Dani.
He answered instantly. “Danikamou,” he murmured, his voice softening despite the tension thrumming beneath it, his eyes locked on Demetrius’s face. “I was just thinking?—”
“Alexandros…”
Her voice trembled. Fractured. Not the woman who had defied a yacht full of strangers or laughed at the stars.
The color drained from his face.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
A scribbled note appeared in front of him, shoved into his hand by Demetrius. His eyes scanned it—once, twice—trying to comprehend the impossible words:
She’s been taken. Keep her talking. We’re trying to trace the call.
Demetrius was already on his second phone, barking into it in rapid Greek, moving toward the hallway as a second team mobilized behind the scenes.
Alexandros gripped his phone tighter. “Dani, listen to me. Where are you? Are you hurt?”
She didn’t respond.
There was a sudden cry of pain—hers—a raw, wrenching sound that stabbed straight through him.
“Dani!”
A male voice cut in. Cold. Cruel. Almost amused.
“If you want your precious girlfriend back in one piece, Kallistratos, I suggest you do exactly as I instructed in the note I’m sure you’ve found by now. Unless, of course, you’d prefer her returned piece by piece.”
A cold sweat broke out across Alexandros’s neck.
“You touch her again, and I swear?—”
The line went dead.
Silence.
No click. No breath. Just the cold finality of disconnection.
He stood frozen in place, the phone still pressed to his ear, his blood thundering in his skull. The silence rang louder than the threat.
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think?—
Only feel.
And what he felt was rage.
He stared at Demetrius as if the man might somehow undo what had just happened.
She’s gone,” Alexandros rasped. “He cut the line.”
Demetrius swore viciously. “The signal was too short. We couldn’t triangulate a location in time. And her phone—whoever has it—they’ve already shut it down.”
Alexandros’s jaw clenched. A storm began to build behind his eyes. Fury. Fear. The kind that made men dangerous.
He turned on his heel. “My office. Now.”
He passed Julius in the hall without slowing. “Clear my entire schedule. Call Theo. Tell him I need him. Urgently.”
