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Attached was a photo that I didn’t want to click on, but I had to. I had to see her and make sure she was alright.
The photo opened, and it was Natalia in her white bathing suit and see-through dress on a bed, her arms behind her back. Her hair was hanging around her face, and she had a pissed-off look on her face that made me happy to see. She was fighting, and she would do her best to stay alive. I just had to find her.
What had me concerned was the black eye that was forming on her left side. Had he hit her? Was he abusing her already? Was he forcing her? Had he raped her?
I stood up suddenly, the backs of my legs sending the chair I had been sitting on toppling to the floor. Seth and Dad turned to look at me, their phones plastered to their ears. I couldn’t even speak to explain. I just motioned at the email open in front of me and paced away from the table. I couldn’t look at it; the photo made my stomach sick. I was scared for her and full of rage, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
He was going to take her to Russia. If that happened, I would never get her back. I needed to find them. Now.
Both Seth and my father came over to look at the picture and the email. Dad’s face was livid, and his voice was so icy that I felt his rage might even be more vocal than mine. He started swearing in Italian, which I had only heard him do once before, when he has alone in his office shortly after my mother had died. He went back to his phone conversation with the cop, this time explaining that the urgency was real, and now he had proof. Seth hung up the phone with the PI and came over to where I was, leaning against the kitchen island.
“It’s going to be alright,” he assured me, clapping his hand on my shoulder. “She’s a fighter. Remember how much grief she gave you when you married her? She’s not going to give up easily. She’s going to be the biggest pain in Ivar’s ass, and he’ll be begging to give her back before the night is up, you’ll see.”
I gave a hollow chuckle because that was what Seth wanted, but my heart certainly wasn’t into it. I hoped she fought. I hoped she didn’t just roll over and do what she was told, but I also hoped that in her stubbornness she had common sense. There was a chance that he might get annoyed with her, kill her, and just head back to Russia. It would mean nothing to him, and I would be left planning her funeral.
“Boys,” my father said, and we turned to him. He was off the phone but still had it in his hand, opened to something. “Lucas came through with a few places where the Russians are known to stay. They keep an eye on these houses specifically for these kinds of reasons… So, we have places to check.”
“What if they are on the ship we were at the other night?” I suggested. My father shook his head.
“They aren't. That was one of the first places I had my guys check. No one is there, just a few security guards. They even swept the ship, no bedrooms. But I’ll send a few guys to check each address on the list to make sure. My bet is that they will be at the one closest to their ship. He’s not exactly hiding, and he thinks he has all the power in the world. Let’s show him he doesn’t.”
I nodded, feeling a surge of hope. We were going to find her alive, and we were going to get her back.
My father must have seen the change on my face because he gave me a small smile and nodded.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter 24
Natalia
Ittookmealong time to cut through that rope with the spike from the bed, but I managed. A few times someone came in to check on me. It was always someone different, and they always had a gun on them, either on their hip or across their shoulders. It looked like wherever I was, they were preparing for war or something. Either that or they were a bunch of grown men playingGI Joe. I doubted the latter, though.
I had managed to scratch my arm up pretty well, and by the time I got through the rope enough to pull my arms forward again, my back and shoulder muscles were screaming with pain too. I checked out my arm, and there was only a little trail of blood along the inside of my left forearm. A small price to pay for being free.
I unraveled the rope and rubbed my skin to bring it back to life. Step one complete. Now I just had to find a sneaky way out of there.
I got up and started walking around the room. I needed to wake up my limbs, check my surroundings for useful things, and see if there was any way I could climb down safely from the balcony. For all I knew, the house was built into a mountainside, and the balcony was only a foot off the ground or something. I doubted it, but hey, anything was possible.
There was a black wooden dresser with gold handles to the right of the bed along with a folding door to what I assumed was a closet. Figuring the closet door would be quieter to open, I went there first, hoping to find something useful.
It was a typical closet, full of clothes, but it was helpful. I picked out a black T-shirt that had to belong to Ivar because it was huge. I took off the coverall, hung it on the back of the closet door, and pulled the T-shirt over my head. It came down to almost my knees, but I could deal with that. At least it made me feel like I had more clothes on. I took the rope that I had left on the bed and tied it around my waist to create a belt to avoid the excess material from getting caught on something.
Then I went to the other side of the bed and pulled out the trunk from beneath it. I tried to open it, but it was locked. No such luck there. Annoyed, I pushed it back under the bed and tried the dresser. The old wooden drawers did squeak, but not as bad as I thought they would. If I went slowly opening the drawers, I shouldn’t have an issue. Carefully, I opened the first drawer and peered inside. It had a bunch of random stuff in it—pens, notepads, cufflinks in small boxes, and, what I really lucked out on, a sewing kit complete with a full-size pair of scissors.
I took the scissors out of the drawer and set it on top of the dresser, happy that I had something worthwhile. The next two drawers were not as fruitful, just more clothes. I shut them as slowly as I had opened them, being as careful as I could. I started opening the last one when I felt a hand close over my shoulder. Apparently, I was so focused on not making noise that I had forgotten to watch my back. The black leather glove pulled me upward and, while doing so, I grabbed the scissors from the dresser top and swung them around hard.
The man that had pulled me up was only a little taller than me. He had tan skin and a dark hairline along his jaw. He had large dark eyes and a scar across the left side of his face. He was wearing a dark green long-sleeved shirt, black pants, and black boots. He was sporting a pistol in a side holster.
Blood spurted everywhere when the blades of the scissors went into the side of his neck. I hadn’t been aiming. It just so happened that he was the perfect height to take the blow in the neck. If it had been Ivar, which is whom I had thought it was, I would have just cut his arm, but I had lodged the scissors halfway into the guy’s jugular. Blood began to seep from the wound, even though his fingers had gone to cover it.
Before I could tell him not to, he pulled the scissors out of his neck, throwing them to the floor. Blood went everywhere, pouring out of his neck as if there was a break in a dam. In seconds, his shirt was coated in wet, sticky red fluid, and he collapsed on the floor. The whole scene only lasted a few moments, but I stood there watching it over and over like a bad time-loop movie. I looked at the guy’s face staring into nothingness with glazed-over eyes, and I knew I had killed him.
I think my brain tried to protect itself from the onslaught of self-loathing I was about to be hit with over the fact that the guy was just checking in on me and didn’t deserve to die because my brain went numb, and I became hyper focused on my plan. I needed to find a way out, and now… I had a gun.
Carefully, I pushed the guy onto his back to undo the belt buckle that held the holster for the gun. It was hard to get a grip on it, though, and I realized it was because my hands were covered in blood. Calmly, I wiped my hands on the guy’s pants and was finally able to open the buckle and pull the belt free from the belt loops. I put the belt and holster with the gun on, getting blood all over the T-shirt I was wearing, but at least it was black and wouldn’t show much. My hands and arms, though, looked like I had been diving into buckets of red finger paint.
Shaking my head to clear that thought out of the way, I went to the partially opened bedroom door and peered out into the hallway. There didn’t seem to be anyone around, so I went out of the room, closing the door behind me to buy myself more time, if needed, to find a way out. I couldn’t just waltz out the front door of the house, so I was going to have to explore places in the house I hadn’t been in yet. There was still too much unknown to leave me feeling very positive about my chances.
