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The air in the room grew hotter, making it almost impossible for anyone to breathe properly. It cackled and the tension built like voltage increased on a livewire. Someone was growling, their pants were loud, harsh, and carried promises of death.
“Vlad...”
At the sound of my name, I snapped.Iwas growling.Iwas panting. And I was going to fucking kill something if they didn’t tell me.
“Where thefuckis she?” I barked.
The faint ticking of the clock in the distance sounded louder as I waited for an answer... I waitedfor one of them to say she was okay and upstairs, sleeping, or doing something in the fucking shower. Anythingbut stating the obvious.
“Where is she, Giselle? Where the fuck is she?”
Giselle flinched and took a step backwards, with horror in her eyes.
“Vlad!” Nikolai thundered. It was a simple warning to cage myself and stay the fuck away from his wife.
But a string slowly untied itself at the back of my mind and my heart stretched painfully like it wanted to rip itself apart. I couldn’t process the emotion. But it was fucking agonizing, and it stung worse than a needle breaking through skin. I was losing it.
Lilianna stretched a hand out with teary eyes. “Vlad, please...”
I brushed past her and ran up the stairs. “Mariana!” Hot blood rushed through my ears and spread through my veins. “Mariana!”
I kicked bedroom doors open, bashed boxes against the bedframes, searched bathrooms, scattered closets, and punched my fist against the fucking wall. But she wasn’t there. She was nowhere in the fucking house. I hurried down the stairs and found my brothers in the living room. Angrily, I snatched a car key from Sergey and made to turn, but he grabbed my arm, pinning me on the spot.
“Jesus,Vlad. Calm down.” He was cold and authoritative, but there was a softness in his piercing gaze. He studied me closely, peering through my eyes to the depth of my soul. Then, his eyes widened and narrowed, like he’d uncovered a secret. One he never cared to share.
“How the fuck do you expect me to calm down? What use is it?” I clutched my chest. It burned. It fucking burned. I had never felt this way for anyone before, and my family knew. For the first time, in a long while, I felt myself breaking before their eyes. “I am going crazy, Sergey, and you’re asking me to calmdown? I need to go out there and look for her. I need to find Mariana. I am fucking scared out of my mind, okay? What if I’ve lost her and I never see her again?”
Nikolai folded his arms across his chest, cool, calm, and collected—as always—and stared at me, amusement shone through his gaze. “We’ll find your woman, brother. But first, Sergey is right. You have to calm the fuck down. You need a clear head; you know that better than anyone else.”
I stiffened and exhaled. They were right. We had learned early in the business that emotions messed with your head and blurred your vision. To take a clear shot or think straight, you had to be fucking sober. Crying was shitty and a sign of weakness, for us. But something about losing Mariana broke through my years of training and experience and activated all my shitty buttons.
“Fine.” I clenched my jaw. “But we’re moving now. I’m not going to sit here and wait for the fucking cavalry while she could be out there...”
Sergey put an iron hand down on my shoulder, shutting me up. “We’re moving now.”
He glared at me and headed to the entrance and Nikolai sauntered lazily beside him, like he had all the time in the world. I started to follow them, but a soft hand on my arm stopped me. I glanced over my shoulder and turned around.
Giselle sniffled, red-eyed with tear-stained cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” her voice broke and she sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Vlad. I know we should have watched her. We... we should have been more careful...”
I wrapped my arms around her and shut my eyes. If Nikolai saw what I’d done, he’d skin me and roast my ass for making his wife cry. I patted her back briefly and pulled away.“It wasn’t your fault.” I glanced over at Lilianna, who looked like she’d break down any moment too. “And it wasn’t yours either,” I turned back to Giselle. “We’ll get her back.”
I mustered a smile, but it faltered the minute I walked out the door. We had to get her back.
“One place where she could possibly be, Vlad. You knew her schedule, didn’t you?”
I groaned and leaned my head against the headrest.Fuck!We already made a stop at her gallery, but it was locked. Just like I told them it would. Sergey and Nikolai sat in front while I sat at the back.
Sergey in the driver’s seat and Nikolai in the passenger’s. They’d both been quiet until they started asking questions about places Mariana frequently visited. Nikolai threw me an expectant look through the rearview mirror but I turned my head to side, gazing out the window instead. I slid my phone out of the jacket and dialed her number for the umpteenth time. Straight to voicemail. Again.
“She’s in danger, Vlad. Calling her will not change anything.” Nikolai’s flat voice sliced through the silence in the car.
I scoffed and rolled my eyes, holding the jacket open again to put the cell phone back in. “How encouraging, brother. Thank you. That sparked some hope in me. Now, I really believe we’ll find her.”
“You’re not thinking, Vlad,” Sergey interrupted. “You’re feeling. Shut the feelings down and start thinking; places, people... use your fucking head and think.Jesus.Back there, you were ready to take the keys and go. Go where? You didn’t fucking know. Now, we’re on the fucking road with no fucking leads. Next thing, you’ll be whining about going crazy and shit.”
Nikolai, finally, laughed. I knew he’d been holding it in from the moment I went all shitty in front of them. Knowing him, he was mostly going to use it against me for the rest of our lives. I gave him a gold moment, a priceless one that would forever be used against me.
The least I could do was defend myself. “I wasn’t whining...” Then, it hit me. Her rude, overbearing friend who once tried to challenge me. “Christy,” I breathed aloud.
