded man to the family Clinic. I want them treated immediately.”

Sergei nods and starts barking orders into his phone. I look down at Aurora’s phone in my hand. A baby? Is she pregnant?

For one brief, desperate second after reading the messages between Luca and Aurora, I almost hoped she had actually gone with him. If she had left me of her own free will, at least she would be safe.

It would hurt like hell, but I could live with that. I could live with knowing she chose someone else if it meant she was alive and out of danger.

But this, being taken by Katerina, is something else entirely. When I get my hands on that bitch, she’s going to pay for every second my wife spends in their hands.

I pull out my phone and open the security app. My fingers move quickly across the screen until I find the tracker I had placed on Aurora’s wedding ring.

A single blinking dot appears on the map. I zoom in. The location pin sits on the outskirts of the city.

“I know where she is.”

Sergei looks at me immediately. “Where?”

I turn the screen toward him. “Her ring. I put a tracker on it.”

His eyes narrow as he studies the location. “We need to mobilize the men. We don’t have many left. Most of them are injured.”

I’m already making the call. Luciano picks up on the second ring.

“Roman.”

“I need your help,” I say without preamble. “My wife has been taken. My estate was hit while we were in that meeting. My men were caught off guard. They’re wounded, and I don’t have enough men left to go after her. I need men.”